New Steem, Policing the Steem Blockchain Becomes a Collective Responsibility

The vigilantes are everywhere and they are us.

_{Image credit: @majes.tytyty}

Policing is an integral aspect of any modern society. Historically, the level of crime in a society is largely dependent on the policing architecture of that society.

Little wonder, society usually plunge into anarchy or lawlessness when its policing architecture becomes decayed or extensively compromised. This is why policing is a serious business in most developed societies.

The primary duty of police involves the general maintenance of law and order. To put it more robustly, however, policing extends to the apprehension and prosecution of offenders - as a way of deterring would-be violators of the law.

Policing becomes even more important in modern societies because man by nature is a lawbreaker who, in most cases, would not mind satisfying his impulses at the expense of the overall good of the society.

Now coming to the Steem blockchain, it is most unfortunate that it ran for too long without proper policing architecture in place.

There were, for instance, no clear rules and regulations to check the behaviours of community members. And what did we see? We saw an era where the most powerful man on Steem was the man who knew how best to exploit the system either through the abuse of bid bots or self voting.

Nevertheless, HF21 has changed the story of policing as far as the Steem blockchain is concerned. By arming everyone with the free downvote tool, HF21 made policing the Steem blockchain a collective responsibility. Guess what? At no cost.

It is interesting to see that those who were exploiting the reward pool are now faced with two options - to either go into hiding (like Haejin and others have done already) or change their behaviours to the dictates of the new Steem. Both options are good for the progress of Steem.

One cannot fairly talk about policing the Steem blockchain without commending the efforts of community leaders such as @blocktrades, @theycallmedan, @ocdb, @steemcleaners, @therealwolf, @themarkymark, @exyle, @curangel, @jamesbrown, @starjuno and others who are devoted to the good cause of seeing a better Steem.

Although I have read a number of articles criticizing the free downvotes tool, its advantages far outweighs the few cases of victimizations that have been seen in its wake.

These days bad actors weigh the consequences of their thoughts before they act. And that's because policing the Steem blockchain has become a collective responsibility. The vigilantes are everywhere and they are us.

Until I come your way again, I wish you a full Steem ahead.

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I am @gandhibaba, the young man who goes about carrying his magical pen, not his gun, in his pockets.

Gif courtesy of @artzanolino

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