Steem as a Censorship-Free Platform

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I've seen enough posts in my feed and not only recently proposing Steem(it) as a censorship-free alternative to bigger social media platforms, which coerced or not, started to ban various users based on their opinions.

Steem doesn't do that obviously. A post or a comment can be obscured on a certain front-end application due to the low reputation of the author or flagging received, and that's entirely up to the front-end application and its terms. The post or comment will still be on the blockchain and may be visible through a different front-end which doesn't filter out content based on these criteria.

I treasure the freedom of speech on Steem. I like the variety of opinions that are expressed via Steemit or other decentralized apps on Steem. I've seen many different opinions, well argued by all sides.

It sometimes happens I don't agree with myself given enough time have passed or I become aware of more elements than initially. Or that I nuance my position. How can I be expected to agree to many others on various subjects? Of course, not agreeing doesn't mean we jump at each other's throats with every occasion we have. Most of us are quite civilized here on Steem.

And no, we don't like censorship. But there is such thing as self-imposed censorship that from time to time every person should keep in check.

Other times, flags can let a person know in a harsh way something is wrong with his/her conduit, according to the flagger.

What we have here on Steem is obviously not perfect, but it's improving.

It seems to be enough to be well up on the radar when talk about censorship-free platforms takes place.

I think we should be clear though, that while for us censorship-free does mean freedom of speech, it is everyone's choice to listen to/read what they prefer. Unlike on other platforms, we control our feed. In some front-ends completely (i.e. @steempeak), by having the choice to include or not resteems.