This topic of discussion has been hashed and rehashed on Hive over and over and over again, but hopefully despite all that I can bring in a fresh viewpoint. At the core of this often emotional and publicly dramatic issue is the idea of:
You downvoted me and that's censorship!
And there are some good points to be made about why this is true. If a post gets downvoted to zero then most frontends choose to hide it from view or put it farther down the list. Getting downvoted into negative rep is the same story: entire platforms will censor your comments behind a click-wall and other users have to dig in order to see what was actually said. For every user that would have read the comment but didn't (because of the click-wall) amounts to deboosted censorship at a basic algorithmic and statistical level, kind of like getting shadow-banned or echo-chambered on a WEB2 platform (which is common for the #hive tag on Twitter).
On the other side of the coin the arguments for why downvotes are NOT censorship are even better in my opinion. If you sign the message with your private key and you pay the posting cost (RCs) then the message will live on the blockchain forever and there's nothing anyone can do about it. How could such an outcome be censorship? The information is right there on chain for anyone to see. Forever.
What is the definition of censorship?
We must conclude that the main point of contention revolving around this issue is simply a clash around what the word "censorship" actually means (that and all the visceral emotional reactions that revolve around flag wars). There are many forms of censorship, and more often than not when two groups are arguing about these things they give "censorship" the definition that suits the argument that they happen to be making at the time.
Within the context of crypto and specifically Bitcoin or any other non-social-media asset censorship resistant means being able to broadcast a message and not have that message be blocked. When we send Bitcoin to someone else using POW mining, we don't care how many people view that operation on-chain. The message was sent; the value was transferred. End of story. Censorship was thwarted.
Those who issue downvotes and engage in this argument tend to employ this definition of censorship because obviously why wouldn't you? Can't be censorship because the message can be pulled up with any block explorer. Argument won.
Of course this ignores the actual goal of writing a post on Hive. The goal is to get views and spread the message. When an event happens that lessens the number of people that will see the message... that is also censorship. Of course both these definitions of censorship are completely different but just so happened to be employed within the same argument by two different sides... so the usage of the word itself becomes largely meaningless.
There are dozens of random third-party sites out there that will tell you if you've been ghosted on web2 platforms like Twitter. Everyone on Hive seems to be in consensus that being shadow-banned is censorship. Some even go so far as to claim that these are first-amendment violations (which ends up being a bit of a stretch because they are private companies but there is still a lot of merit to the argument).
When Blackrock flexes their muscle and broadcasts a message through the mainstream media and silences dissent we all agree it is censorship/propaganda. When advertisers and sponsors pull their funding because the company they are marketing through did or said something they don't like we all agree that's censorship.
What I'm saying here is that there are many examples of censorship being directly correlated with the manipulation of economic incentives. And yet there are a lot of people on Hive who understand all of this quite well but continue issue downvotes under the guise of, "No I'm not censoring anything I'm just 'equalizing the reward pool'," and whatnot. That's not really an argument made in good faith... or maybe it is because of all our previous conditioning.
Wrongful conditioning
Users like us who are heavy into crypto pretty much across the board have basically been conditioned into thinking that all censorship is bad no matter what and all centralization is bad no matter what. However, centralization is only bad if it has led to corruption within the system, and censorship is only bad when the thing being censored shouldn't be.
Nobody thinks it's a good idea for pedophiles to be able to store child-porn on the blockchain and have the data immutable for anyone to access at any time. Should we censor child-porn? Obviously yes. Who would ever even attempt to counter-point that unless they themselves were a pedophile that wanted access to child-porn? Ew. Go away. Please and thank you.
The concept that censorship is bad no matter what is obviously a false pretense born from an overreaction to the legacy system we are trying to overthrow. Censorship is only bad when the entity engaged in it does it in bad faith for personal gain. Of course many downvoters on Hive get accused of this exact thing... which we have to admit is a pretty bullshit argument considering that rewards just get returned to the reward pool and that casting downvotes has a very high chance of pissing people off and creating a flag-war situation in which everyone loses money.
It's very difficult if not impossible to censor content on Hive for personal gain on a financial level. The argument can be made that users with large stake are power-tripping and running around with a short-man-complex but that's another matter entirely.
Who's censoring who?
There's yet another vantage point to all of this as well. If I downvote someone to zero and they accuse me of censorship, I can deflect that blame onto the frontends because at the end of the day it's not my personal decision what gets curated and what doesn't. Imagine if I created a frontend for Hive that only showed content that got downvoted. After making such a product I could claim that not only was the content not censored, but it was boosted and I'm doing them a favor. That's next-level gas-lighting right there baby.
And yet I'd still be in the right.
The entity that controls how information is displayed on peakd.com is 100% dependent on the entity that controls peakd.com. The same is true for any Hive frontend such as hive.blog, ecency, leofinance, liketu, etc. If someone gets downvoted and deboosted from the frontends... that's really not the downvoters fault but the people running the frontends. The frontends have the ultimate say about what gets shown and in what order it will be displayed in. I've never seen someone complaining about downvotes/censorship come to terms with this reality. Such is the decentralized network of Hive. I don't make the rules.
Are people who get downvoted totally full of shit?
