In today's post we will explore the subject of what we came to call -for lack of a better phrase- Child Parading, which is (to be a bit more descriptive) a sort of child exploitation that manipulates the viewer/curator into a cognitive bias not unlike, in essence, to the Halo Effect via the systematic featuring of a child, in order to elicit sympathy, with the intent of transforming that induced sympathy into votes and rewards.

The human vulnerability to be manipulated into such cognitive bias via the exploitation of children is age old and well known for example amongst the panhandling/beggar scene of any major city, since individuals in these scenes and similar ones quickly discover -either via observation of others or by chance- that people are much more inclined to help them when they are in the company of a child.

Within law enforcement circles the same technique is known to be used in various situations, particularly by single parents, as in example when engaging in shoplifting, it is a sort of "get out of jail free" card, officers sent to deal with such cases routinely give the offender a free pass, in part influenced by the sympathy the child elicits and in part to skip the heavy and complex paperwork that arresting the sole and exclusive legal guardian of a minor entails.

There is no need to make an exhaustive list of case examples in which this principle is exemplified, the two examples above suffice to communicate to the reader the type of exploitation we are referring to. To summarize, there are an infinitude of circumstances in which children are intentionally used as shields, "get out of jail free" cards, as Halos and as tools to elicit sympathy and benevolence that would not be obtained otherwise were the presence of the child not provided.

As you might have surmised this psychological vulnerability and exploit can and is used by certain actors in Steem to manipulate curators into rewarding their posts. It is also used to manipulate antiabuse operators (cleaners) into providing extra or unlimited leniency when abuse is detected.

Let's see now, in practice how this exploitative manipulation takes place in the platform.

The Case of @Daio

You might be familiar due to previous posts with the case of @daio, but just in case you are not let us give you a brief summary.

Daio is one of the few remaining parts of the Yanik/Arthur/dman57 Plagiarism Ring, one of the biggest if not the biggest plagiarism rings Steem has seen.

Her story in the platform is a fairy tale similar to the one of @andrianna in that their accounts were opened by the Yanik ring and then supposedly sold to them. That fairy tale is debunked in the link above in the case of @andrianna and here you have her admitting it was all a lie a few days ago, admitting that she didn't buy the account -as she deceived the whole community including top witnesses into believing-, admitting that she was a collaborator, partner, asset of the Yanik plagiarism ring from the start, and is supposedly no longer one.

The case of @daio is very peculiar, she was detected engaging in plagiarism here, here, here and here, blatantly copying photographic artwork with no permission from the authors and with no credit or attribution whatsoever, effectively taking credit for the whole composition/motive of the artwork when in fact her reproductions are merely copies. In one case here she was even caught copying another painters artwork and claiming as fake source a photograph.

Her bizarre excuses went even up to the limits of claiming that photographers are not artists and they do not deserve nor are owed any credit or attribution when doing reproductions of their work. Yes, you heard that right, according to @daio: Photographers are not artists and deserve no credit or attribution!!!...

The @daio account is also demonstrably operated by the same person operating the @yakubenko/ @dasha193 accounts, one of the main operators of the Yanik plagiarism ring aka Dashulya Yakubenko aka Dasha Artamonova.

Here is the evidence that shows the @daio account is operated by the same person operating the @yakubenko account (now blacklisted by @Cheetah and @SteemCleaners for belonging to that plagiarism/scamming ring):

@daio makes a comment in reply to a question made to @yakubenko in her post

https://steemd.com/tx/af977197a9dc86e5e44f3b7b783a15c29bba7635

@daio deletes that comment 9 seconds after making it

https://steemd.com/tx/d83cf2171cc20a52190dda2212a3c82845088fb4

@yakubenko makes the exact same comment 96 seconds after the deletion

https://steemd.com/tx/ed9b996ecdaf1ca0601ca0fd64f2b887b461ee70

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Child Parading as a Shield to Elicit Leniency

Right after these plagiarism cases as well as her connections to the Yanik plagiarism ring began coming to light, we noted a marked thematic transformation in her blog, all of a sudden her blog morphed from an art blog ridden with art plagiarism, to one of a loving mother that shares pictures of her son at every possible chance, mixed with art plagiarism. Namely, when the heat was turn on the blog rapidly switched from art plagiarism to child parading mixed with art plagiarism, in a calculated maneuver to elicit sympathy, forgiveness, leniency, exceptionalism.

Here are the 22 child parading posts in the last 3 months:

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Art Plagiarism Case #35

And then, 3 days ago after dozens of warnings to cite sources of "her" artwork and to stop engaging in art plagiarism, the user posted this:

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Post's URL / URL del post:
https://steemit.com/art/@daio/my-new-picture-acrylic

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Source of the Art Plagiarism / Fuente del Plagio Artístico:
https://www.eyeem.com/p/56949546

Yesterday

Yesterday's @daio's post

Today: Art Plagiarism Case #36

Post's URL / URL del post:
https://steemit.com/art/@daio/this-comment-amused-you-should-be-ashamed-not-to-know-and-at-the-same-time-argue-with-me

Source

Here you can see the user tracing the whole source:

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As you can see the the user deceives curators and viewers into thinking she is making a version of the Gioconda, a version supposedly out of her own imagination. When in reality the user is plagiarizing another author's version of the Gioconda.

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Source of the Art Plagiarism / Fuente del Plagio Artístico:
https://americangallery.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/rafal-olbinski-1945/
Author: Rafal Olbinski

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Reporting directly from the Jungle.
Onwards!