I'm having a similar experience. When I last posted about it, instead of discussing the problems with the reputation system and how it can be (and is currently being) abused, everyone just wanted to complain about my prior comments.
The Kbin community feels more toxic than Reddit, oddly enough.
User experience is not the primary motivator for the development of the Fediverse. The features you dislike are the core features of the Fediverse and are the main reasons it exists.
Given the open-source nature of the Linux kernel, it seems that a company could customize it to their needs in order to mitigate the majority of these concerns. Most of this sounds like a corporate shill making excuses rather than giving specific examples of deficiencies in the Linux kernel.
Except downvoting does reduce content's visibility, and people are downvoting content that they don't really have anything to do with because it shows up in their All feed. Certain niche magazines and magazines for vulnerable communities are at risk of vote bullying in the current system.
You should check other people's posts on their profile and see if the same people have been mass downvoting for seemingly no reason. Then you can start blocking these people.
I'm pretty sure blocking is only one-way, so I think the blocked people would still be able to see your content and downvote it.