RE: Although subjectively downvoting posts to zero is anathema to me, the Layer 1 ability to do so must remain (for now at least)

Thanks for your comments. As a professional systems engineer for over 20 years and having been witness to censorship of social media before Facebook even existed, I have been focused onto this topic since the beginning. I received death threats for sharing scientific papers that exposed the flaws in the mainstream vaccine narrative years before COVID19 and have fully expected what is happening on Hive today - I just didn't know exactly how it would manifest or through which people.

I have been working with others on a layer 2 solution to this problem for a while, but unfortunately it is on pause due to a personal issue with a key team member. Anyone creating a layer 2 solution needs to, most likely, air drop the tokens to the community in order to ensure both decentralisation and avoidance of security regulations in the US. It is wise to avoid air dropping tokens to those who are known to censor arbitrarily and since it is quite possible that earning from activity on Hive might predominately occur through layer 2 in future, it is extremely short sighted of the censors to take action now that will result in them being omitted from key air drops in future. No-one ever said censors were smart thinkers and actually, throughout history, they are ALWAYS shown to be on the wrong side of ethics and morality - leading to their ultimate demise long term.

I am more than happy to work on any layer 2 solutions that show promise. I participated in the proofofbrain tribe for a while but their site is down, was never developed and apparently the creator is gone (I don't know who that was). I looked into launching a layer 2 project via Hive Engine, but the cost is a bit high for me at present and ultimately it is a somewhat centralised system too. I look forward to the SPK network's solutions soon and also your own project - let me know if you want any help, I'm happy to provide feedback or professional services if needed.