How Steem Protects Free Speech Without Promoting Hate Speech

in steemit •  6 years ago  (edited)

Hate Speech thumb.jpg

Something is deeply wrong with how social networks on the internet are working. Whether it’s the steady stream of revelations about how our personal information is harvested and sold for profit, how hate speech is allowed to flourish, or how the response to hate speech has been to deprive people of their right to speak, there’s hardly anyone who feels that our social networks are working in their best interest.

Technological Solutions?

Today I want to talk about the technological solutions we at Steemit have developed, and continue to develop in an attempt to solve these problems and move us toward a more open, decentralized, and free future. A future in which people are motivated to engage in constructive conversations as opposed to sacrificing their privacy for the privilege of engaging in angry and divisive screaming matches.

These views are my own and do not reflect the views or beliefs of Steemit Inc. This is also not investment advice.

Hate Speech

Given recent events, it seems reasonable to focus on hate speech and how the issue is currently being handled by those organizations people have been using for years to act as the custodians of their public and private information. It should go without saying that nobody wants their social networks to be a fertile breeding ground for evil individuals or organizations. The response of the major social media platforms has been effectively to create internal committees that operate in a top-down manner to ban those accounts they believe to be producing Hate Speech. This is what we call a “centralized” approach.

The Problem of Centralization

Believe it or not, one of the keys to Facebook and Twitter’s success is their centralization. Storing the social information of billions of people requires an incredible amount of infrastructure which costs an unfathomable amount of money. Maintaining total control and ownership of that infrastructure was key both to scaling their operations as well as generating revenue through the sale of the information stored on that infrastructure. For now let’s put aside the moral hazard that results from an entirely ad-based revenue model and maintain focus on this issue of centralization.

The Benefits of Centralization

This centralization is what enabled these organizations to scale so rapidly while also constantly improving their product-market fit through A/B testing and frequent iteration which, in turn, helped make their platforms literally addictive. As more and more people wanted to use their services for an ever expanding percentage of their day, this centralization served dual-duty by helping them to scale their infrastructure as rapidly as their growing usage demanded. It also allows them to respond to threats fast. For example, when there is dangerous hate speech on their platform, they can quickly remove the speech, and the person, whenever they want.

The Fatal Flaws

There are, however, three serious problems with this approach: 1. The only people worth removing from your platform are those with significant followings, 2. that extreme rhetoric is a good way to grow a following on platforms that focus on eyeballs as the key metric as opposed to value, and 3. that removing anyone with extreme views and significant followings only turns them into a martyr and empowers them to promote a narrative of persecution and unfairness. This is an attack vector that centralized organizations are not capable of solving, which is why the situation continues to get worse and worse, with no end in sight.

The fundamental problem with centralized systems is that they are extremely difficult to make provably fair. But, as we’ll see, the only way to do that is to become more open and decentralized, which would conflict with everything that makes these internet giants successful.

The “Hands-Off” Approach

One solution to this problem of hate speech is to build a platform that promises a “hands-off” approach to censorship. But a promise to not regulate speech comes with its own set of problems as exemplified by Gab.com, which as of the time of this writing has been made inaccessible, presumably due to the fact that it was used by a recent shooter to publish certainly angry and hateful speech.

Gab.com

Gab’s solution is yet another centralized platform, but with the addition of what is effectively a promise not to censor speech. That might sound good to some on the surface, however, when you think it through it’s equally untenable. The value of social networks comes from network effects. Facebook doesn’t offer any especially revolutionary features, aside from the fact that practically everyone on Earth is already using it. That’s precisely why it’s the most valuable social network on the planet. That means that if a person is going to join a social network, all things being equal, they will derive the most value from joining Facebook.

Attracting Deplorables

If you offer a “Facebook or twitter alternative” premised on the fact that you will not censor anyone who uses your platform, then your network will only be able to provide more value than Facebook to people who are incapable of using Facebook, like those who have been banned. While I’m sure there are some good people and outlets that were collateral damage in what’s been called “Facebook’s Purge,” the group as a whole is probably not one that most people are eager to join. That’s why the majority of these platforms inevitably become a safe-haven for hateful rhetoric. But if the solution is not centralization, or simply promising not to censor any speech, what is it?

