Spam makes @sadkitten sad ... 😿
Recently I noticed the new @spaminator account publishing posts claiming that thousands of accounts are engaging in bot net spam scams. Not only claiming it, but they also had the usernames of all these accounts! It seemed pretty crazy there could be this many.
I thought it might be cool to train an AI to discover these accounts. Before I could get into that @transisto got me in touch with @patrice, the person who runs @spaminator, and after a conversation also including @pfunk I decided I would create a bot to counter the rewards on these comment farming schemes for the accounts already identified.
So that's what we put @sadkitten to work doing.
What is the scheme?
Some of the accounts make comments on their own posts or other random posts with a predefined dictionary of comments. One class of these accounts uses generic "nice post" type comments (example) and some others use random nouns (example). These are up voted by a large number of the other accounts (example) which invariably have a very small amount of SP. I'm not sure if this is just the amount delegated by Steemit on account creation or if they also include further delegation.
So this is flagrant spam with the purpose of extracting rewards from the reward pool. Per comment the amount is small but by doing it a lot it really adds up.
We know of around 5,500 accounts doing this at the moment.
What to we do to counter it?
Firstly I looked through a lot of the accounts to double check. There are a lot of them so I didn't check every single one, but I did look at a random sampling of several hundreds. @patrice had checked them first so this was just really to convince myself. I was convinced.
I created a bot which tries to counter the rewards on these posts, most of which are comments. @sadkitten has almost 150,000 SP delegated from @transisto so this was quite a lot to counter these small rewards. You can see for yourself on steemd for steemdb, but the flags were almost always less than 1%.
I'm proud to say that so far the bot has scanned through many days of these spam posts and used up from 100% down to 28.52% voting power! That's a huge amount and gives you an indication of how numerous the posts are. Over 7,500 flags were made in the last 24 hours.
What now?
We also added some accounts from @sherlockholmes, which both myself and @patrice checked and their list was legit. So we will continue to add spam accounts and run the bot to counter these. There may also be another whale joining into trail the flags and add their own to reduce rep further.
The spammers need to know that they cannot get away with this any more and we will not sit by and let our network be taken advantage of.
We do our best to make sure that no genuine accounts are in this list, even accounts in which the user uses pretty spammy behavior. @sadkitten is reserved at the moment for bot net scale spam. If you find that your account has been flagged in error, please get in touch in the comments or find me on steemit.chat
If you want to help find these accounts people get in touch with @spaminator or @sherlockholmes, not directly to me.
I will prepare some statistics of what the bot is doing when enough time has passed.
Anything else?
The time and expense I put into this I consider part of my witness activities, to help to protect the network by showing spammers they will not find these schemes profitable, and restore the reward pool for genuine content rewards. If you agree this is important please consider vote me as witnesses if you haven't already.
Vote for @personzzz (yes, three z's) for witness at https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Thanks to @transisto @patrice @pfunk and @sherlockholmes
This is an approach I can get behind, focusing on spam instead of self votes. I'm still not a fan of flagging, but I think it's the lesser of two evils for now. I just delegated 100 SP to @sadkitten.
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Thanks a lot for your vote of confidence. I think it should become a common good practice for every steemian to delegate a small % of their SP toward abuse countering efforts. Like paying a taxe to reduce crime rate.
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yeah, this is definitely worth it. Thank you so much for donating SP for this cause.
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I agree @transisto, but why are you using your sock puppet account @newsflash to downvote my posts CONSTANTLY on a daily basis?? What is the purpose of this?? It's flawed logic!

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Thanks @remlaps. I will get back to your comment on self votes I promise 😉 I'm still doing that too, and I see this in the same general area of activism on Steemit. But you don't have to agree with everything 😜
Thanks so much for the delegation, as @transisto said this means a lot.
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Another possible avenue to explore, if you haven't already looked into it: I notice that a number of these accounts (i) are new; (ii) have their recovery account set to @steem; and (iii) are basically unfunded except for some delegated SP.
I haven't tracked back the source of the delegations, but I assume they're conducting their abuse with SP that's delegated by Steemit, Inc. at account creation time. Is there a process to report abusive accounts so that Steemit, Inc. can revoke the initial steempower delegation? If not, can one be established?
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We've already reported many account to Steemit Inc. and they did take off their delegation in a timely manner.
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@personz, this makes me super happy to see-- THANK YOU for undertaking this initiative! Also thanks to @transisto for delegating voting power to @sadkitten.