My experience with all of this is that they absolutely are a large percentage of the time. They'll spin these grand tales of persecution and censorship. They just "want to get their message out there" to help the world. Blah blah blah bullshit. They are complaining because they "lost money". It's obvious. If there was a button that flushed all blog rewards to zero for more pageviews: they wouldn't push the button.
You know how I know? Because, among many other telling situations, Hive is a very small network with very small reach. You can't really get censored on Hive because the number of people that can actually read the message in the first place rounds to zero in the face of bigger web2 entities like youtube, facebook, and twitter. If the goal was the spread the message at all costs then Hive is a stupid place to be at the moment. Obviously I hope this won't be the case for long but it is what it is. I won't pretend to be blind to make a point.
Conclusion
Censorship has many definitions, especially when conflating the transference of wealth with social-media influence. Be mindful about what definition is being used when the topic of resistance pops up. Without fail debaters will use the definition that suits their argument without even thinking about it.
Manipulating financial reward and censorship go hand in hand. This has already been proven beyond any doubt via web2 systems, gigantic hedge funds, and sponsorship/funding issues. The scientific method itself has been grossly manipulated by capitalism in this exact way.
Frontends have the ultimate say in all things curation. If leofinance decides to start running a 24/7 feed of cute cat videos nobody can stop @khaleelkazi from doing it. There's an extreme disconnect in the understanding of how this all works. Frontends are not required to create a trending tab payed on post payouts. They can do whatever the hell they please.
All censorship is not bad. Censorship is great, and that's going to become more and more apparent as crypto grows in strength and all kinds of crazy uncensorable content is floating around. Mark my words: be careful what you wish for. The Wild West of crypto isn't winding down. It's winding up. The regulators that think they are going to reign in the entire ecosystem are self-important dinosaurs at the end of their rope.
Wouldn't say a downvote is censorship at all. It's a reputational hit, for sure within this realm.
Content that gets upvotes or an upvote from a prominent HP holder tends to become more viral and possibly most importantly - read.
A post with only 5 upvotes and generating less than .01 HBD after 12 hours is likely being read by only 1-2 people maximum.
If I see a prominent community member upvote a post of mine, I generally know that I'll see a lot of tag-along botted upvotes to follow and that there will be people who choose to read it since it hits trending or hot.
The content on here is generally all over the place and the quality varies GREATLY, but the upvotes do not necessarily reward quality or anything that would necessarily spark discussion. One of the limitations is that some of the content would be more suited for a blockchain version of Instagram rather than a blog post. The forced interconnected nature of the community is something that needs to be addressed to improve the quality of this experience.
PeakD/Hive.Blog should be more like a blockchain answer to Medium/SubStack. In a way, the centralization effort of OCD has done more harm than good in this case. Breaking up the content and promoting different avenues that are within the Hive blockchain is the way to go. Some communities/tribes may be wise to reinvent themselves rather than just merely being a carbon copy of what already exists, but with a separate token to be earned.
Gangs benefit their leaders the most, and disadvantage everybody not willing to join.
I've been pointing this out to them since 2017.
You can imagine their response.
Downvoting can be very dangerous when used incorrectly. I have seen that it is used as a weapon against certain individuals. Then, it is not about the information anymore but a group with enough power to downvote articles with the purpose of harming the author. I, therefore, agree with you that it is very sensitive and must be used with good reason. Thanks for your article.
Elon Musk has expressed it best:
"Freedom of Speech but not Freedom of Reach"
Sounds better than that infamous quote from an African or so dictator "There is freedom of speech, but not freedom after speech" :)
Is being a dick considered an event. :D
There aren't competing definitions of censorship. There are authoritative lexicons that have provided the definition for centuries. Censorship is the suppression of speech.
Simple.
Censorship is necessary to Hive, because it is the mechanism by which spam, scams, and plagiarism are prevented. That's why the front ends put up a click wall when reputation drops to zero, because that hides the spam, scams, and plagiarism.
Opinion flagging abuses these mechanisms that protect Hive and is harmful. Oligarchs that abuse these mechanisms do profit from it, because oligarchs extract the majority of rewards from the pool. Most of the rewards they deny the censored end up in their wallets. This has dramatically prevented Hive from growing, and this has caused outside interest in the platform to wane, which protects the big fish in our little pond from the vastly bigger fish that would swallow it up, as Steem proved.
I agree with your conclusion, but note the dinosaurs own the only means for crypto to transact. If your wallet is a key that unlocks your crypto, the internet is the keyhole it must navigate through to do so. We need independent means of communication if we are going to be able to transact freely and the legacy financial system does not want us to, because they can deny us the use of their wholly owned internet to transact on.
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The freedom of Hive means you can downvote for your own reasons, but the posts will still be there. Someone could make a front end that ignores downvotes. There is this that shows who has been hit the most.
We get plenty of feuds here. Some big accounts can expect to have any post sent to zero. We can't do much about that, but as a DV is more expensive than an upvote there should be limits to the damage.
Front ends may need to block stuff if it breaks local laws where they host the site. Images are off-chain and those who host them can delete if they deem it necessary.
It seems Twitter is blocking some content that may be considered political opinion, so Musk must be in favour of that. They will get take-down notices all the time for various stuff.
BTW On St--m my account appears to have no posts or comments as they blocked it for my criticism of the company.
Hello @edicted ,
What's my down vote category?
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https://peakd.com/hive-122315/@artgrafiken/nwo-brave
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