Steem is the Solution

The solution Steemit pioneered with the release of the Steem blockchain in 2016 is one that leverages new decentralized technologies (like blockchain) to create a provably fair and transparent system that empowers the crowd of users themselves to self-regulate what content is hidden from view, and what content is financially rewarded. On the one hand, everyone is free to store their text-based speech on the Steem blockchain which makes it effectively impossible to censor.

The key distinction lies between information that is stored on Steem, and information that is displayed on Steem interfaces like steemit.com which has become the most used blockchain-powered interface on the planet. While anyone is free to store their speech on Steem; any Steem developer is free to display‒or not display‒that information on their site. This constitutes yet another layer of decentralization.

Multiple User Interfaces = Layers of Decentralization

While someone’s speech might be censored on one interface, there are now many other interfaces available to that user like busy.org or steempeak.com, which will be regulated by their own community’s social norms. An added benefit of this decentralization is that if one platform is taken down, or simply breaks, users will still be able to access their content through other platforms. The fact that Gab.com has been inaccessible for days proves the dangers associated with centralized control over free-speech platforms. Had the people at Gab simply built their user interface on top of Steem, their innocent users would still be free to access their content and engage with their followers on other web interfaces like steemit.com, busy.org, and steempeak.com. At the same time, the users of those interfaces would have the ability to regulate any bad actors that might have been attracted to that platform by downvoting their content.

But what if none of these communities using these varied interfaces want specific speech to be displayed? Well then, it probably is hate speech! But even that speech will still be preserved on the blockchain, and anyone who believes that speech is being unreasonably censored on every existing interface is free to launch their own, and display that speech. Because Steem is the only blockchain protocol built from the ground up to power web applications, developers can leverage all the mature and state-of-the-art web development tools that have been created over the last 20 years to rapidly launch their own blockchain-powered interface in days as opposed to years.

Cryptoeconomic Regulation of Speech

Probably the most important, and underrated, aspect of Steem’s regulatory mechanism for hate speech is what we call “Proof-of-Brain.” STEEM tokens are the native currency of the blockchain and these tokens are distributed entirely based on the “upvotes” and “downvotes” of the Steem users themselves. Effectively there are two separate capabilities relating to free speech embedded into the cryptoeconomics of Steem. There is the ability to post whatever information you want to the blockchain and there is the ability to earn valuable tokens (STEEM) in exchange for sharing that information.

If you get enough upvotes from enough people, you earn STEEM tokens which have been valued as highly as $8 a token. If you get enough downvotes, you won’t earn anything and interfaces like steemit.com will hide your content from other users just as it does with spam. In fact, from the perspective of the blockchain, there is no meaningful distinction between hate speech and spam. Both are just content that has no value, or even negative value, to users.

Rewarding “Ordinary” People

While the ability to deprive people of rewards is certainly an effective regulatory mechanism for encouraging good behavior, what’s more important is that there is a strong economic incentive to create sufficiently inoffensive content. This is what other centralized “free speech” platforms are lacking; a system for providing value to ordinary people value beyond that which is offered by Facebook.

What many of the newest members of the free-speech-bandwagon fail to appreciate is that the right to Free Speech is premised on the fact that we are all created equal. Every voice matters just as every life matters. And we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to earn value for sharing their thoughts. That includes Democrats, Republicans, Moderates, nice people, not just the people so angry no one else wants them. Ironically, welcoming everyone into an open attention economy, is the only way to protect free speech.

Hate Speech is Not More Valuable Than Peace Speech

To put it quite simply: everyone has to have an equal opportunity to earn rewards for their content based on its value as assessed by largest number of people. The mistake that most “free speech” platforms make is that they assume, consciously or not, that the speech of banned people is inherently more valuable than the speech of others. Otherwise, they wouldn’t design and market their product to appeal to that demographic.

On the other hand, what would happen if you created a platform that attracted a diverse user base, from all walks of life, each equipped with the ability to vote on whether content is valuable or not (like hate speech)? What kind of content do you think would be rewarded, and would be hidden? Whether you agree with this system or not, no one can deny that it is provably fair, and that is where its strength lies. Everyone has the ability to vote on content and everyone has the ability to increase their stake if they want more influence over who gets rewards and the size of those rewards.

