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Steem is decentralized. Steemit can’t be censored because it’s on the blockchain. Great concept, in theory. But I’ve seen it again and again, the abuse.
The flagging feature is the only tool to get rid of people who spam and plagiarize and those two groups are generally the only ones I flag (especially if it’s another dumbass who thought copy&pasting my posts would be a great idea).
But many, many people flag because they disagree with someone. Is that ok? Let’s ask the ones who implemented the flag feature, as every time you tap the symbol a helpful little guide pops up about what to flag:
• Disagreement on rewards
• Fraud or Plagiarism
• Hate Speech or Internet Trolling
• Intentional miss-categorized content or Spam
The only disagreement I see here is „disagreement on rewards“ which is, in my eyes, a bit tricky. Still, I’ve seen it more than once that someone flagged a comment without any reward just because they didn’t like what the commenter said. And I’m not talking about the dumb „nice post, upvot me pls“ comments. Those are spam and can be flagged to death.
Hate speech and internet trolling is tricky too, because something isn’t automatically one of the two just because you disagree. It requires a certain level of finesse I suppose.
But what I see over and over again is people with a high reputation and/or SP threatening to totally destroy somebody else, just because they don’t agree with their views.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to flag those I disagree with and there are a lot of them, especially on steemit. But I’m not the one who can decide what’s right or wrong, even if I think I know better than them. It’s just not my place.
But many think it’s their place. And as a result, they totally destroy accounts of users who didn’t do anything wrong (this does not include users who started a flag war. If you flag something that isn’t spam/plagiarism and get flagged back as a result… tough luck but you brought this upon yourself).
What I’m trying to say is that there are many extremely aggressive groups of people on steemit who search certain tags for people whose posts they disagree with just to flag those users down to zero, both in rep and payout.
This creates an atmosphere of fear, people become afraid of posting what they think. And when that happens, steemit will sooner or later stop getting new users, because nobody wants to be active on a platform where they can be destroyed for stating their view (agreeing or opposing) on a wide range of conspiracy theories.
I haven’t found a single of these theories I agree with. In fact, I’d be happier if they wouldn’t constantly be discussed on steemit. But especially the ones who believe those theories are true are incredibly aggressive. And while I generally try to follow the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The fact that people abuse their power to silence those who disagree makes me want to abandon this rule and flag them. I won’t. I said earlier I only flag spam and plagiarism/stolen content. But it makes me furious.
Because if you want free speech, you better grant it to everyone else too.
If not, you’re just another asshole and not better than those you claim to fight.
I completely agree with you on this. Members should not abuse their power to flag people down simply because they don't agree with what they say. If I come across a view I don't like or agree with, I just click next to another post. We are not here to agree or disagree with each, but to grow as a community that is free to express itself as long as we are not preaching hate, prejudice or abuse. I sometimes get the 'Follow me, I follow you' spams, but ignore t them because they're already on their way down to 0 rep with or without my flagging. People should really use this feature responsibility and for valid reasons.
Great post! I think that SMTs are potentially the solution to this. SteemIt.com is just the initial proof of concept site built around the Steem platform, but the idea has always been for other more niche communities to be built on top of it, separate from SteemIt.
SMTs will not only allow this, but also allow more control over the distribution of the Tokens, and therefore control over moderation, to the community creators.
The problem will never go away, but hopefully in the future we will be able to pick and choose which Steem-based communities we want to be a part of based on whatever criteria you want, one of which can be how open the community is to different points of view.
This is one of the biggest things I look forward to with SMTs, and I hope to create one or more such communities myself if no one else does it first!
I hope you're right and it will make it better
We are suppose to keep an open mind in this community , We can freely debate as to who is right or wrong . But the hypocrisy is visible when we take praises but flag criticism .Thats really mature, if you think about it the whole crypto currency thing came about when we started questioning the norm! i don't understand how a member steemit doesn't grasp this.
I wasn't fully aware about these "flag wars" but you put it very well; everyone should have a freedom to express their opinions as long as it isn't hate speech, trolling ect. no matter how ridiculous they might seem.
Flagging should be left for what it's for: to eliminate spam and plagiarism, not to be used as childishly expressing hate or disagreement on people for their opinions by ruining their rewards.
It's not even the rewards in many cases, some get flagged to a rep of 0 or even negative values. It's possible to recover from a $0.00 payout, but try coming back from a -1 reputation without the help of friends!
