Recently a few of my Steem Buddies have been receiving some flags and some grief for writing about unpopular topics. This has been frustrating to watch since an obvious market for Steem is to attract those who can not express their views on other platforms.
However, it seems a few other special snowflakes cannot bear to let others discuss topics that they disagree with. Topics commonly discussed even on Facebook and Twitter like the validity of Global Warming or the Effectiveness of Vaccinations. Some Steem users by their best logic, try to flag and bully those who are discussing these topics into being silent. **Notice I did not use the word censorship. **
Since I talk about flagging a lot I cringe through these moments because while I believe strongly in our flagging system, I am not a fan of attempting to silence people from talking about these or ANY topics. Mostly because I think mature adults can discover how valid their position on topics are by discussing them with people who disagree. I nearly always find debate and discussion interesting and useful.
Lately, I have been giving this a lot of thought and working through my own feelings of frustration that large accounts are driving topics, people and their stake away from this platform.
My conclusion is simply that the price of Freedom is that you have to accept other people have that freedom aslo. On Steem we have two types of Freedom. Freedom of Speech, which can be hidden, but not deleted and Freedom of Stake.
Freedom of Stake means simply that if you own stake you can use it to influence the site how you want to. If you want to be an asshole or an idiot... Really there is not much we can do about it. Even if those decisions are unpopular.
In the case of flagging other large stakeholders could come to the conclusion that their investment is being hurt and take countermeasures, but I find it unlikely any of them will stand up to each other on these topics. So, those of you with unpopular opinions.. the price of that Freedom is that your holding those viewpoint pisses some other people off and they retaliate with their flags, in some cases with a lot of SteemPower behind it. You have to suck it up or coordinate efforts where too many of you are talking about it at once.
Those of you with a lot of SteemPower and who are too delicate to discuss unpopular views will have to accept that others think differently and that you are hurting the value of your (and mine) investment. Because you have more stake than I do... That is your right.
DPOS - Dumb People Own Steem, but also Delegated Proof of Stake
While some are quite mad about their side of this conflict it occurs to me that Freedom should not be expected to be free or without conflict.
Suck it up.. You can say and do what you like, but for every action, there is a reaction.
The price you pay for Freedom is that others are also Free.
You are now free to move about the blockchain
Freedom is in our nature and infringing on it brings unpleasantcy really people should have opinion whether popular or unpopular afterall we call it decentralisation. Well a price to pay will always be on the horizon
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You have some examples?
To be open-minded toward or tolerant of others is a hard thing to do for must of humans I guess.
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I am protecting the identity of the innocent or the guilty. lol, I'm not sure who is who. :) Pretty mild stuff though.
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Yea, that sounds reasonable.
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"You have some examples?"
are we on the same platform? YES! - one or frigging two but we can't name them or we get flagged...
And WTF?
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I only can think of one person. But I haven't seen it that often.
Yea, we are? xD
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Lets say that "one person" is not actually a person and the number of accounts involved number well over 1000 - possibly more than half of the remaining "active" accounts on Steemit in fact, so a shitload...
And even just the main ones number more than five - hell I'm being regularly flagged on my accounts by at least seven bots. Count yourself lucky that your five bots are fans - mine are not!
If I name any of the accounts they have flagged off the platform, I will likely get the same treatment, but one of them is one of my own accounts...
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I understand. But you get flagged because one person disagrees with you? Now everything you do gets flagged without context?
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The agenda of one account disagrees with me - how many people are employed in that team - who knows?
I get flagged if I talk to the wrong person, discuss the wrong subject, or forget to buy bot votes for my own post. That's the thing with bots - they are always watching...
That's why I'm using this account - for now it's not as under attack - bigger wallet counts for a bit of breathing room
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PS - just try this on every single comment you do for a few days and see how long that 54 rep lasts :)
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@whatsup,
To earn the freedom we all moved here! Flags could force us to leave the platform! Coz I have seen such sad stories before! But we live on a blockchain! So it's hard to stop or ban our freedom in that way!
Cheers~
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When 5-7 down votes can out weight 100-200 votes something is wrong. No worries if you don't fix that it just means your platform won't grow and you choose to chat with self.
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Stop with your ideas and principles....!
....you'll get flagged expressing those kind of thoughts ...lol
(never mind highlighting the very real world repercussions of the platform will be seen as an extremely unattractive one - except to users who are power hungry sociopaths)
The 96% of people are a bigger market than the 4% sociopaths.
