Let's Talk About Steem Freedom of Speech, Misflagging and @dan

in #steemit6 years ago (edited)

I really need to get this out of my system, because I am pretty disappointed and angry right now after experiencing censorship for writing a mildly critical piece about EOS which you can read here.

egg-583163_1920.jpg
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you're not in the mood for statistics and a rant, then maybe skip this post. Some might argue that one man's censorship is another mans disagreeance. We might have to agree to disagree on that.

Let's get real honest here for a moment.

Most people who are new to Steemit end up leaving, or joining and never becoming active users of the platform. User retention on Steem is a HUGE problem, the blockchain doesn't lie.

Thankfully @arcange provides regular statistic posts on all things Steem and I highly recommend you give him a follow, it's insightful stuff.

As someone who has been following these statistic posts since I joined, one thing that is consistent with the numbers is retention is quite poor. As we can see in the latest statistics post, user registrations are growing, but the number of active users not so much.

I have only been a member for just over four months now and I am not going to sugarcoat it: Steemit has been incredibly hard for me. I completely get why people leave.

No matter how well you write or effort you put into producing top-notch content, unless you're willing to invest thousands of dollars to buy yourself a seat at the table, your early days on Steem result in earning dust or if you're lucky you might earn pennies.

As a newbie you're met with resistance at every turn. You learn pretty quickly that the trending page is full of people who paid to be there and you also learn that whales mostly self-vote their own posts and rarely engage in the Steem community.

I have put in considerable amounts of effort, time and money into attempting to succeed here. I pride myself on spellchecking my content, rarely using bots and attempting to publish consistently high-quality posts. I also engage by commenting and upvoting other peoples content.

I do absolutely everything I can to make this place decent. Considering the amount of spam and rampant abuse dominating this platform, I am in a small minority of users who aren't trying to exploit the platform for their own selfish reasons, money is not what is motivating me.

My motivations for succeeding on Steem are to reach a new audience, write about topics I am interested in, help people and contribute to what I think is a fantastic idea. The monetary benefits are just a side effect of helping the platform succeed. The problem of how to monetise content has been something that has plagued media well before Steem was even conceived.

My personal blog which received over 100k unique visitors per month even with non-intrusive ads was hardly making anything. Comparatively, if you have 100k followers on a Steem account, it would equate to more than the few dollars I was making per month on my blog.

Which is why receiving a downvote from Dan Larimer who goes by the handle @dan here in what I can only discern is him not liking the negativity levelled towards EOS has left a sour taste in my mouth.

It's demotivating, it might only be one downvote, but knowing that we're not free to give opinions on overhyped cryptocurrencies like EOS without fear of being flagged really does turn knots in my stomach.

That's both the beauty and the flaw of Steem, being able to flag anyone for whatever reasons you see fit. I do think when you're someone of Dan's stature that a flag should be a last resort, especially when your reputation and voting power are higher than that of the person you're flagging.

This flag undoes a small bit of progress I have made here on Steem, but it won't stop me. And I do not care about the rewards on the post, it was only going to make a cents anyway.

It's the visibility I care about and when my opinion is silenced because someone disagrees, especially when that someone is in charge of a billion dollar crypto project called EOS it just highlights the issues plaguing this platform.

Do I think flags have a purpose?

Absolutely. I strongly believe that flags are needed and essential to the Steem platform, but I also think they should only be used in the following circumstances:

  • Spam
  • Illegal and questionable content (terrorism, hate speech, racism)
  • Copyright infringement
  • Plagiarism and theft (copy/pasted articles, stolen content)
  • Heavy abuse of the reward pool (also known as disagreement on rewards)

In fact, when you click the flag icon the popup actually lists some common reasons to flag:

  • Disagreement on rewards
  • Fraud or Plagiarism
  • Hate Speech or Internet Trolling
  • Intentional miss-categorized content or Spam

Do I believe that someone deserves to be flagged for sharing their opinion on something that someone else might not agree with? Absolutely not. Every time I have ever flagged, it has been primarily because of spam or plagiarism.

And to back that up, if you go and read the comments posted on my linked piece about EOS, you can see people have shared their thoughts and I have disagreed with some people, but I never once flagged them. I am a strong believer in people being able to have an opinion on something, even if I disagree with them.

And it's behaviour like this that deters people from trying to succeed on Steem. Knowing that one day your world can come crashing down when a power user decides they don't like what you've written and flag you for it. Actions like these are part of the problem, not the solution.

But you know what? I won't be silenced. And while Dan might have given up on Steemit when he resigned from Steemit Inc last year, I don't give up that easily. I see succeeding on Steem and reaching the upper echelons of this platform as something I will strive to achieve (whether I succeed or fail).