Ah, I didn't even realize the reputation being hurt! That makes it even worse for them who get targeted by unreasonable hate.
There's a similar issue on Reddit - downvotes were designed to be used for people who didn't contribute to the discussion or were being toxic. Instead it's used as a button for people who disagree. I think some people legitimately have a hard time understanding the difference between a respectful disagreement and something that's toxic or not a useful contribution.
This is indeed one of the biggest challenges here.
Quote "This creates an atmosphere of fear, people become afraid of posting what they think."
Well, when there is no change in the flag-system we need to find a different solution. This could be realized not by fighting the bad but by empowering the good. It must be done in a transparent and honest way to keep this platform healthy, bcs otherwise steemit would end up like a brain-dead patient kept alive by machines...
I agree 100%! But who determines who's "good" and deserves that power? And how long until those "good" people start being influenced by their own opinions and remove/flag content they just don't agree with?
We'd have the same problem we have right now, just with less possibilities to fight against it.
I think it's way too easy for those with a lot (and I mean a lot) of SP to dictate what everyone else does. Maybe there needs to be a limit to how much SP influences a flag. Like beyond a certain amount the flagging power stops rising.
You are absolutely right - the big fish eats the smaller. This is a fact in the real life as well as in steemit. So, flagging should be only used for plagiarism, violence or something else that undermine the (unwritten) rules of a modern society. but there must be a possibility to stop the abuse of flagging. This is not the case at the moment! There must be clear rules when a flag is used too extensively. Somebody who flags down a person of a high rep lvl to "dust" must let an internal alarm system BURN! It should be impossible to destroy the reputation of a member within seconds.
Pls correct me if I am wrong, but for flagging could be an extra timeout installed maybe?
Maybe there should be a limit to how much a certain person can damage another one's reputation. By doing that, flagging someone down would really be a community effort.
Then again, there are communities of spammers (!) with significant reputations who could counter a flagging of one of their own...
It's really tricky.
When I received my first flag, it was like - what the hell, what have I done but then I came to a realization - there are forces of evil without any fun.
Ps. Thanks for your perspective! You described it very well. Especially the quote, it fits right in.
How about a downvote bot that only downvotes excessive downvoters?
Of course, I'm kidding, but I have always disagreed with people flagging content simply to adjust the reward. I think that is pretty petty behavior, and I agree that Steemit is worse off for it.
You are right, but what could be a solution for this problem? Flags feature have to exist here (spam, plagiarism etc.), but it can lead to a similar situation as you are talking about. I, personally, have no clue how to fix this issue.
I don't have a solution either, as the best solution would be if people stopped being huge dicks to each other. But will that happen? Unlikely.
Maybe a feature where one could just "report" spam which is then checked by someone official? It would take the power away from abusers but would also make everything less decentralized...
And of course you'd need someone (better a whole team, like steemcleaners) to do that. Who pays for this?
I think as long as steemit is a decentralized and (practically) free service, there is no real better solution. Not without making a lot of people very angry.
And it's the angry people that are fucking everything up right now for everyone else.
I imagine it could potentially be a democratic system like the witnesses here. People can be voted into position as cleaners and they get income based on their actions keeping track of the reports. It would certainly be a big job though, but require less 'expertise' like a witness so more would be available to take part.
I don't expect such a thing to happen based on steemit's track record, but one can dream
It actually sounds like a viable option!
An easy solution could be to make flagging a post cost 10% of your total VP, this will make flagging less likely to happen unless it is really needed. Also VP given back in a reverse fashion if many flag the same item. So 1st flagger loses 10% and when the second person flags the 1st flagger gets back .25% VP.
I don't think to many are going to want to give up 10% of their VP for something that they just don't like. Also another feature could be a drop down that makes you choose why you flagged the post. So you have to state why you flagged it. If someone clicks plagiarism as their reason and it was not plagiarized then the flag gets removed. There are many ways to solve the problem it just takes a majority want to implement the change.
That's a good idea. I think the technical solution combined with consequences and give reason for flagging would take out much of the emotions.
When you say "it takes a majority" - what will happen when this majority would vote for your solution? And who is in charge?
In our German steemit community I just recently supported a member who has programmed a really good application as a service for the users Steemworld.
