STEEM: Do We Really Stand For Freedom Of Speech??? Advertising Ban or Censorship???
The other night I exchanged a couple comments with @V4vapid when the conversation turned to the topic of advertising.
You can read it here:
@V4vapid mentioned that he naturally wants to Steemit to remain advertising-free. I think most on here will agree that is a desired outcome. Unlike Facebook and other sites, it is nice to open up a page without being flooded with ads. The same is true for D.Tube. We can view videos without having to wait for the advertisements to go through.
I think if the proposal to allow ads was passed before the community, it would be voted down. I mean, seriously, is there more of a no-brainer in the world?
Or is there?
One thing that comes to mind is do we have the "right" to ban advertising?
We promote ourselves as censorship-free. Yet, if we ban people from saying something, isn't that censorship? We like to say we are open and accepting of all kinds of speech, doesn't advertising fall under the same category. Is it my right to tell you what you can post on your blog? The answer is obviously "no". Then, by the same token, is it within the community right to dictate what you can or cannot do? I think most would agree it cannot.
Hence the dilemma that arises. What was once an easy situation suddenly turns a bit cloudier.
Which brings up another point: who has the rights we are referring to?
Many governments, including the U.S., determined that corporations have the same rights as people. Certainly, many on here take exception to that so it is not a given that the community will arrive at that conclusion. But again, do we have the right to ban corporations from opening accounts on this blockchain? Getting back to the individual, should we stop someone who wants to open up an account in his/her business name? Aren't we censoring then?
We obviously saw what happens to sites like Facebook when the advertising model kicks in. One thing I will say is that with cryptocurrency, the need to garner money via advertising is mostly eliminated. Facebook and other social media sites depend upon traffic which enables them to amass advertising revenue. This is how their business is funded.
On the blockchain is the payout schedule for the cryptocurrency going forward. The blockchain, itself, is what has the value, not the apps. Facebook has to generate revenue to keep Wall Street happy. On here, the blockchain generates the revenue through the token distribution. The only variable is how much STEEM is worth compared to other currencues, fiat or crypto.
I guess the bottom line is there is a choice. Is a ban on advertising more important than being free of censorship?
As I ponder this, it does not look like we can have both. If the community can prevent someone (or something) from advertising, what else could they prevent? What is the next step?
Isn't this what we witnessed from many governments? They start small and continually erode people's rights. At first you cannot scream "fire" in a crowded movie theater. This makes sense to everyone, so they agree. The next thing you know, there is a thing called political correctness and if you are on the wrong side of that, watch out.
It appears our buddies over at Facebook and Google are on a censorship rampage taking people out left and right. How well do you think that is going to work for them long-term? Even in the short-term, we see a number of people on here who said they are done with those two sites for this specific reason.
My feeling is that all models are going to be disrupted by blockchain. As we enter the Age of Abundance, we are going to see the need for advertising diminish. This is really going to become obvious once the next generation of blockchain apps enter the picture i.e. DAOs or DACs. As these become more common, I believe the advertising model will lessen.
I do not want to hijack this article, so I won't delve into my theory on this other than to say one should not assume AI or software will have human emotions, motives, or beliefs. In fact, it is very likely they do not.
Personally, I am like @V4vapid; I want to see Steemit advertising-free. If, for some reason, the central players there decided to raise money through advertising, I would choose an interface that allowed me to operate ad-free.
That said, I do not think that we can just ban advertising. Being one who abhors censorship, having witnessed what the governments of the world did (and now these mega-corporations), I do not feel we have the right to tell anyone (or anything) what is can post. While I am not for giving a corporation the same rights as a person, how can we tell? Also, if Apple wanted to open up a page here, who are we to say no? And what if it wasn't Apple but,rather, some individual shop owner who sells Apple products?
When you start saying Apple cannot sign up, then the door is opened. After that it is whites, blacks, Christians, Muslims, disabled, or left-handed people who cannot sign up. Then we progress to the non-educated, unemployed, and non-wealthy.
Carry this out far enough and the only ones who will be on STEEM in 15 years will be Bill Gates, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk.
(Sorry Elon, you are out too..you are just too loony with that trying to fly into space while drilling into the ground)
What are you thoughts on this? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section...this is a subject that I think warrants discussion.
If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and a resteem.
Pictures by Google Images
I don't think anything needs to change in respect to advertising. If a company wants to post an advert or information about a product that's fine, and then it will be down to the community to upvote or downvote them or react however they see fit.
The problem is that a single whale can have the power of 10000 votes.
The world is already going crazy with left vs right, race suddenly being an "issue" again.
We've already got SJW bully campaigns to literally get people fired from their jobs.
Any opinion you don't like can be flagged in the same way as an opinion you do like can be upvoted.