I know from past experience that this kind of activity can destroy a content site in short order if left unattended... not only does it drain the site financially like a small but constantly bleeding wound, but a lot of visible spam also slowly drives away legitimate users who don't want their content associated with garbage... so you end up with a "double bleedout." Whereas there is no central structure to "go bankrupt" here... developing a bad reputation as a spam repository could easily land us all with 5c Steem eventually... and I don't think any of us REALLY want to see Steem related to the ranks of "yet another shitcoin."
Anyway, you have my (very small) witness vote.
We should really have some kind of "multi level alert system." For example, this morning I came across someone who was (as an individual) spamming the same comment on dozens of posts... clearly not READING anything, but just using and refreshing the "NEW" feed every minute. Clearly, an individual-level problem, not a network-scale problem. As a small account, I can burn a little voting power on simply flagging the comment on MY post... but what about the 50 identical comments? I have 250SP... "that don't go far."
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Thank you for this 😊 I believe you are right, we need to take action. I've heard from some other people that this happened to some other platforms in the past.
I'm going to be working on an AI to feed into this once it is well tested enough that might be something like an alert system, perhaps one component of one anyway. You'll see a post if I get that far 😁
Thanks for the witness vote!
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genius work. very impressed.
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I wrote a post today about what I'm doing against spam at the minnow level. I also voted for you as witness and resteemed.
https://steemit.com/steem-help/@fitinfun/steemit-what-do-you-do-with-your-spam-comments
I'm a content creator who came here to get my message out. I do not like to see any nonsense on such a good platform. I need to be able to recommend that my content creating friends come here and show them a good atmosphere when they check the place out.
It's hard enough to get going here without fighting the "Nice!" comments. I really appreciate everything you are doing. Thank you!
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Great initiative guys!
If you are looking for more delegated SP might want to make it easier for the less techy people with a steemconnect link :)
https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/delegateVestingShares?delegator=yourusernamehere&delegatee=sadkitten&vesting_shares=41926.000000 VESTS
Hope the project continues to succeed with the help of the community.
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Thanks I hadn't thought of that 😁 Will use it in future too
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@personz - This is a great initiative indeed. I recently ran across an Ad in one of the bitcoin forums while researching data on Steemit to BTC relationship for my recent article. I was shocked to see that a person was offering Steemit accounts and a voting bot for money. Here is a screenshot:

Such spam accounts defeat the very purpose of Steemit interaction. They will clutter up comments section, preventing any meaningful discussion. They will also turn Steemit in to a money grabbing scheme and attract all sorts of non-intellectual and greedy people. I would be really sad to see that happen to a great plaform like Steemit.
I do not have any great Steem power to delegate but will support with any legwork that is required. Please feel free to contact me for something I can help with in your efforts. Thanks. Upvoted. Will also vote for you as witness.
Regards,

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OMG. 5,500.....thank you dear for doing this.
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You're very welcome. Kim can put the fat stacks back in her wallet for now 😜
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Have you measured how many false positives are receiving downvotes?
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Very good question 😊 I'm working on it but yes, it's a required feature. My random sample didn't show up any but our of 7,500 flags a few could have slipped through. Watch this space.
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Not sure but this one seems like it may have been one:
https://steemit.com/gardening/@rem3600/vegetable-garden
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Thanks, I think I figured out what went wrong. I'll be doing a scan to see what might have slipped though and correcting the algorithm. Thanks for your help on this.
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This def was not spam, but, noticed that it disappeared!
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What do you mean? The post is still there for me.
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Probably the flag. The flag has been removed.
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It had disappeared for a time- perhaps a glitch then?
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hola todavía no se muy bien de que es esto
donde se ve la bandera? gracias
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Hace desaparecer la imagen y las palabras. @txatxy
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So as far as I know there are no false positives. There were 15 posts flagged in error but this was because of a programming error, not a false positive in the sense that an account was identified as spamming but was not.
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Good to know there are concerned folks policing steemit.
However, the sadkitten came after me too; I hope in error, @personz?
The post concerned:
https://steemit.com/treetuesday/@ackhoo/tree-tuesday-the-black-and-white-versions
I hope I am not at fault? I don't even know how to spam... :D
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Nope, that's a slip up on my part! 😅 Sorry about that, I have removed the flag. Work currently underway to correct these rare mistakes.
