I've been reading around on Steemit about a few different topics that have caused some concern for me. This is mainly relating towards Censorship and Freedom of Speech, with links to the @camillesteemer bullshit that's been going on. I read this blog post from @steemitblog, the official Steemit Blog, and it's made me think twice to be honest.
"The problem with closed and centralized systems is not that they are populated by evil people--it’s that closed and centralized systems are systematically flawed because people are flawed"
If people are flawed, then how does a decentralised system solve that problem? The problems I'm seeing on this platform aren't technical issues, but the people. Waves and waves of new people are signing up with no real guidance. I've come across plenty of accounts that are plagiarising other peoples work, but that's fine apparently. Then there are other accounts who have made mistakes, granted, but are claiming ignorance and the fact that they just didn't know they couldn't do that. There are people who have learnt from these mistakes, and are trying to do better, and yet just get automatically flagged left right and centre, even for their own original content. Lunacy.
Butt-hurt kids who've been called out on their bullshit then go and create dummy account after dummy account with the sole intention of trying to lash out at those around them. Our dearly beloved @camillesteemer is just one of many who have been doing that, and to be perfectly honest they are nowhere near the worst offenders. Removing the delegated SP is fine, but it's a never ending game of cat and mouse at this stage. They'll just create more accounts with more delegated SP, and continue. Obviously, this isn't about any kind of financial hit, because even fully powered their accounts are worth next to nothing, if not nothing most of the time.
The blog post talks about wanting every project to feel welcome on this platform, but evidentally that includes the scammers, spammers and digital scum who only want to drag the system down into the gutter with themselves. I am all for freedom of speech and libertarian values, however I've noticed that the few times I've seen Steemit being mentioned in the mainstream media or just elsewhere on the net, it's never in a good light. The recent rumours about Facebook buying Coinbase seem to have originated from here on Steemit, with nothing to back them up. There doesn't seem to be any standards about the quality of the content put out, just keep churning it out and it's all good. Steemit seems to be seen as the place where those who are scared of criticism go to hideout.
Plagiarism, scams, spam and abuse have no place anywhere. Twitter and Facebook are just as full of this crappy content, so the issue to me isn't one of freedom of speech or censorship, it's about protecting the system. For Steemit to incorporate anti-plagiarism features would be a relatively simple affair. There may be record numbers of new users signing up, but that's just making it harder to find quality content.
On top of this, I feel that Steemit don't really know what they're doing. Let me explain; I've been going through the Blockchain Updates that they put out, and I'm left feeling bewildered by some of their choices. It's like they aren't thinking things through. Take the recent "lockout period" introduced in an attempt to prevent downvote abuse... it only benefited the scammers and spammers. They were able to just wait until the final 12 hours, flag content and no-one could do anything to counter that. They've issued a "fix", but the problems with the original implementation surely should have been obvious to someone working at Steemit.
Then there's the newly introduced removal of the 20 second comment limit for a 3 second limit, and well, it doesn't take a genius to see how that's going to go down. Again, just benefiting the scammers and spammers. There is so very much that could be done, like removing the ability for new accounts to flag until a certain reputation has been reached. Maybe introduce a KYC validation process like most other reputable Blockchain products use. There's just so much that could be done, and isn't being done.
The pessimistic nihilist in me thinks that they want to encourage these crappy users onto the platform, because ultimately it creates more money. This obviously isn't true, the reality is far more likely that they are just so detached from the communities here that these things don't occur to them. Who knows, all I can say is things aren't getting better, they're getting worse.
It begs the question; do I want to spend any more of my time or money on a doomed experiment? I could just continue writing things for my own site and even whack some ads and affiliate links on to monitise things, oh and I have even less censorship because it's my own site! Publicity through Twitter and Facebook, and who knows, maybe I'll earn slightly more than the $0.90 I received on average per post. If my content can't be viewed because it's drowning in a sea of filth, why bother?
I also just want to bring up this post that I've read regarding the @camillesteemer situation. In all honesty, I took some issues with this post. There is no Steemit police, but there are individuals and groups who are trying to do something about this growing problem. If @calumam read one of my previous rambly posts on this topic, they'd know that my conclusion was not to create some Steemit Policeforce, but instead we all take personal responsibility for our own little corner of Steemit. You see someone posting spam or plagiarised content, reach out to them, speak to them, and hopefully they'll change their behaviour. I still believe that can work, however there just aren't enough users here to make it work.
I feel the post misunderstands the situation, how it came to be and @camillesteemer's motivations. They aren't trying to provide a service, they were caught posting other peoples content, they were warned but doubled down with their stubbornness, I contacted them to see if I could be of any help, and then all hell broke loose in the form of a giant shitplosion.
The whole @camillesteemer situation arose after I reached out to them, explained why they were being flagged by @abusereports. It made the situation worse. If I hadn't reached out to them, maybe this wouldn't have happened. @calluna reached out to them recently, and their response was to name one of their new dummy accounts after her. It's situations like this that Steemit themselves need to step in and remedy the situation.
I also feel that the post has completely misunderstood the situation. @camillesteemer isn't trying to curate, or flag troublesome content. They are lashing out at everyone. At one point, their list was thousands of users long, and included literally every single person who followed me. Seriously. You're all be flagged through association, purely because I had the gaul to try and speak to them one human to another. I think my worry is that this post will validate @camillesteemer and their actions, and that's the last thing we need. I've purposefully tried to draw their attention to me, and it worked. They can flag me all they want, it's never gonna make any difference. Even when they were flagging with dozens of accounts per day, simply upvoting my own content was enough to combat them. Now with the great bots from @anthonyadavisii coupled with @dustsweeper, their flags on comments and posts give me a few extra cents that I otherwise wouldn't have had, and that's great. The problem is, they're putting new users off. Why sign up to this strange weird platform called Steemit when you're just automatically flagged?
This post has gone on far too long, and I sincerely doubt anyone is still reading at this point. I just don't know whether I can in good conscience continue to put my time and effort into a platform that doesn't care. I for one cannot just sit around and allow all this to go on around me, so I either need to do something, or get the fuck out. I love the idea of a decentralised system built upon blockchain technology, I'm a libertarian and supporter of freedom of speech, however I can't stand by and watch this ship sink. If @camillesteemer and the others like them are being encouraged to continue, then I might as well have some fun sending them memes. I think it makes me feel a bit stupid for naively putting as much effort into some of my posts that I do. More than anything else, I'd like my content to be read. That's all.
I'm sure I've nearly made some points in this post, maybe. There are other things that concern me, such as the sheer amount of Steem held by Steemit, almost 1/3 of all Steem the last time I checked. If not handled properly, that could completely devalue the currency but maybe that's for another time. If you've gotten this far thank you for reading and let me know what you think down below. I'm really curious to hear what everyone has to say on this matter, but also hearing someone else's perspective might help me see things differently. I've been noticing so many good users who have either completely abandoned their profiles or who only come on sporadically and that to me is the greatest problem. It's quality not quantity right? Blah blah blah, the usual outro and Peace!
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