I totally agree that self-voting is a selfish act, but capitalism and making money for ones-self is also a selfish act, if you are self voting to give yourself more visibility so your words can reach others and have a positive impact, I don't see a problem with that. Voting only a small group of friends is just as bad as self-voting I guess.

I am very familiar with dictatorships swaying votes with threats and even sweeteners like buckets fo KFC for voting for their party, Blurt actually needs a way to vote anonymously. Maybe using a privacy chain and attesting ones blurt account on it and broadcasting a secret vote tied to one's blurt power weight, not sure how that would look, but yeah it needs to be done in a way that anyone can vote without feeling afraid they will lose witness votes or regular support from whales.