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Thanks, @personz! That's a relief... :) Am gonna follow you to keep up with the great work you do! :)) Much appreciated!
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No problem. This is for hardcore spam only! Thanks for being so understanding about my mistake 😆
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No worries... I shared this post so more people will know about @sadkitten
😊🌼
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I am creating a page that will look at all of the comments you flag and list them in order of potential payout so people can vote on any your sp can't cover. I hope to have it up in a day or so.
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Cool, looking forward to it 🙂
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Ran into a small speed bump and currently deciding how to fix it. The posts you accidentally flagged and then removed your flag cause my scanner to have some issues. Will be ready soon though.
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There's always some annoying details! 😅
Cool good luck with it.
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Great team work! It has been a pleasure working with you. As I am pretty vocal against 100% automated solutions to problems I think we've done a pretty good job of identifying and removing the financial incentive to post this type of comment spam.
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Right back at you 😋
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I think the idea is great to crack down on spam and thanks for all the effort you put into this
I am not sure why one of my posts got a flag though as it wasn't spam well I don't think so
https://steemit.com/beachwednesday/@tattoodjay/beach-wednesday-colorful-skies-201789t81820579z
It does however have a sadkitten downvote
I am guessing that's part of the fine tuning and it may happen in error
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Very sorry about that @tattoodjay, that was made in error. I have removed the flag. Definitely not spam and you are not on our lists.
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Thanks appreciated
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Announcement
15 posts were flagged in error by @sadkitten , these mistakes are now corrected, the flags removed and the code fixed.
Sorry to those affected: @lenasveganliving, @hethur240, @digitalis, @rem3600, @dswigle, @tattoodjay, @melinda010100, @molometer, @ackhoo, @old-guy-photos, @lundsten, @pipurilla, @paradise, @erioni
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Very good! I was just coming over to see what was up LOL.
This is a very good initiative! I hate to see rewards stolen from the rewards pool by spammers when so many work hard day in and day out for very little as they try to build their blogs.
I will resteem and follow you :)
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Thanks for your understanding! Won't happen again 😉 And thanks for the support and resteem 😃
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Many thanks for the speedy reversal, @personz! Adding a little 'R&D' fee... ;)
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Thank you! I hate spam!!!!I am not even sure how to do it. ;) Upvoted and Resteemed
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My 'reputation'has dropped in half. Is that because of the posts you flagged?
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@sadkitten has been trailed by @steemservices and so I was not able to undo those flags. How much did your reputation drop by exactly?
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I do not know the answer to that. I have not been able to find a way to track it. Do you have any ideas as to what I should do next?
It helped that @good-karma credited me with being the top commenter on #esteem
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https://steemit.com/distinctivewindows/@melinda010100/yay-2017823t20118367z
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I added a few big up votes to this. Sorry again.
Edit: looks like this increased your rep to 50
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Thank you so much for the votes. They are very much appreciated and because of your prompt willingness to correct this, you have my witness vote!
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I am the Great Cornholio! Would you like to see my portfolio? I have a portfolio in my bunghole, with my óleo!
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Great initiative to tackle the spammers head on. Apart from economic aspect. Spam just makes the place look tatty.
You've got my support too. And my vote for witness. @personz
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This is a great initiative and I wish you a huge success! I resteemed this to spread the message a bit. That's all, the little 🐟 I am can do! 😃
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Spammers is like cancer to this platform. Reduces the credibility to the platform where many honest man try to ply their trade. Sadkitten outta be sad...
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I think this a great idea! I have used up my voting power 2 separate times this week downvoting this same scheme listed in a post by @spaminator. Since I only had about 4000 SP, I could only do about 150-200 posts total. This is a great use of a bot. Thanks for stepping up and contributing to cleaning up the misuse of the reward pool. Thanks to all who are contributing to this effort.
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Once I have a little more SP to delegate, I'll send some to @sadkitten to help. I was talking about doing this as well, but I'm no bot whiz, and I think I'd probably be more help providing more voting power at this point. You've got my witness vote :D
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thx for sharing
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First, thank you for doing this and for sharing the details. This is really an insane amount of spam. You need really a lot of SP and voting power to counter this.
Hopefully, this will not grow and people have enough SP together to counter this. Otherwise, Steemit will be spammed with ridiclious comments all over.
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Hi very interesting article and good initiative! So if I understand bot is mainly running with a spammer list to flag ? Do you think it would be easy to make a bot that identifies new spam accounts ?
