RE: Why can’t I get upvotes on Hive?

The intent of the downvoting mechanism was to prevent plagiarism and rewarding slander/libel etc.

The actual function seems to be censorship of unpopular opinions or simply destroying people who said the wrong things about one whale or another.

While it's not technically censorship because the opinions are still on the blockchain, it is functionally censorship as it keeps certain ideas and people from being seen on many if not all front ends.