I want to make Steem a better place so even people as well-regarded as Dan cannot damage users for having an opinion on something. I am one of the good guys, and I refuse to let the age-old adage of "good guys get left behind" to apply to me. I am fighting.

So, congratulations Dan. You silenced a critic and you stole a few cents from me. The blockchain never forgets.


Image credit Pixabay.

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As much as I did not agree with anything in your last post I am disappointed that it got flagged.

Healthy debate should be encouraged and is a good thing as opinions should be heard.

Absolutely @aclarkuk82 and while I know you and I "got into it" on my linked post, I appreciate that you felt comfortable speaking out and engaging in the debate that we had there. Because I might not have agreed with everything that you commented (and likewise yourself not agreeing with everything I posted), but I wholeheartedly respect you took the time to go back and forth with me, even if it did get a little heated at times. I think we kept it fairly reasonable.

That is just the name of the game here on Steem. Who knows, maybe SMT's and hard fork 20 will end up solving some of the issues on this platform. I know there are mostly certainly bigger issues here than getting flagged in disagreeance. I had to get it out of my system by writing this and I feel a lot better. This was the kind of therapy I needed to move past the shock.

I did not see it as a heated discussion, I saw it is two people discussing a topic they are passionate about, the line between passion and aggression is a thin one.

Do not let it get to you, I followed you straight​ after our exchange as you do have a good writing style (if not a little emotional ).

Chin up and fight the good fight and like I said at the end of my last post, no hard feelings at all.

Absolutely mate no hard feelings @aclarkuk82 I gave you a follow as well. Looking forward to crossing paths and engaging a little more in the future. I keep a keen on eye on my feed.

Wow, that's poor form from @dan

Specially when his EOS project has bugs in it

After raising more than a billion $

This is why I have much more fondness for Charles Hoskinson and Cardano. A far more humble guy who is building something to last

That's the name of the game sadly. I am sure you have learned in your time here that Steem is about as unforgiving as the desert, you could be dying of dehydration and begging for 1 SBD to buy a glass of water and most people would pass you over and watch you slowly crumble.

The bug situation is a funny one with EOS. Because it seems anyone who dares mention the recent news that EOS has serious security vulnerabilities ahead of its mainnet launch is attacked and silenced. The issue appears to have been fixed now, but according to this story the source also states, "It can be seen that in the BM, the existence of loopholes in EOS is a normal phenomenon." that is a bit concerning for a project with so much money.

Could you imagine if your bank said, "We've identified some security flaws in our banking system, but we've fixed them. There might be more because this normal" - you would be concerned. And arguably given the amount of money flowing into EOS, it needs to be held up to the kind of scrutiny that a bank or large financial institution would be. Unlike a bank, your EOS tokens are not insured and if they're lost due to a hack and unrecoverable, there is no guarantee you would get them back.

I have had my eyes on Cardano for a while. I don't own any, but Charles Hoskinson has been quiet and humbly building an impressive product. The first time I watched this video on Cardano with Charles, I was blown away how well he explained the concept.

People seem to forget that Cardano launched its SL mainnet back in Setepmber 2017. I also am a huge fan of the more open-source approach Cardano is taking by adopting a peer-reviewed approach to everything that they do, which in my opinion results in a less likely chance of bugs making its way into the main product.

I think EOS on paper sounds like a great project. I've read the whitepaper and technically, it wowed me what they're trying to achieve. I know for a fact I am not the only critic of EOS, many have used the words "ambitious" and "lofty" to describe EOS before. It's an untested concept making a tonne of promises and well, we've had enough of empty promises in crypto.

I also find it concerning EOS didn't put a cap on its ICO, surely they would have some idea of how much money they need to execute their concept? It just feels very unreasonable and irresponsible to have a capless ICO.

One question I do have about EOS is, where is the transaction data going to be stored? Because EOS is effectively implementing a centralised system (which is what gives them such high TPS), where is the data going to be stored and how?

I hope EOS succeeds, but as a developer and cautious investor, I am sceptical.

I wish I had the time to answer this now, but my family beckons.

EOS is not centralized at all, in fact, is the most distributed block producing (mining for POW systems) out there. Bitcoin and Ethereum are dominated by mining pools that own far too much of the hash rate and could (and most likely are) colluding. Asia own over 50% of the hashrate which is by definition, regionally centralized.

You mentioned you like stats, well he is a sexy little infographic for you


eos-eth.jpg


Then you need to remember that the term centralization or decentralization is not limited to signing blocks(or mining blocks). EOS puts the token holders (shareholders) in charge of voting in or out block producers at any time as long as tokens are staked into the voting system.