Ad-Based Revenue

My goal was to give you a better understanding of how websites are currently struggling to deal with the issue of hate speech, and explain how we developed Steem to address the problems with their approaches. Another big problem with existing platforms is that they are entirely dependent on ad-based revenue which means that they have no choice but to turn their users, into their product. I hope to explore that issue, in a future video.

Thanks for reading.


If you're attending SteemFest 3 next week, I will be hosting two panels. On Day 1 I will be interviewing Steemit CEO, Ned Scott, during which he will answers questions that were submitted by the community. On Day 2 I will be interviewing @SteemMonsters co-founder, @yabapmatt, who will be sharing the insights he's gained from working inside many startups (and founding one of his own) in order to help blockchain entrepreneurs and developers gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they will face as they build their business.

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It's impossible to have free speech if any type of speech is suppressed.
Hate speech for example. Anything can be deemed hate speech.
politics I don't agree with = hate speech
weather report I don't like = hate speech
unpleasant economic report = hate speech
public intimacy = hate speech
walking a dog in public = hate speech.

(all action is speech isn't it?)

This was the most intelligent comment I have read on the topic yet! Thank you I totally agree @everittdmickey

It really wasn't

Not having ability to discern hate speech inciting direct violence isn't intelligent at all, infact , quite the opposite.

Why can any type of speech, even things that aren't spoken or expressed with words such as "public intimacy" and "walking a dog", be deemed hate speech, and how?

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Bingo

Any type of speech? What about threatening speech, speech vowing to harm others?

Why can anything be deemed Hate Speech?

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who's gonna decide?
If you say "hello" to me and I'm having a bad day and interpret that as a threat.
Izit?

Is' "Nice place you have here, shame if anything happens to it."

Is that a threat? How is it different?

Who decides.

Suppose I claim that you are speaking in code.
Hate speech encoded

who decides?

what about pep rallies?
'ra ra reej
kick em in the knee
ra ra rass
kick em in the other knee'

should they be banned

Of course, you cannot argue that threats are up to interpretation by saying that somehow someone could interpret an almost universal greeting as a threat.

If you don't have the sensibility to differentiate what constitutes a threat I'll offer you the explanation to develop such nuance: a threat is a "vow to cause harm or injury to others (including their property)"

You can claim whatever you want, the matter of fact is that you cannot demonstrate that beyond a reasonable doubt to convince a jury.

As for pep rallies, you ought to consider things before you express them, with common sense and sensibility, otherwise, why should anyone consider what you said as coherent or sensible (common sense)? Don't it seem as if you expect others to know the difference between whats a threat and what isn't and what's figurative and literal by the context its used in, such as a pep rally, unless you want others to deem you a threat to society and lock you up for good cause, or do you expect people who seemingly don't observe the difference between a threat and a greeting to freely walk around?

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You contest that anything can be deemed hate speech because "who decides" as if hate speech needs a well-defined list and stipulations of what is hate speech and when it isn't, handed down from some ultimate arbiter and that somehow people of all beliefs and creeds cannot come to a common understanding of such a simple concept.

Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.[1][2] The law of some countries describes hate speech as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display that incites violence or prejudicial action against a protected group or individual on the basis of their membership of the group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected group or individual on the basis of their membership of the group.

So clearly, no, walking your dog isn't hate speech, neither is anything that doesn't directly fall into the definition above. Who decides is irrelevant at this point, what is wrong with the definition and why and how is all that matters, so do you have any contentions to the definition provided?

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I think having Steem community's (UI's) are very important.

There's an old saying "If it's free, you're the product".

Define "hate speech".

no joke

@andrarchy
It does seem to me though like there is an obvious vulnerability here, which is money. If someone has a lot of money, then they could potentially do whatever they want. If a terrorist organization powered up 2 million in Steem, then started posting videos of them decapitating reporters, what could anyone do? Regular users flagging them would be like throwing rice at a tank, and while I'm sure whales would flag them, I think most whales here are primarily interested in profit, so getting into a war with another huge whale is not desirable.

