I came across a Blurt user whose account was marked with a warning, and whose content could not be curated. As someone who is very sensitive to any form of censorship, having fled from it on Hive, this surprised and disturbed me.
Everywhere this guy goes, the "caution" icon follows him, along with a popup warning others of his alleged crimes. Go here to see it on his profile page, and also on his posts, comments, and replies.
This is what it looks like in my replies:
It appears he has been accused (by who, I don't know) of plagiarism (posting someone else's content without proper citation). I've heard of many accounts being slapped with this accusation in the past, but never seen anyone marked (charged, sentenced, and punished) for it.
Look closely and you'll see that his helpful comment to me can't be upvoted. It has a pending payout of 0.00 BLURT, and there's no way to change that (the heart icon has been removed)
That's a little disturbing. Someone is going to great lengths to punish this guy, going so far as to remove his ability to grow his account, or earn tokens to pay for blockchain fees. He has effectively been de facto banned from Blurt.
I don't know @Damurq, nor do I have all the background info here. I'm just saying, as someone who is extremely resistant to any form of censorship, I don't like some of the things I'm seeing here. I must have missed an announcement somewhere, because this came as a surprise to me. Not a very good surprise. : /
"Who watches the watchers?" comes to mind.
And why is the only way to appeal this blockchain action to download and run 3rd party software? I don't think any other program should be necessary to fully participate in the Blurt blockchain. If you can be branded, with your ability to earn rewards taken away, and your only chance to appeal is in a Discord server, you are not safe.
"But it's okay, he's a bad guy!!" some will respond.
How do we know that for sure? What if those with the power to ban others are corrupt? I'm not saying they are, but I'm saying it happens. It happens a lot. I can't invest a million tokens here, if those running the code can just snap their fingers and neuter other users, with very little or no oversight. I don't feel secure.
"First they came for the plagiarists, but I did not speak up because I was not a plagiarist. Next they came for the spammers, but I did not speak but because I was not spammer. Then they came for the shitposters, but I did not speak up because I was not a shitposter. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out."
I'm not defending plagiarism, but if I had to choose between plagiarism and censorship, I'd choose plagiarism. Censorship is the furthest thing from what we want to be accomplishing here. Judging and marking someone as a criminal or rule-breaker is one issue. Taking away someone's right to earn rewards is another. Both need to be undertaken only with the utmost of care and consideration. I really hope that is being done here.
DRutter
I'm pretty sure this is a front-end choice.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
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