I don't know it was originally intended to be and I'm not even sure what you're suggesting that it is now. I can tell you that for me it is a platform to write fiction and other blog pieces. I like it here and I think the community can still pull together and still make this platform a great place to be even if there are some bad actors and negative influencers in the mix.
I'm now thinking a financial scam was built into the original code, and that the current waves of flagging censorship are designed to control the content to some extent and scare off "conspiracy theorists" as far as possible.
Because I'm involved in those circles I've seen several of my contacts come under attack and that has really been ramped up in the past few months.
There are a lot of awesome people here and I'm a big fan of most of the community. But over the past two years you might say standards have dropped. In 2016 most of us would not have put up with bot vote flag attacks on selected accounts - we would have freaked out!
I have multiple accounts and enough back up to usually unflag myself (just like you do) - but only from smaller flaggots. Any new accounts, even well known researchers - with no wallet power - are screwed, and I have seen them wiped off the platform in less than two months.