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Hey, thanks. You're correct, at the moment it goes by a list which humans have made. A detective bot is my next idea that I've started working on, but I still do like the idea of some human oversight. The bot would just detect suspicious accounts to begin with, and if it got good enough maybe add automatically.
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Yep seems a good design! AI is not good (and easy to train) enough currently.
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Sadkitten must smile!
I'm against spam!
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This is vital vital work you're doing, truly in the Steemit spirit. Acting as an immune response to the cancer of these cheating hordes.
And really, what the hell is wrong with these people? Isn't it more effort to run 5500 bot accounts than it is just make good posts on one?
I don't have much in the way of Steem Power but let me see if I can figure out how to delegate some your way.
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I wish I had some Steem or SP to suppirt this project. Steemit has so much potential, but could face an early demise because of spammers.
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its good to fight this spam accounts if we consider 5500 accounts are spam accounts and its only 1 bot net, then there is possible much more spam accounts lets say 30k and steemit got 300k accounts registered, so 10% are spam accounts, we need to fight it for sure, because in future more and more spam accounts will be, so we need to kill that plague at beginning. I hope sadkitten will have sibling happykitten to upvote value comments/posts )
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This is great - if I could double vote you up I would. Spammers are, in essence, thieves, stealing value from honest bloggers and content consumers.
Great work - keep it up!
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You can up vote @patrice 's posts too! This is in collaboration with them and thanks to all their continued hard work.
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“Cats choose us; we don’t own them.”

—Kristin Cast (author, House of Night series)
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Great work mate, resteemed this post and added another 1K SP delegation :)
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Thank you kindly 😎 The support is much appreciated!
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Sorry, tried to vote you but couldn't locate you in the 50 list and probably made some typo in my input to the search box. Will certainly try it some other time.
Thanks for all your effort!
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I'm not in the top 50 (yet!). If you type in
personzzz
with three Z's into the box you can still vote for me though.Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
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Well, done now😊. Thanks for this comment which worked as a good reminder! Looks like I can't vote you with just my posting key. Why do we require our active key to vote for witnesses?
It would be helpful to everyone if a voter can be directed to vote a specific witness by providing a direct link. This way witness too can promote their direct vote-link and voter can also save some time on searching & then voting.
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Thanks for doing this. Great to see the whales supporting such efforts to make steemit better
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This is great news and I'm happy you're doing this! I've been battling some plagiarism and spamming when I come across it, but that is very small scale, compared to what you're doing here. I'll just continue to report to Steemcleaners and hope your sadkitten can battle the major players!
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tip! (waiting for voting power to get up)
I dont want sadkitten to be sad. :/
I am having some trouble at witness voting tho....you say vote for @personzzz yet i get invalid acc if i try to?
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Thanks! I think you have to drop the @ sign maybe? personzzz is definitely the right account. Thanks for your vote!
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Idk what it was (im pretty sure i did it without the @, maybe an empty space was left somewhere since i c/p the nickname).....worked now.
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This brings me much pleasure in deed. Sad kitten for the spammers happy kittens for the rest of Steemit! Thank you very much. I do hope the spammers don’t even get back what they spent buying this scam and or accounts to run it.
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Great job! Been seeing the spam in almost every area of steemit.
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Thanks for your hard work on this.
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because spam makes me
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Excelente información, @personz para tener muy en cuenta
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Great job, Keep cleaning spam steemit!
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Good job again. So good, you even got a full vote :)
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this is a good initiative!
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@tipU - send tips by writing tip! in the comment and get share in service profit :)
Check out @promoted - the good guy voting bot.
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GOOD STORY......
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Wow !! Usefull
I like this. You are considering these very useful posts above steemit. I look forward to receiving many of your posts. Thank you for sharing! good luck and happy in life!
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I agree with u. So true ur post. Thanks for sharing it, upvoted and upfollowed :)
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I have had continuous notifications all day that you are downvoting my posts and all the posts of everyone I have resteemed. The notifications have been coming for 5 hours and I have not been able to use Steemit today because of it. Everything I post is original content. Is something stuck??
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Yes, sorry about that, you were mistakenly on the list. I am removing the flags now
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That is a lot of flags! Good luck.
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Wow, yes I hadn't realized, you are very prolific! Almost done now. Sorry again.
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I now dislike bots as much as I dislike spammers!!
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