I think it might be too simplistic of an answer to say, everyone is free to power up more steem, as in the real world obviously money is a finite resource and some have millions of times more than others.

This is actually something I thought about a long time ago once I initially wrapped my head around the system here. Back then I thought if Steem ever did become a threat to major Social networks, could they not just create accounts with huge wallets and flood the system with kiddy porn, that they then upvote to everyone's eyes? I mean, realistically I doubt they're that sinister, but the question remains is that a possibility? Because if it is I think it would be good to have the conversation about a defense against that before it enters the realm of plausibility.

Maybe the extreme examples I'm using here violate laws so they'd be okay to remove in a centralized way? Or would people just have to deal with that, because I imagine it would be catastrophic.

Setting aside these extreme examples, if say the KKK, since they're an organized group, just put out a mandate for all their members to start powering up Steem, and they collectively amassed a few million in SP, would they be able to hijack Steem as their own platform?

Please @andrarchy I’ve been visiting this particular comment repeatedly to see your reply, please this comment indeed demands for a reply.

What stops them from doing that is that steemit and any other front end that has ethics will blacklist them while subsequently the whales and large stakeholders will counter such things so as not to devalue the token by the lack of policing. It could easily turn into the top 19 witnesses locking all that steem into the account and removing any and all permissions from the account through unanimous consensus.

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That's a horrible answer... that answer is exactly why Facebook, twitter and all are going to fail.

They had people with "ethics" determining what should be hidden from people.

Yes, lets start with those racist KKK members, then lets get rid of those deplorable people that have an opposing political belief, once the precedent is set and the capacity to do so is proven... then it's just the decision of who to block.

You think that steemit and busy and all other front ends shouldn't decide what they want to display from the blockchain and should have no say over that?

Your reply is borderline incoherent because it avoids everything I've said and asserts that somehow I was expressing how to "get rid of 'those horrible' people and not how to deal with people that would invest into steem so they can publicize decapitation videos and spread fatality porn, which is an extreme case, that I doubt you have anything constructive to add towards those concerns since it seems you think that a unanimous consensus by the top 19 witnesses to deal with such extreme scenarios will open the floodgates for anything remotely similar to that.

They, as in facebook, twitter, have nothing to do with steem and any comparison which handwaves away the fact that this system is decentralized and the front end has every right to run as they see fit and compares the two in spite of those factors are dismissable as nonsense or utterly mistaken and has no significance in the discussion about how, with the current state and tools, can we deal with those extreme circumstances should we have to.

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First, this playing dumb trying to look smart, Ive never understood the goal with that. Seriously, 3 sentences, only 1 was compound and you struggle?? Not a good look man.

If you want a club that is exclusive, make it as exclusive as you want. If you are calling yourself an open and censorship resistant platform, then no. UNLESS they are accepting responsibility for every crime that occurs, because then they vecome publishers who are responsible for the published content.

BTW - the examples you mention really cross the boundary into criminal activity, and cutting out that content and presenting it and related evidence to authorities is completely justified. You really should have throught through your position, because i just pointed out the effects that this would cause.

Facebook and Twitter, they are dancing on that head of the pin, claiming to be an open platform BUT wanting to maintain the privileges that come with being publishers. And they BOTH have FAR WORSE to face if they are determined to be publishers. You are treating this as final while they are still in the process of committing the crimes, not yet at the point where these actions face a legal determination. (The cases that have occurred DO NOT favor your position)

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

So you attack my character instead of simply answering the question that was pivotal to the discussion about such a scenario:

You think that steemit and busy and all other front ends shouldn't decide what they want to display from the blockchain and should have no say over that?

The obtuse one is the one who argues that law can do anything on an "open and censorship-resistant platform" or implying anything to that effect. Seriously though, the example isn't mine but what I responded to, and that only indicates that you jumped in the midst of conversation without any fucking idea of what was discussed, as I can only lol all day at your trying to look dumb by acting smart, or how does it go? O yeah, suggesting that something which hypothetically is published for everyone to see needs to be presented to authorities even though the authorities couldn't do anything at all to combat what those people hypothetically published.