If this is just a technical problem, it would be easy. But it isn't as I guess? I am not long enough a member to judge that.
I am attempting my own solution to this called @freezepeach. It is a service where people can submit opinion flags to be upvoted and resteemed. The goal isn't to reward posts that have been flagged for difference of opinion, but to neutralize the rewards taken away by the flag.
The account may look inactive on the surface since it was announced weeks ago, but there are big things happening in the background, such as custom voting tool development (to match flags exactly), delegation app to make it easy for the community to help out, and official support from the largest steemit community on discord.
That closing sentence. Pure gold.
I couldn't agree more. The question is whether they do care being just another a-hole or not. I doubt they do, sadly enough.
At a certain amount of power, people stop caring about others I guess. Not always, but in too many cases.
I have seen certain profiles who are in war with others and get flagged only because of that. May be the war would have started sometimes back, and has reached to a level where each party is not willing to leave the ego because of the position they are in.
In general, its not good to cross paths with those angry people as you mentioned. No common solution , just a good common sense is all that needed.
It's almost sad. I've felt that kind of hate too so I know why it happens. But a flag war can't and shouldn't be the solution.
Maybe we need a steemit-mediation team that tries to solve fights like that.
They say, if you just put their name in your post, you get flagged by their enemies. It has gone to such a level. I don't want to even spell their name here because of that 💔
Search for a profile with reputation -19, if you can.
-19? That's extreme! And I didn't name any people on purpose as it's a problem with the whole system and there will always be new people to abuse it.
I think that steemit need an another option: Vote is similar as like button in other social media platforms but in steemit there is no unlike button the flag option is like a report button.When people dont like something they click on unlike but they cant do it on steemit.
Separation payout and reputation from each other might be the way to go. You could flag rep and downvote payment. This might reduce the amount of abuse a bit. Maybe.
I am among those still trending very carefully in fear of what can be done by being flagged or down votes. I am in place where I choose careful what to comment, how and where to comment. This is because I understand that not even a positive platform like steemit can heal hate or sometimes pure malice. My worry is... Is there something that can be done to people with the ability to ruin good accounts over egoism? Thanks for sharing!
Also a firm believer in this saying. Except there is a difference between having a different opinion and purposeful targeting of another. The limit of freedom of speech should be at blocking it for another.
Exactly!
I have many different opinions, but I am fearing to post. Because flagging option.
I think the flag is not fair for steemit. one person or user can destroy all others hard works or steemit platform using flag option.
Indeed a great article "To allow Ignorance to be ignored perpetuates ignorance and many remain ignorant."
Great writeup
Thank you kindly
Wonderful post
So what's your opinion?
This happens on centralized social media as well, the difference is there are no back doors into Steemit, in a democracy no one has the right to spy on other people privacy.
Well, no real privacy here either, people can even look into your wallet :P
Nice opinion @suesa
wow, really well written and i agree with the points you pointed out :)
lets keep our steemit ''clean'' :)
"Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity"
That's basically why I won't flag them.. It will only increase the aggression.
But yeah, I didn't really expect anything after I saw the whale flag wars. I just needed to get my opinion out cause it frustrates me so much.
But if like someone continuously flag you for every post to zero payout and marked as spam post........ i guess it would be too frustrated and not fight back (?)
I mean, its just really pointless to use logic and debate with someone who is not going to discuss with you logically.
(I don't mean we should fight back, but frankly i don't really have a good solution to it)
Yeah idk.. I'll just hope I'll never be in that position
Even thought steemit is using the blockchain, sensoring of a different type ie for example the DDOS attack couple days back is happening.... I consider it’s a form of sensorship and there has to be methods in place to track them as well
A ddos attack is not censorship as everything is still there.
if a particular news item or a service is to be disrupted for a short while or a period of time - there are couple of ways. Sensoreship by blocking with the keywords (at the application layer of internet with proxies), blocking with the IP addresses, use DMCA take down tactics used by the likes of MPAA. If none of that works a entity either a nation state or someone else can trigger a DDoS attack targetted at the news outlet/IP range/hosts or entire data center taking down the content.. In the recent times nation elements have tagetted massive DDoS attacks of GB/ps in size to take down targets. Counter DDoS companies like Cloudflare are also doing their job by providing PB scale networks to prevent DDoS. For entities like Steemit its eseential and mandatory to have DOS and DDoS prevention, availability over ToR, i2p etc to prevent any and all forms to censorship including but not limited to DDoS
Excellent post. Thank you for clarifying. The last thing I'd like to see is the loss of caring for each other like what has been happening on Facebook for a long time. I really feel and enjoy the maturity, kindness, and respect that is cultivated and upheld on Steemit. I also like the way porn is handled here. I'd like to see Steemit remain free and respectful to everyone's tastes around the globe.
