Not every platform on the fediverse has a downvote system, but those that do (Lemmy, piefed) are heading down a bad path, imo. Downvoting is one of the worst features of reddit, leading to dogpiling, group think, and silencing of minority viewpoints. I do see the value of it, on the surface, and if you want to enable it for yourself to allow certain posts to be downvoted for your own information, I think you should be allowed to do so, but having it set as default for all posts just leads to a toxic and conformist environment, which is what I thought the fediverse was trying to get away from.
Downvotes are to put a comment towards the bottom of the page for being irrelevant to the post, not to tell someone you disagree with them.
According to who?
Also, what’s the difference? If I down vote you to bury your comment for being irrelevant, poorly worded, bad faith, etc. or down vote you because I don’t like your comment, the result is the same.