I struggle with the dimwitted obtuse all the time, it seems that they are generally a walking bagpipe of Freudian Slips for my entertainment. My position has not changed. Steemit and any other front end can and will more than likely blacklist the accounts in such a scenario. Furthermore, the top witnesses can and more than likely will freeze or outright delete the accounts, not only the data. And finally, the large stakeholders can flag the account and bury the content and more than likely will.

The fact that you still blather on about facebook and twitter as it has any significance in the discussion only attests to how lost in the sauce you must be.

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I didn't attack your character, YOU made the decision to pretend like 2 simple sentences and a compound sentence was confusing, yet you now expect me to believe you understand the legal issues at play??

I've seriously never understood the intent of that tactic you tried, it's never worked, and even if you came out and quoted laws to back up your position, I'm still left with the mentality that "hey, how is this guy legal expert when he barely grasped the grammar?"

Edit: Re-read your first response to me where you directly attacked my character, I point out your tactic to play dumb trying to look smart, and you start crying....

It's exactly a demonstration why people that want censorship are far too child-like to make those types of determinations. We end up with this type of faggotry.

Edit: Re-read your first response to me where you directly attacked my character, I point out your tactic to play dumb trying to look smart, and you start crying....

How and why did I attack your character?

I not only understood what you said but I raised the question which directly deals with what you seem to have been avoiding. You've still to provide any kind of constructive solution to the concern raised. You bring up the issue of law and legality without explaining g what that could possibly solve or how. It indicates that you don't know what you're talking about.

You attacked my character by insinuating that I didn't understand either of you sentences despite their relative lack of complexity. You didn't bother to explain why and how that is so.

You now want to talk more about the type of person I am without addressing anything I've said, such as me not having the understanding of legality of the situation or that somehow the bullshit lie that I attacked you, even though you haven't explained why and how that is, is indicative of me being childlike or wanting censorship.

I have no reason to pretend, and you can keep insinuating that somehow you know what I pretend and what I mean instead of addressing why and how your response wasn't confusing, to begin with. You indicated by your initial response that you had no idea what the conversation was about or what concerns I was addressing, nor did you address why and how my response was horrible in the context of the concern voiced. You made it sound as if an extreme case was going to open the floodgates without explaining why and how that is so, should the consensus form to ban the abusers and/or should the front ends decide to blacklist them.

You clearly are confused, not only can you not explain why and how the law can deal with that extreme case, but you keep insisting that somehow they can by your nonsense of insinuating that I couldn't possibly know that. It seems you have a hard time understanding, and I won't stoop to your level and accuse you of pretending.

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Interesting timing, is probably a nice sentiment before having for a Corporate Name Fest complete with logos involved going to Concentration Camps on a very interestingly written out and constructed website about the Fest. I mean from a PR standpoint what could possibly go wrong... the "organizer" could have organized all the super selfie concerned Steemians planning to profit from their ensuing posts there to do it without having your Corp. name or logo involved. It will be great for you and other leaders to "Pay your respects" and such before going to party some more . :) Oh and to Roland, we know you aren't going and that you are so thoughtfully concerned the goers won't have fun or a fun dinner that Saturday night...

to show you from an emotionless and PR/Biz standpoint how serious a topic this is ESPECIALLY with the Gab "incident" ....check out what a womans tshirt caused......now you tell me that when people wanna "pay respects" and "make docs" with your logo that it coulda been off the official roster, I certainly hope you or other leadership plans to go and not have it turn into someone trying to be sexy or vlog cry while rocking a Logo shirt..... anyways Steem On and have a blast! https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/31/europe/auschwitz-t-shirt-intl-trnd/index.html

As long as the rich elite of steem do not become the self-appointed hate speech police, then I'll stick around. I don't mind extreme viewpoints and attitudes and drama that I disagree with, they just aren't deserving of my upvotes or downvotes. A negative, toxic post is just a waste of time in most cases, not even deserving a downvote. I would rather downvote someone who is clearly plagiarizing or vandalizing the blockchain with spam and malicious pornography.

