I used multiple social media platforms and I can say in medium confidence that downvotes are almost useless to see for users.
They are made to influence the algorithm and that’s it, if you are really bothered by them it’s because you saw something you were never intended to see.
Reddit try to communicate this by showing you only one number for the total score and they are trying to not show you if your post score became in negative.
Matter of fact, I personally find downvotes pretty refreshing for me because I expect to hear something I don’t know or a passionate criticism on my opinions or posts.
I think what could discourage me from posting is the lack of comments, not the downvotes.
Note: If you are really bothered about downvotes, you can disable showing down votes on the web client and in the mobile clients by changing that option in the settings.
Downvote if you agree.
It’s human nature for people to feel upset by their message being undermined…but they should be able to get over it.
The bigger problem I have is that the downvoters don’t know how to USE downvotes. Instead of downvoting inaccurate content or engaging in any reasoning, people just downvote what they personally don’t like and disagree with. Which is bullshit.