If you are following me, there is a good chance you have read the unfortunate saga I am involved in (thanks to all those who upvoted that post). My last post was going to be my final post, but now that the bad actors in this little drama have come forward and identified themselves, I might just serve up some more pudding!
A couple weeks ago, I shed some light on the bot @abusereports with this post. That bot was created and is supported by at least two bad actors, @nextgencrypto and @berniesanders and there may be others but the point being, I have identified large self-upvote abuse by this "team"of bad players, which is the same premise this bot operates on... Identifying and shaming bad Steemit actors.
$929.99 Pilfered From "YOUR" Rewards Pool Last Week!
What I was able to find this week was that @abusereports (mostly through consistent self-upvotes by the same team) rewarded themselves with $929.99 (+/-) over the last 7 days. Last month I was able to calculate rewards totaling $7,869.52 over a 25 day period (amounts taken from published rewards). I guess you can say this shady group has discovered their own little get-rich-quick niche! Below is a snippet of the list of bad voters that always seem to be upvoting @abusereports posts. They also flag together as also seen in the bottom snippet.
According to Steemit's own "Terms of Service," para 14.1.1 states: "Use of our Services in any manner that could interfere with, disrupt, negatively affect, or inhibit other users from fully enjoying our Services, or that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the functioning of our Services in any manner; is prohibited. As far as I'm concerned, that shoe fits!
If this bot's main purpose was truely to "protect and preserve" the Steemit rewards pool, and did so honorably by refusing payouts, that would truely be commendable (I've said that before!) But to identify and report all other bad actors (some subjectively), and then profit on the same by multiple self-upvotes, multiple times per day, and day after day, is just hypocritically deplorable. It is also distressing to the Steemit platform and that is not a good thing.
Now, attempts are being made to silence my account and just this morning I received a somewhat veiled threat on Steemit-chat (by one of the bad actors himself.) All is not lost though as long as I'm still standing on high ground! So now, if I never accomplish anything else on Steemit, I would simply like everyone to know how fragile your freedom of expression has become here on Steemit. What is also lost is freedom of speech and the ability to voice your real concerns. When a handful of people can stymie thoughts and exert as much negative influence as they do, and to do so without facing any real repercussion, the platform is no longer decentralized and is in danger. In this votes screenshot below, the team is attacking fellow Steemian @mmmmkkkk311 because his comment has called them out also. I've noticed this day that some supporting comments to me have also been flagged.
The idea that Steemit will NOT step up and fix these types of issues is troublesome to me and many others. Most bystanders will not step up and speak up out of fear of reprisal, and that is understandable. And I understand Steemit wanting to remain at arm's length solely for the purpose of the perception of "de-centralization," but some bridges must always be defended and sometimes crossed, at any cost. In this case, by only a couple of the not-so-mighty few.
Maybe Steemit just hasn't matured enough to realized that yet.
I've declined payout for this post because it too will be voted down, but if you feel the need to reward this post, you can always donate. But you could really do the entire Steemit even better by resteeming... that's entirely up to you.
I think mr. Sanders clearly revealed himself that in comments made on post that he is aware that you criticism is accurate.
He and his bot upvote themselves and respond with gratuitous downvotes and constant abuse against any criticism. Thus engaging heavily in both behaviors that the bot is said to be meant to fight.
Hopefully you can get one or a few bigger accounts engaged in this issue. If somehow enough people with power can get engaged in this then their operation can be shut down.
Not holding my breath for it to happen but if it did it would be a victory for all of steemit.
Thanks @vagrantone... and Steemit needs a victory right about now. I have since dug up so many more facts pointing to multiple accounts, non-blogging voting accounts, large transfers between accounts, etc, etc. To begin with, taking the account name Bernie Sanders is purely deceptive to begin with. Everything else is fraud!
Hey,
Seems the last few posts by abusereports are only making cents or a few dollars. Not sure What happened but sanders is no longer upvoting them so maybe despite all the bravado and abuse something made him stop?
7 downvotes on a $0.00 comment that could instead just be answered. Seems like a bit of overkill but what do I know, eh?
Steemit should change its name to SteemSpat!
Hi... Nice to meet you! I ran into a post you made on SteemThat :)
I've been involved with the development of SteemThat for many months. We are in the midst of a rebranding. We have changed the name of the platform to Stishit (Stish-it) which is backed by the ERC-20 token STISH. Stishit is the platform that Steemit wishes it had, where bloggers meet social media users, with a participation based rewards system. Check it out at Stishit!
I like the new name lol. Thank you for working so hard to make a wonderful place for us artists of all genres to be. I am found here and there accrross the net like MyLot.com & minds.com too :)
Do those sites pay rewards for creators?
Absolutely... MyLot pays PayPal every $5.00 earned & is based on the value of your posts and comments made. Minds is a free speech site and pays in tokens that can be converted to ethereum. (currently in test mode on the ethereum blockchain & going live in August :)
Which one do you like more between MyLot, Minds, and Stishit?
Ooooo man that is a tough one. Stishit I find to be blooming up quite nicely, minds is new and just play money at this moment, but has lots of activity and communication. And they are telling us that the play tokens will turn to real tokens... I really love MyLot and the consistent activity of communication, likes, views, members, and so on and they pay cash.... These more posts you do the More your fans build.... Stishit is far better so far then Steemit, because stishit don't have voting power to worry about.... So I guess that MyLot is my fave so far :)
Does blocking them help?
I see one has already down voted my question to you and your responce you made to me. So sad!
You can mute them but they can still flag everything you do. They will eventually destroy the Steemit ideal of a platform.
I hope we can stop them some how. I hate people who steal things. Are they even real people or bots?
Basically, one guy with multiple accounts hiding behind a bot.
Oh... That is not a good thing at all.... What cheater!
What can we do to help stop this?
Not much. It is the what Steemit has become... the way of Steemit! Only whales can fight against other whales here. They should rename it SteemSpat!
Does up voting as many as there are down votes made help? Or even flagging their posts and comments?
Do not quit. Keep counting this abuse. People have to wake up and fight this scam.
Yep, I agree. I'm glad you recognize it too. Thanks!