I see the revenge flagging as being a more problematic area on the blockchain than the actual posts made by the perceived abusers. Some users cannot speak out against the worst abusers, because it is perceived as toxic hate speech to the revenge abuser. An automatic flag on triggering posts is very easy to set up for a determined user. As long as the rich stay rich, they will retain their wealth and therefore also their influence, just like the real world. No contrary opinions will be allowed by the wealthy abusers to be rewarded or remain visible.

The biggest advantage, like you say, is that on the blockchain nothing is ever truly deleted. Will the various steem platforms continue to allow flagged content to to remain revealable? That remains to be seen. As long as uncensorable platforms exist, then social uprisings and also dangerous criminals can never truly be silenced. Personally that is my preference. Maybe someone will create "Extreemit" as the next platform evolution for uncensorable content.

Personally, I don't think words are dangerous weapons, unless the speaker/writer has mutant powers that cause people to have heart attacks and bleeding ears from simply hearing/reading the words. The behaviors and attitudes that listeners and readers choose to adopt is what can become dangerous. Philosophers, religious leaders, political leaders, teachers, and parents will debate the degree of good and evil in each action until the end of time. And we will also debate whose responsibility it is to train individuals to do more good than evil. To assume that individuals cannot redeem themselves and be capable of becoming more good than before is to assume that all people will inevitably crack, and only the righteous elite can be trusted to rule us all.

I like this comment, it’s deep with understanding, man will live with limitations till the end of time! ‘Hate speech’ to A could be an ‘excellent and loving speech’ to B. Good and evil are inseparable because it’s a coin of two sides. There is more to life than good and evil!

You truly cannot believe what you've written yourself?

2018-11-01-ActivesMonth-EN.png

Obviously Steemit is NOT the solution. 70% of the active authors and curators have already deserted.

You don't think there is a correlation with the whole cryptosphere being on a bear market?

It's not up for debate that activity levels have dropped, but to blame it on STEEM alone (not steemit, people make this mistake often) seems to miss the bigger picture.

When I look at the top left of my screen it says steemit(beta) and not STEEM.

And I don't know if you can author "steem".

Comment from arcange to this graph:

  • The last graph is a monthly summary of the active users. It allows you to compare Steemit's values to those one usualy published by other social networks.

So we must compare this not to crypto fluctuations, but to other social media platforms.

Conclusion: Steemit scares and discourages potential content creators.

Well, I'm using partiko at the moment not steemit, but technicalities aside, I get your point.

I don't know precisely how to be more effective at conveying to new people the correct expectations. But, I'm almost certain that once prices go back up a new influx of users will show up, as it's happened so many times before.

Retention is an entirely different issue.

Lol. Posting on Steem to say that it's not effective to post on Steem, nice.

That chart obv has to do with price and bubble and people posting more when it's mooning. And I'm not sure what specific point of his you think this addresses.

see my reply to meno

So we must compare this not to crypto fluctuations, but to other social media platforms.

It's just a reality tho that people will be more interested and traffic will spike and drop as the price moves.

So you can't just ignore that and pretend it's not an aspect of why the chart looks like that.

Like "look, the birds are all flying south, the north sucks!" and then it's like, well it has to do with weather getting cold. You can't just say not to consider that and assume the north has huge issues.

You might be right that retention is an issue. But I think you need different data, that chart is just overwhelmed by teh bubblez. Cheers, @pagandance

Yes, it's been clear for some time that, in spite of the good of Steemit, the platform is dying. Shit decision making from those in charge.

It is so easy to look at the bear market in cryptos, that is looking like almost a year of steady decline... and at the point where there was the need to attract more people, they decide to create a system that would limit the capacity of new users to build up and contribute.

Novusphere is the solution, anoymous posting and tipping with SELF-Censorship

Raises eyebrow

Self-censorship as a part of a solution?

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I'm saddened at times like this, on multiple levels. When I discover another recent shooting I was unaware of or the details of which are more ugly and gruesome than I could've imagined from under the rock which I live. My heart goes out to the victims and I'm glad to see the community here drawing a line, being proactive against hate.