I fully support the bigger the stake, the bigger the influence , but punitive actions that go against the will of the majorities sentiments ( 4 downvotes V's 100 upvotes), is patently absurd.
How to maintain the rightful place of big stake holder , but not at cost to the little people, is the real question...
I did think.....I wonder if by making each users posts (on their own account), immune from flags and down votes.
i.e flagging and down votes on comments only..?
Just a thought...
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And this is why I've always felt they should have no power. (ie. be purely cosmetic) I think the simple reality is flags don't actually work as intended. They do at the mechanical level, but not in a way that does what they were designed to do.
Someone posts some garbage on trending, people try to rally together to flag it and it's flies vs a bull. Easily overcome, and cheaply at that, with bidbots.
The ONLY cases where I see flags working as the user is intending is bullying, silencing, and whale wars, all things bad for the platform. Weighing that against actually thwarting the occasional spammer or plagiarist, and I think we'd be better off just not having them.
There's probably a more effective way to actually do what the design was for(have the crowd curate) What we have just doesn't work. It's not a rampant problem now, but if the platform grows, so will the amount of people that will abuse this.
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Even, 4% sociopaths deserve a voice :)
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Yeah, I tend to agree the DPOS system is not looking that attractive to me right now. Except for the time I've committed. I'm not a fan.
The DPOS system with so few with so MUCH is really a difficult problem to solve and it leaves most of us an ugly choice. Stay and watch while shaking our heads or leave.
Boo! :)
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You forgot about the 'running around in little circles and looking really really mad..'
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While it isn't MY platform, I hear your point. The point is made in the post. Those with the most stake have the most to win or lose ... and it is a choice only they can make.
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I use flags to adjust rewards and not for censorship. Steem may attract some 'alternative' opinions. I stay out of most of those arguments as some minds don't want to change. Of course some big players will use their muscle to put down those they disagree with, but freedom is an important part of Steem.
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A lot of people have "alternative" opinions. There are tons of different religions, for example. People that believe in different conspiracy theories. There are people forming beliefs on members of the US government being possible Russian spies. There are people that are die hard fans of different sports teams. For quite a number of things there are people that have opinions that are "alternative" to others. It doesn't necessarily mean they're right or you're right, you could be both right or wrong. In 1000 years humans could look back at things we just assumed as fact and laugh.
We can try to avoid some of the most "hot button" issues, but at any point someone could step on a "land mine" in regards to what someone else believes to be true.
I personally don't think such topics should be avoided. We all should try to learn how to get along, without avoiding topics that we might disagree on, because they are too numerous to avoid.
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This weeks hot topic for bot flagging is anything discussing "grow balls wanking" OMFG...
Hard to believe there was a time when a post about "glow bell warning" could pull down $76 and now we can't even mention it!
Good job I didn't do this post recently:
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@sift666/global-warming-the-new-apocalypse
)
!
Hell my posts were a lot better two years ago!
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I could never support wanking glow balls! That seems like some form of bestiality with a celestial object!
We should all be aware of the dangers of glow ball wanking, lest the celestial gods smite us for our heathenish sodomy of their great glow ball creations!
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Sodomy could be next weeks verboten topic!
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It's good to have a variety of opinions, but I'm not going to keep arguing with anti-science people. I'm not religious, so those arguments don't interest me too much either. I concentrate on the stuff that interests me and in dealing with those who actively harm the Steem platform by abusing it. I try to avoid engaging with the Steem bullies. I'll let others take them on.
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...unfortunately a lot of people do not have such a high standards - and it's destroying the attractive qualities steemit offers.
If 'freedom' is taking punitive action against those that you disagree with, in discussion (with real world consequences) then Orwell was right....And this isn't freedom to express.
('you're not censored, you're on the blockchain', is not an argument, it's a justification of punitive action)
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But do we want restrictions on what we can do here? We have bullies, but we also have vigilantes who deal with them. I think it's important to try and grow the 'middle class' and not just feed the whales (by buying their votes) to level out the voting power a bit.
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I did a very quick look a couple of weeks ago....notorious 'bullies who flag at whim (with the bots)....
100% upvote = around $12
the total of the 'vigilantes votes', that I know of.. 100% upvote = $ 3.00 ish.
I'm not the hottest at math, but.....
(and that was just a quick look , I'm pretty sure the imbalance is greater, not lesser...)
This imbalance will not change unless there is big growth, and there won't be big growth with this kind of behavior...