Yes people are scum bags and I am sure there will be some dodgy under the table deals, but that is just because humans are selfish greedy little shits, it is innate for us to be this way and nothing will change that. If you have watched the latest Avengers Movie, Thanos (that dude needs to hit the gym some time) had it right, but I digress.

The only real complaint I have about Dan is that although is an incredible thinker and underrated economist, he has too much faith in the human race. As you mentioned, Steem is completely​ overrun​ by bots, the system is completely​ broken and very easy to exploit. If there is a way to monetize​ and profit we will find a way,

I just wish Dan and Vitalik would work on a project together​, I know that Big V has started to comment on the EOS Githib which is fantastic news for the crypto community.

Right I have to run, the wife is screaming at me damn it

I disagree on two points (so I'll hone in on those :D)

  1. Thanos had a point, but he was not "right." He will figure that out in time. He has infinity to think about it, so.

  2. I submit that Dan has faith in the idea of having faith in the human race, which unfortunately means squat when you are dealing with actual humans. Real humans are constantly doing things you can't control, like publicly disagreeing with you when there is something at stake.

Faith in humanity would allow for such things to exist and trusting in a greater wisdom to emerge. When your faith is tested and you err on the side of silencing dissent, it's time to re-examine whether your actions line up with your beliefs.

Oh man, I love this. Not only is @beggars a smart fella, he has smart followers. Let the debate begin, (I promise not to hijack your post @beggars).

Right is an extremely subjective term, ( extremists think that blowing up infidels is right for example), it is also an amazing semantic discussion that no one will ever agree upon.

Thanos

I will go back to the beginning. Humans are animals (sorry any religious folks) and our sole purpose is to survive, that instant is part of our DNA. Society has forced the concept of marriage and monogamy ( which is not performing as expected) on us. So........ In the interest of brevity, we need to survive, overpopulation is a real and present danger. Thanos enforced the tough (but the right by the above definition ) to wipe out half the population so the remaining could live better lives.

Faith

Faith is (in my opinion) a fool's errand and by definition gambling. Success is rarely gained and moreover sustained by gambling on an idea. So I agree, Dan's faith is massively misplaced, (again let's look at the Steem bot non-sense).

I would agree that having faith in humanity is a great concept, but is is just that. Humans have proven time and time again that we are incapable of doing what is 'right' for the greater good as a whole. There are small pockets of amazing people and organizations out there, but they are not the people holding the chips.

PS, great response

Hehe I can't help myself either. It's glaringly obvious that Dan's flag was poor form, so it's much more fun to engage these bigger ideas.

I don't hold many absolute ideas about right and wrong. Is it right for a predator to kill prey? For the predator yes, for the prey species probably, for the prey individual no. Neither do I think you can escape the idea of right and wrong, if life is to go on.

If Thanos is right, then killing 50% of the universe gives conscious life forms the best chance to survive and thrive going forward. If Thanos is wrong, it's because letting them figure it out and survive or no based on natural consequences instead of arbitrary judgement gives conscious life forms the best chance to survive and thrive going forward. There is a consistent idea of the right result, just not the right means.

Faith and belief are problematic for me too, but still real and necessary. These are also based in our biology (as is the capacity to question them!) So when I walk, I have faith that the ground beneath my next step will be solid. I was not born with this belief, but I developed it as my biology adapted to my experience. I could not walk well otherwise!

Of course, I retained the ability to respond when my belief does not match my experience and the ground is not solid. It's clumsier and more difficult, but I can do it. In other words, both the ability to form beliefs and act on faith and the ability to suspend them and gather more data are a vital part of our biology.

So I have faith in humanity, realizing that the alternative is having faith in my own ability to control every outcome. I believe that evolution made us how we are and will continue to do so, sometimes painfully but generally for the best.

That doesn't mean I will trust a guy in a van offering free candy, or that I will believe a person who talks about free speech while using power to quiet dissent. If the ground does not feel solid beneath me, I am gonna watch my step.

P.S. Thank you for calling me smart!

Love it. Rather than steal the topic of this post, i will spin up another post to continue this, still lots to say :-)

While I think it is petty and silly to flag your post, it is not censorship. The post is still there.

You have a right to post not a right to earn.

Again, it was petty and stupid to flag it.

I'm gonna disagree with that. When I went to read the post, it's "hidden due to low ratings"

That's definitely suppression. Censorship doesn't always have to involve complete removal.

Disagreement noted! :) It could be a gray area I guess.

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