It's of little consequence by compare, but I wish I'd known prior to spending an entire day on this post about why Steemit is far superior to Facebook. I'm realizing now the tone (given the circumstances) may actually be inappropriate. I'd just like to see Steemit and the community here win in the long run and wouldn't mind seeing FB, et, al., go down in flames. https://steemit.com/steemit/@adamthor/the-real-difference-between-facebook-and-steemit-in-2018-4-min-read

I must have been the only person on Gab who was using it for non-hate speech purposes. I just wanted a network that wasn't the cesspools of Facebook or Twitter. We can see how well that turned out...

absolutely right, to secure each users is one of the best option cause we are centralize and it is good for each users to be safe by the media..

I don't understand why people still sticking in to facebook without any benefits,i know that they are first and they are already known by millions of people all over the world..

The one thing i also wondered about the people that if we are talking about money talk they expect about it right away and after not getting those what they want they leave get back to the basic media where they from..

Sometimes people are too hard to understand..but that's life!

sorry if my english is not that good i'm still practicing english words and languages..

I'm happy to not be seeing much hate speech on Steem, yet. That could change if/when it grows to millions of users and becomes a more attractive platform generally. One issue with flagging is that there is little financial incentive to do it, but people will happily vote up any old crap if they think it will make them money. I do flag stuff, but it's mostly what I see as abuse of the platform for profit. I don't flag stuff I just disagree with. If I see something that really is spreading hate then I will consider flagging that. Of course a lot of people are wary of getting into a flagging war with others who have more power.

I want to see Steem grow massively, but I hope that it does not get overrun with those who seek to sow hate.

sounds good ... we could use more speech in general around here, things have been a bit slow

I agree that silencing hate speech is not necessarily the answer. I believe the answer is to allow the community to recognize the problem and manage their own interaction with it. I personally will debate, argue and intellectually destroy those I believe are unjust in their hate for others. It may bring me down in the process but hate should never be unanswered and allowed to resonate in silent approval. Just my thoughts.

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Good afternoon @andrarchy,

Hate speech only leads us to violence, and to carry out a life of full of torments in our brain, and nothing positive or beautiful will come of this behavior.

Instead, love, peace, and with a positive mind each individual help each other, love each other with respect to creating a life, and a community, a life sweeter, and with much desires to live a life full of success and happiness!

Much success, wealth, peace and hoping that @Steemit community lives in harmony forever!

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief, and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake up and live!-Bob Marley

"Hatespeech" is only a government invention to shut you up! As long as I don't physically harm anyone, it is my basic right to say and write whatever I want. There is no point of discussion!

Europe and the new upload filter is the best example to silence any unwanted voice. That is also the reason why I left the dictatorship of Europe.

Cheers from a "uncensored" country.

Hate speech is a very loose term. Just let people be people, prohibition didn't stop people drinking, the war on drugs didn't stop people using drugs and censorship doesn't stop people talking about things you don't like.

Good article; I disagree with your premises.

First, hate speech is just a label. Sorry for all the wimps out there, but words are just that, if you feel like you are damaged by words, maybe the internet is NOT for you. This is NOT to be mixed together with calls for violence. That is against the law, and that is what Gab (as your example) was doing, so long as it is not calls for violence or advocating for criminal activity, then there's nothing to complain about and if people don't like it, there's a few options :

  • mute the user
  • scroll down
  • offer a counter argument

The very fact that you are trying to frame your position into a justification for some forms of censorship is far more deplorable than coming across a person whose opinions you might disagree with or even find distasteful.

Now, specific to Gab; the platform WAS TARGETED BECAUSE it represents a viable alternative to the controlled platform of Twitter. They say "you don't like the censorship, build your own alternative" and now that one is built, it's a fight to shut them down.

All I could focus on through that entire video is your awesome looking, golden hair. But seriously, I am a huge fan of the proof of brain infrastructure that Steem is built upon and am proud to call this platform my home.

Hahaha, I'll take the compliment :)

Freedom doesn't come without it's risk - morality is the only remedy. Can you force others to be moral? hmh. Freedom may need to wait ay? Must force, must control. History Repeats. Hope and explanations are for sale. You cannot give someone the answer they already have.

I love this article so much because it hits on so many points that I've been thinking about myself. That answer may sound a bit narcissistic, but it's not that. I am not Saying that because it mirrors my own thoughts expressly.