I know of over dozen people who have left because of precisely this behavior...
It kills any incentive when you know that you are the whim of peoples sensitivities, on any given day (or week). Not through misbehavior, just different views..
I was downvoted over $15/20 in one week for using NPC humor memes(which spilled over to any posts I made)...mepatriot has had his all earnings obliterated...this is just two examples out of dozens, that I know of...
To continue with a failing system, is to fail the ecosystem (imo)
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I also know of people who have been driven away by bullies. Unfortunately some of them were able to acquire a lot of Steem early on. That cannot be taken away from them, but then that should not be possible anyway if we want real freedom.
I keep comparing Steem to the wild west where outlaws and cattle barons had a lot of power early on. These are early days for Steem and the community is tiny really. It will take some time to settle down. I've been attacked by various people, but others have supported me. We need a core of people who work on building it up instead of just going for the quick buck. That will pay off in the long run. I just hope enough care about making it happen.
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Enough people do care, I think.
But in the system we have, _numbers of people _ mean nothing.
Stake size is god.
I'm not against stake holders taking their share of profit, but equating it (mathematically) to be able decide other peoples futures on here, just because they don't like their username, is , essentially, corrupted.
I'm a free market advocate, but in free markets people are is built up though positive action. (up voting) ...Through competition.
Free markets do not have punitive actions (down voting) built into in the system.
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It was worse in the early days as whale votes and flags had even more power. There's no perfect system, but I think we can work with what we have. Some whales are working with the anti-abuse efforts, so damage can be undone. It's vital to keep good people on board if we want Steem to grow.
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Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit! lol.
I've been here 18 months. I see the flagging of 'smaller people' now, more than ever before..
(not like the' haejin wars', between 'biggies', which is very different)
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that is true, I experienced it once but I want to get back my work so I fight for it. It's unfair to my side, I worked hard on it and I won't earn it, not to give up on it. I fight for it and thankfully they remove the flag.lol
Posted using Partiko Android
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Freedom is not without risk. It simply maximizes the ability to choose. :)
Minimizing risk usually comes at the loss of freedom. :)
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Exactly. Then stage two is risk again as those in charge of minimizing risk become a risk as they enjoy their new found power.
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I wonder if making posts immune to flags and downvotes, would work?
.... downvoting only in the comment sections..?
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Well to some degree they are on Busy. Not sure about some of the other sites. You can lose money, but Busy shows them even if they are flagged.
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'It's all about the money', have you not been listening? lol.
Imagine....you're in the third world, speaking your truth, with 100 people liking what you had to say, every day .......and the $3 a day making a real difference to your life... to then have it 'taken away', just at the whim of another....
Imagine living under that mantle everyday, as you log on, and the ways it would influence you saying what you wanted to say...
Wow!
...it's almost like steemit is social engineering psi-op experiment, isn't it? To evaluate the incentive/disincentive structure on people, who have no power to decide an outcome for themselves - and how they change their behavior accordingly...
It's a good job I'm not conspiratorially minded..
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...it's almost like steemit is social engineering psi-op experiment, isn't it?
you think?
I'd make downvotes equal to the average value of the upvotes, and ban bots if that is possible? I'd limit the number of posts that can be done to a max of five per day, and limit votes and comments to 50 of either
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I'd support that. I was initially thinking maybe it only removes no more than the value of one single vote. That way a post with 100 votes would need 100 flags to completely negate it.
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...it's a good job I don't think in those terms..phew!
and it's a damn good job that Oswald had one of those magic bullet thingy's...
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These people may themselves be opening themselves up for retaliatory flags from people they might not even expect...
Lets say that I have an opinion that X team is the best and Y team sucks. I start flagging people who like Y team, because I think they suck. Eventually people are going to start getting ticked off by this and people that might not even like sports at all might start flagging me just because they think I'm an idiot or disagree with me on principal. People that like Y team might also invest in more Steem, or bring in more friends, or band together more, etc, etc, etc.
But, if I have a significantly large enough stake and the people that I decide to flag don't, I can seriously degrade their experience on the platform. I could create bots that flag every post and comment they make and reply to them with shit that they don't want to look at. I could even flag all of their friends if my stake was large enough. Of course, I'd be wasting my votes on petty bullshit rather than adding value to the blockchain, but I could do it. Even if people nullified my flags and tried to flag every piece of spam I made, I would seriously degrade everyone's experience involved, and even devalue the blockchain to a degree.