Granted, it's still a better alternative than what we have now but it doesn't exactly solve the problem. :/
Not quite the same way because the financial incentive is to upvote things rather than downvote them. As long as people care about making money there will always be far more upvotes on Steemit than downvotes.
Not sure companies will hop on the Steemit train, because although they would be able to up-vote their ad to the top of whatever "Tag" they wanted via their infinite dollars, who the hell is going to read it, up-vote it, or re-Steem it?
More than likely, big whales on here would flag it, and then they'd just leave wouldn't ya say?
Exactly, big companies buying a ton of STEEM for the purpose of self voting up their own ads would not do their image many favours imo
No, it definitely would not, and I think they understand this already.
Depends what you mean by advertising. If steemit INC decides to display banner adds down the side of the page, we can always use busy.org or some other interface/site.
If I drop one of these at the end of each post;
There's not a lot anyone can or should do to stop me, beyond unfollowing and/or muting.
Maybe Coke is paying me, maybe I really love Coke.
When advertising does arrive, I think it'll look a lot like this.
Thanks for all of the great points you brought up here. I do also love that Steemit is ad-free for now. As for the future, well, who knows?
I do feel like the biggest problem with advertising online is that ad agencies don't ask for the right to shove stuff into our faces. They assume that right. It's like because we're online, they expect we'll happily accept anything they want to throw onto our screens, which is why more people are buying ad and pop-up blockers now than ever.
I think if any platform needs to incorporate ads, it could do so ethically as long as they ask people first. People should be able to choose whether they want to see ads or not and also WHO they want to see ads from. They should be able to choose WHERE and WHEN those ads appear.
If a website needs to display ads for funding, then give the users an option to make a donation in order to turn off all the ads on their end!
Just thinking out loud here. 😎 Which is what I do when I'm not working on writing the comedy series on my blog...
Resteemed, followed and upvoted!
Perhaps opt-in advertising.
If you want to watch an ad, they have to give you some STEEM for it.
Provide incentive to you to watch it and compensate you for the intrusion.
I actually really like that model. Anytime I download a free game I understand that there will probably be ads. The developers put a lot of work in to the game and they should be compensated for their work. However, games that provide an incentive to watch the advertisement are doing it the right way in my opinion. I would love to see some statistics on advertising revenue of systems that give an incentive to users to watch ads vs. systems that force ads on their users.
The problem is though that then people will try to game the system and you will get 'professional' ad watchers, which isn't very good from the advertisers perspective.
Ad agencies are a piece of ass. My problem with them is the way they waste your time when you are online and keep shoving the shit into your face even when you don't need them. But If for any reason, ads have to run on steemit, they should have specific tags where one can go to, and rummage through, for whatever it is they want. No body appreciates being coerced in anyway.
Nice information, thanks for sharing.
Like you, I can't see adverts making it onto Steemit, because it'd never get "voted in" by the community.
But, that's traditional advertising. What about content created by a business?
Smart businesses aren't advertising on social media now - they're creating content around their brand - inserting their brand into the conversation.
What would your thoughts be on this? What if an existing Steemit account, with lots of followers was posting "branded content", like an influencer on Instagram does? What if a business was contributing to the Steemit community and, rather than blatantly advertising with "buy our product/service" posts, was inserting their brand into the conversation?
You could argue that every photographer and artist on Steemit is "advertising" every time they post their work.
I'm with you on not wanting traditional advertising on Steemit, but marketers adapt to any environment. I think what we'll see is that the community will vote with their actions, and it'll come down to a value exchange between entertainment and attention.
I agree @m-ssed-t.
We need to define advertising although we could take the approach it is all advertising. Arent many of us on here building a brand through out writings and interactions? Hence, when we go out "promoting" ourselves via networking, arent we doing the same thing? Sure it isnt a pop up ad, but we are still trying to attract people to our blog (which can have a monetary value).
As for the first part, certainly there is nothing wrong with that. I think smart companies/individuals do that...mix the promotion in with the story line.
If we want to remain censorship free then certainly we need to allow corporations to operate on Steemit. And some may even bring value. As far as actual advertisements go I would hate to see that happen here, but I don't believe anyone has the right to tell others what they can and can't do with their blogs.
However, if the community is by-and-large against advertising they simply won't upvote (and could even flag) those who include advertisements on their blogs. Once that happens it's no longer worth it for the blogger or the advertiser to place advertisements...at least on that particular blog.
So, the good thing we have here (vs YT and FB) is that the community actually does have a say in the usage of advertisements.
Now, what if Steem Inc were to decide to add advertisements to everyone's blog?
Great post..Keep it up...
I appreciate your post..Actually your post ..I follow your post...
Thanks for sharing...
I will wait for new post..
You do realise that if you actually wrote decent comments rather than spam, you might actually make some money right?