I know that I'm not the only one that questions the validity of the whole process and much like other minnows out there, especially those that are technologically challenged... I believe sometimes the whole process feels a bit futile. It's hard to get noticed and if you doing this for money then well... the learning curve can be steep.

*THAT BEING SAID.. . *

it's nice to know I'm making progress in trying to get a handle on technology advancing, social media, decentralization and the block chain as a whole.

Obviously research has been going into this whole process and there's enough people on here that would be able to state the opposite of it were true, that decentralization doesn't work for the purposes of weeding out undesirables or hate speech or anything else. Without censorship societal norms become dictated based off of the community that enforces. Suddenly people have a voice. How novel ;)

It seems as though, because the core becomes the same people that are actively constructing the block chain... the boundaries become more fluid with a place for most, in niche arenas sometimes... and that which is collectively approved of is approved because it is collectively accepted. It makes me wonder, is it because there is no centralization or core philosophy, that it slowly and over time begins to represent the actual thoughts or perceptions of society as a whole?

Where is that the fact that the core foundation is built up by certain individuals and protected by them through flagging or the reverse, not flagging certain content? Time will telk?

Your article is on point in my opinion. There is plenty of food for thought here and it's quite informative. Good work :) thank you very much

Posted using Partiko Android

I love this article so much because it hits on so many points that I've been thinking about myself. That answer may sound a bit narcissistic, but it's not that. I am not Saying that because it mirrors my own thoughts expressly.

I know that I'm not the only one that questions the validity of the whole process and much like other minnows out there, especially those that are technologically challenged... I believe sometimes the whole process feels a bit futile. It's hard to get noticed and if you doing this for money then well... the learning curve can be steep.

*THAT BEING SAID.. . *

it's nice to know I'm making progress in trying to get a handle on technology advancing, social media, decentralization and the block chain as a whole.

Obviously research has been going into this whole process and there's enough people on here that would be able to state the opposite of it were true, that decentralization doesn't work for the purposes of weeding out undesirables or hate speech or anything else. Without censorship societal norms become dictated based off of the community that enforces. Suddenly people have a voice. How novel ;)

It seems as though, because the core becomes the same people that are actively constructing the block chain... the boundaries become more fluid with a place for most, in niche arenas sometimes... and that which is collectively approved of is approved because it is collectively accepted. It makes me wonder, is it because there is no centralization or core philosophy, that it slowly and over time begins to represent the actual thoughts or perceptions of society as a whole?

Where is that the fact that the core foundation is built up by certain individuals and protected by them through flagging or the reverse, not flagging certain content? Time will telk?

Your article is on point in my opinion. There is plenty of food for thought here and it's quite informative. Good work :) thank you very much

Posted using Partiko Android

@andrarchy, Great to hear your opinions and words. And in my opinion most importantly good to see that you are putting the efforts on the Hate Speech. And yes, Facebook have huge Infrastructure to store the Data of billion of users and selling that data to Advertisers and they are enjoying the perks. (At Funny Side) What they are giving us, one Birthday Video or an Years Of Friendship video with whom we've never had an conversations for years.

The most important and the most Fundamental change which hold by Steem is, Reward System. And Users are deciding to whom we have to upvote. So, in my opinion one day Facebook can inspire by the Mechanism of Steem. And for sure Advertisers can born great opportunities by Participating in Steem Economy because Steem Economy is growing and it will keep expand.

Hate Speech is more Natural essence and in my opinion we cannot remove it completely because it is born through the Human Beings. But for sure an idea can convert into the Practical Initiative. I am not expert so i will not going into this any deep.

But why i am excited towards Steem Economy?

(1) SMT's.

I just waiting for this Protocol because i believe that and in my opinion Steem Economy can convert into the Coin Factory.

(2) DAPPS.

In my opinion Resource Credits is one of the Innovative subject and now DAPPS can create accounts, so we can see more Project Centric users.

(3) Communities.

Community Development is one aspect which we have to talk about in my opinion Steem Economy played an effective role in Third World Countries. And most importantly communities from different part of the world are participating and getting opportunity to enjoy the New Solution World.

Good time to hear from you. Appreciated. 👍