Spam, Impersonators, and Fake Posts

Steem has been rocketing in popularity throughout the past few days. While this is generally a good thing, it does have its downfalls.

I have noticed a large amount of spam, including:

• Fake Posts
• Impersonators
• Vote for vote
• Etc

I just wanted to make sure others were aware this was happening, and to ensure all users take the proper precautions before upvoting something.

Make SURE you read the post AND check out the posters account...

Examples

Example 1 - Ned impersonator:
Ned impersonator

This user managed to get 25 votes... most likely because his name appears to be some sort of testing account for Ned.

Example 2- Top post impersonator:
Top post impersonator

This user attempted to impersonate one of the top posters of the recent days, in the form of a thank you blog.
Luckily, people were able to catch on.

Example 3 - Vote for vote:
Vote for vote

At the time of writing, this has gathered 13 upvotes in 26 minutes... is this really the kind of content we want to support?

I just want to make sure all Steemers are aware of this issue, and will use discretion when voting.
Your vote does matter.

What to do if you find spam

Luckily, we have a handy dandy feature to deal with this... the flag button.
The flag button effectively acts as a down vote (though it shouldn't be used as one).

Use this whenever you find some spam.

Conclusion

Steemit is an amazing community and platform.
However, in order to keep it that way, we have to filter out the bad.

Since Steemit is anti-censorship, we (as a community) need to filter out the bad. It is our responsibility to keep this site in a quality condition :)

Thanks for reading and happy steeming!