Steemit, censorship and a moderated blockchain

in steemit •  8 years ago 

Recently, the steemit developers have taken over a bunch of accounts, most of which were taken over by a hacker, in order to return them to their owners.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemit3/third-update-to-july-14th-security-announcement-account-recovery-begins

Technically, this was done using a hardfork. Such a hardfork could also deactivate accounts, remove posts/content or freeze funds.
I was wondering, as the devs already proved this is possible and they can handle it, what would happen if officials force them to censor posts/content? Freeze funds? Are they still able to say no?

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I wondered the same exact thing when they froze OpenLedger's deposits and withdrawals after the hack.

good question - who knows the answer to this one

Was there an official changelist posted anywhere?
Is there a warrant canary?
Without those two standard operating procedures, the users will never know.

As for this hardfork, its documented in the sourcecode:

https://github.com/steemit/steem/blob/7a2990efb39a2f21c3194e5f0fae9c0e48d7f7b8/libraries/chain/hardfork.d/0_9.hf

Nothing else was changed, no censorship, just these accounts.