If people didn't step forward to nullify my flags though...it could be debated whether I was "censoring" those people in some way. While they are still able to post onto the blockchain, their posts and comments will get significantly less views and interaction. I would be using my power on the platform to relegate my enemies speech to the back page.
Lets say the government decided that they would start working with Google and Microsoft and Facebook to lower the rankings on specific speech that they didn't like, so it was harder to access and view. Would that be censorship? I'm not sure if it would count under the strictest of definitions, but I'm fairly certain it would be a controversy that would make the front pages.
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LOL - you make that all sound so imaginary :)
What front pages? - they own those too..
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Such a thing could never happen on a platform such as this, where people can use their stake to uphold freedom of speech and defend the minnows from...oops, another one just got eaten.
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The price of freedom is to accept abuse and not complain?
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No, I didn't mention not complaining. I just don't know who to complain to. We are all stakeholders, and yet those with the most stake don't pay attention or don't care.
Complain away, but I don't expect it to change a thing.
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check your assumptions...always.
does the hypothesis agree with the observations.
will ANOTHER hypothesis do so also?
Occam's razor gives a much better shave than Gillette does.
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Flagging is a poor tool. It would be simple enough to solve the problems that flagging is claimed to fix by just blocking/muting spammers and people one doesn't agree with. The return on investment for spammers is almost nothing anyhow, so there is no real incentive to spam this platform.
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Well we have had some pretty big networks of spammers, I guess it would be pretty hard to compete with what some of the largest accounts have taken out.
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Sometimes people don't like what you have to say but thats the price of freedom. Not everyone will back you 100% of the time and being downvoted once in a while doesn't mean you are being censored or that your freedom of speech is gone.
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being stalked and consistently flagged by bots sucks balls and is killing this platform...
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I must say out of all that goes on within Steemit - scams from end to end - this bot flagging is sort of the final straw!
Like many of my friends I've really had enough of this shit and we are all just one step away from being flagged at any time by the bot army that cannot be mentioned and then unflagged by the other bot army that cannot be mentioned, in their ongoing fake war.
Mostly over posts by their own fake accounts... so much money to be made flagging
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The difference between 'not backing' and 'taking punitive action' are miles apart - intellectually, ethically, and practically.
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If flagging is killing Steemit - but is being done anyway - is that because the people doing it are retarded or because screwing the platform makes them extra $ at this point?
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I nearly always find debate and discussion interesting and useful. << same, otherwise, how can you grow?!?
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Great op-ed piece, @whatsup!
This is basically what I call a
UNIVERSAL TRUTH
What you have said here today.
Sometimes our "freedoms" conflict with the freedoms of others...
I know that you were always thought highly of, even at times when
others in my circles had differences of opinion. PROPS 😎
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I've never been everyone's cup of tea! lol. ;) I'm fine with that.
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My point was that you were still respected by those others,
even as they disagreed. That speaks volumes to me.
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I've been here over 30 months and it was a shitload better in the early days. For my first year on Steemit I didn't get a single flag and my average post value was more than $19.
Now my posts average $3 and I cant even mention many of the subjects I was doing posts about back then.
The wild west argument is one of the dumbest analogies I've ever seen - Steemit won't be functioning in three months unless cryptos are manipulated into a big surge before that. And if that happens it will be nothing to do with Steemit - it will be initiated by a manipulation of Bitcoin, and none of my friends who have quit (and that is most of them) will be coming back anyway because they are really pissed off that this platform is no longer even remotely a place for free speech.
I'm thinking more like communist Russia, or zionist America!
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You absolutely nailed it @whatsup. Well said. 👍👍 Flagging shouldn’t be stake-weighted; the number of users flagging the content is a more relevant metric. It makes aggressive flagging a more costly activity.
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This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
Editor of the The State of Steem SoS Daily News.
Promoter of The State of Steem SoS Weekly Forums.
Editor of the weekly listing of steem radio shows, podcasts & social broadcasts.
Founder of the A Dollar A Day charitable giving project.
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BOOM! this is the case ^^.
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I think one vote should be worth one vote to the blockchain but the reward system stays the same. So the more steem you own the more your upvote is worth but in terms of voting power its still.only one.vote.
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Hi, @whatsup!
You just got a 0.46% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.
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Hi @whatsup!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 6.356 which ranks you at #199 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 1 places in the last three days (old rank 198).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 279 contributions, your post is ranked at #11.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
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Congratulations @whatsup! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click here to view your Board
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
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Congratulations @whatsup!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
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