Gee I didn't think that it was that bad... really?
I'm not sure if you're asking if that's really happening or if I'm serious about thinking that it's really bad. Care to elaborate so I can answer accordingly? :)
As in the flaggers here, people who come together just bring others down.
Yeah that happens a lot more often than than one might want to imagine.. It sucks a lot in my opinion.
It happens everywhere on the web but I feel like it's a lot more aggressive around here cause there's money tied to it.
That's scary since I always saw Steemit as nothing but a positive community.
I guess we need to make some changes.
I think one method of solving this problem is to remove the right of a bot to downvote a post. The only valid downvotes must come from real people. If that was done then it would not be long before someone came up with a tool showing everyone who downvoted who.
Oh there are already tools that show who downvoted. People just don't care and often do it in person.
Very interesting topic you bring up @suesa,
I would encourage people to just use the "mute" button if you disagree with the content, that way you don't have to even see stuff from people you don't agree with. What do you think about that idea? Out of sight = Out of mind.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
Yes, that's what I usually do.
Please don't take this wrong, yes I know that is what you usually do, or at least in my case with you.
I take no offense to being muted by you on your feed, our opinions may differ and you did the respectable option of muting me rather than launching a flagging attack as some others might have been inclined to do.
So, while we may differ on some subjects I have the utmost respect for your integrity and wanted to point out another viable option , previously not mentioned, that you used in the correct way.
I also will try to refrain from any additional comments as it appears comments are not muted.
I continue to follow you because I believe you offer good information , like this topic being discussed.
@sultnpapper
Comments are muted but shown for a split second when I re-load. I actually don't even remember why I muted you cause I tend to mass-mute in the science tag. So I unmuted you again till I either remember the reason or you give me one.
People dont have power unless you define it as power. When you are depending on the "Money" well... then they have some power. If you dont care about the "Money" and the Effekts of their flagging, then there is nothing. Information is in your Mind and can be replicated a million times, like a virus with primitive rna. Wether your Information will spread like a virus or not is an other thing. ... what i mean: replikate it and spreat it else where if you want it to be heared. It is sad but thats the way some people behave and will behave. Those are the costs of libertarian anarcho-like systems
Most people are here because of the money though. I have almost reached the amount I need so I can stop worrying soon, but others have their livelihood tied to this.
Theoretical constructs are great and stuff, but steemit is, sadly, not the information sharing utopia many want it to be.
Good post !
is this post connected with the flat and smooth thing that was going on recently?
No comment. There's a reason I didn't name names. My post might have been written because of a certain event but the issue has bothered me for over two months now.
Ill kill anyone who touches you suesa, remember that.
That's surprisingly charming 😜
You're absolutely right. (I hope to read again the debunking series of the guy-who-shall-not-be named). I checked his blog and thankfully his reputation is recovering somehow. I'm not an optimist but I do really hope that flagging wouldnt be a tool for bullying. Cheers to freedom.
Hello @suesa, I can edit out this post and make it a generic comment if you like. I know you do not like spam, but I thought that you might be interested in this one, I apologize if I was wrong.:
As you know I enjoy reading, I just wanted to let you know that @pibara has started a new fiction writers lottery for minnow authors, if you know of any minnow authors it would be nice if you could share this information with them. He is working with the minnowboosters people on this. Here is the link to the contest.
I'll keep it in mind :)
I am still new here, but I have witnessed some terribly unfair flagging practices already. People are being destroyed because they write something that someone disagrees with, and then have a whole party of people come in to flag? That's bullying. Straight up. That's gang activity :( And that is not right.
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Change your comment to something useful (also called "not spam") and I'll refrain from flagging you.
I was referring to the first comment where you advertised your scam. And tbh, too little, too late. I already checked out your scam and consider you a danger for the community. Your spam comment will stay flaggend and I'll mute you so I don't have to see you anymore.