Ticking time-bomb? Could this be the end of Steemit?

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

Ticking time-bomb? Could this be the end of Steemit?

So, I've been thinking about a hypothetical situation just recently, and the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering if it's not just a question of if this will happen, but when...

What would happen if illegal images, or any other data for that matter were posted to Steemit?

And by posted, I don't just mean hot-linked from another site, but actually embedded in the Steem blockchain. I'm not sure exactly how much data can be stored in one post, but it must be a reasonable amount, and any files larger than this could just be split across multiple posts.

Steemit itself wouldn't interpret the content and display it, but it would be pretty obvious to anyone in the know what the content was and how to decode it.

Once the authorities got wind of the fact that Steemit was hosting illegal content, how long could it survive? Although the Steem blockchain itself couldn't be shut down as it's decentralized, the steemit.com website is a much easier target, and the Steem blockchain isn't much use without a front-end to communicate with it.

Perhaps I'm being a little paranoid, but if something is possible, given enough time, it probably will happen.

As a proof of concept, here's some binary data, forever embedded in the Steem blockchain...
(It's a png base64 encoded)

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This scenario has already been tested with bitcoin and nothing has came of it. Unless you are the political enemy of a third world dictator, the burden of proof is to show that a person could reasonably know that the content was in the chain. Bitcoin has all kinds of binary data in it but very little in the way of prosecution or censorship based on the content of the data. If a regime wants to ban bitcoin, it is much easier for it to just make a law banning the use of digital currencies.

With Bitcoin though, the blockchain data is fairly hidden away. With Steem, the blockchain data is exposed for the world to see, since that's how it inherently works. That's why I'm more worried about the potential for abuse with Steem.

The Steem blockchain is decentralised, so no content can be blocked there. But Steemit.com the website is centralised, so the admins could block at that level if required. The offending content would merely be filtered out, the same way as much content is filtered/removed from the internet today.

Google, for example, automatically indexes all content, but is frequently asked to remove some content. Similar with Steem and Steemit. The Steem blockchain would contain all content, but Steemit would not index some of it.

The dodgy parties could still use the blockchain for storage if they wanted I suppose and nothing could be done about it as it's decentralised, but yeah, the website would be safe as the offending content would simply be filtered.

The Steem blockchain would contain all content, but Steemit would not index some of it.

...would not present some of it - I think that's more accurate.

nice work :)

Someone mentioned on chat that blockchain content gets removed after 30 days. Is this true? If so, maybe it's not the end of the world! :)

Blockchains retain information for life (unless pruned).

This is only the beginning of Steemit

If a third party went after the Steemit website infrastructure, some folks would be quick to build a decentralized browser.

Actually, I'm pretty sure someone already made that.

Maybe @xeroc?