A relatively long time ago I wrote the passage that is quoted below. It was written because of my aversion to being force fed content that will manipulate me into thinking and behaving in subtle ways that fly under the radar of consciousness. One of the parts I have always loved about Steemit is that it is me who picks what I choose to see and those who I trust enough to provide interesting content.
My follower list is relatively short at 109 accounts but is also quite wide in its content delivered. Some are friends, some are much less so however for me, the feed it delivers help provide a well-rounded view of my interest areas and things that I feel I should keep an eye on. I have tailored it for myself to enjoy and learn from through both those I follow and the content they find interesting.
I rarely use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, but now they are pushing sponsored advertisements and suggestions through the feed at a rate of about every 5 or 6 posts. Facebook pushes them through the message list of the Messenger app now also. It is toxic for the mind.
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Monkey see, Monkey do.
Our environment influences what we notice, our preferences and our perspectives. A natural balance of our thoughts and actions occur through a process of osmosis that dilutes or raises their concentrations and their subsequent effects. A happy person in a room full of mourners will soon adjust to come into line with the majority. One raised in a family and town that follows the local football team is quite likely to support the same team, often without ever questioning the reason why.
It is an old idea:
We are what we eat.
What we surround ourselves with becomes our food for thought, word and action. These are the calories we consume that give us the impetus to make our everyday decisions. For achieving individual goals, consuming from the wrong food group creates imbalances between current and desired position. Unchecked and unquestioned, these conflicts create an emotional inequality that further drives psychological and physiological response.
Recently, Facebook performed an experiment where they manipulated the feeds of 700 thousand users to show more negative updates and found that these users began posting more negative updates themselves. Besides the ethical questions of Facebook's actions, this gives us fantastic evidence and data on how we react to what we feed our minds.
In order to better nourish personal motivations, spend some time investigating what you already consume. Everything you consume. We can take control of our mental diet by paying attention and filling our metaphorical fridge with the foods of our choice. Though doing so may require throwing away some of what it already contains to make room. By proactively taking responsibility, we can help realign and rebalance our various positions to better suit our personal desires.
All in all, we have trained ourselves to become a consumer society and this goes far beyond just the financial purchases from the never ending supply of catalogues, advertisements and social referrals. There are many reasons why we think what we think, say what we say, do what we do. But do we realise them or are we blind passengers chauffeur driven by our manufactured environment?
Note:
Just as I finished this, the title came to mind, born from a saying my dad would say to us: Monkey see, monkey do. I only just fully realised the personal implications.
Do you see why I am so disappointed with @dlive? What happens if other Steemconnect apps start doing the same, what does my feed look like, what does my thinking become? I have been working hard for several years to 'not be a monkey' and it has resulted in me being the most creative I have ever been in my life. Why would I allow myself to fall back under the control of pushed content that is highly insensitive to my own interests or, my requirements? Why would I give up my agency?
This is a Steemit-backed app that in my opinion has broken the trust of what this platform is designed to deliver, freedom of action. It has acted on my behalf to make decisions I did not grant it the privileges to make. Here is the Steemconnect rights granted when signing in to @dlive:
Where is the Follow random accounts we use to push content we have already upvoted heavily' notice? Again, they are a Steemit-backed app in a position of trust yet, they are abusing the trust of the community with such actions and it sets a very bad example for other apps and their development teams. How long until we are just another 'Facebook ( except on a blockchain!)'.
People talk so heavily about being different from the centralised platforms yet when push comes to shove, they act in an identical manner. Not only that, the largest staked, company owned account is backing them through delegation and helping them become major forces on the platform. So, where does it lead, what is different from all the other centralized scam advertising portals?
What is great about this platform though is that we have the ability to change things, we have our say except, my say accounts for very little when I do not have anywhere near the stake of the accounts that are actively turning this place into what they have said they want to avoid. It seems that @dlive has learned their management behaviours straight from the centralized social media playbook.
Talk about 'Monkey See, Monkey Do'.
This is the blockchain, tracking and accountability is possible.
Taraz
[ A Steemit original ]
Well written...The monkey see, monkey do sounds funny. Lolzz
We are really often influenced by what we see, hear and basically what we feed out minds with.
I read a story somewhere and I am going to share it with you to further buttress your point here.
A hospital decided to carry out a study on the response of people to crowd influence and they decided to set up cameras in the reception. They put a lady there and asked the lady to stand up and sit down each time she hears the bell ring from the room behind them which happens to be the doctor's office.
She was one of the actors and did just as she was told. The First person worked in and sat down. When the bell rang, the actor stood up and sat down. The patient looked In amazment but didn't say anything. The bell rang again and and the actor stood and sat. The woman became quite uncomfortable and when the bell rang the third time, without asking question she stood and sat too. Another patient came in , saw the two people in the reception standing and sitting at the ring if the bell and he followed suite without asking questions and this continued. Each patient would come in and keep doing the same thing with others and at a point the actor was called away and the rest continued standing and sitting wihlthout knowing the reason for doing so.
This is basically the world we live in. We tend to do what we see others do just In the name of trying to belong or feel among.
We can chose to follow the crowd or be unique...for me, the later is what I choose.
I was just talking last night on my YouTube livestream about bringing those interested from my audience there to come to DLive and perhaps transitioning to Livestreaming there.
This makes me sad to say the least. I had been waiting for DLIVE and DTUBE to develop a little more before I try and do tutorials for my less tech saavy friends and followers.
Good Thing I waited still! I appreciate you posting this. Some of what you mentioned with permissions and all... is why I took so long to try busy.org (which has a fancy slider!!!!) and the other apps as well.
I am paranoid out of ignorance and the more informed I become... the more my paranoia has paid off.
Just because I am paranoid, doesn't mean They aren't after me! hahaha
Happy to upvote this article. It's of utmost importance that we stay critical of every project we help grow with blockchain-technology. We can change to way platforms work, but greed is will always be a gigantic factor in how people make their decisions. We can't change that, but we can speak out about it and let them know we won't stand for it. As competition will rise in the future (Steemit won't stay the only decentralised blogging-platform forever), it'll be key for Steemit and it's users to decide how to use this gift. Do we repeat history and fail, or do we really start something new without all the force fed information. Let's hope for Steemit it'll be the latter :)
Indeed. There is a massive opportunity to create something fundamentally different in nature but if the behaviours of the past are repeated, nothing changes.
I consider it more of "Money See, Money Mine!"
It's really sad how many of these apps that are being added on top of the Steem Blockchain are nothing more than self-serving money grabs.
I understand the need to earn money for the work that you do (isn't that what brought us all here in the first place!?), but so many of these apps are doing nothing more than taking advantage of the "FREE" Steem blockchain and directing the rewards pool in their own favor.
It's really shameful.
The worst part is how susceptible the community has been to these various "schemes", simply because it earns them a few extra cents on their posts.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Well, there is, thanks to speculation. But as I've said many times, for STEEM to have any monetary value in the long term, the time will have to come when corporations buy influence on the blockchain to promote their content on it. This stage when all there is propping up the exchange rate of STEEM is the prospect of some other speculators paying even more fore it can't go on forever. The blockchain will have to deliver on its monetary promise or die.
I think you are posting about a watershed moment in Steem.
That's how Fakebook started out too. Don't you remember? All the ads have since been added, and the means of controlling message has been continually refined as Fakebook serves it's customers. Note that this is not the users of Fakebook, but the investors, which include the CIA.
Fakebook was primarily a surveillance tool, and is expanding into censorship and propaganda, as was intended from the get go.
Steemit wasn't created that way, but as it increasingly succeeds, those same forces are moving to take advantage of the platform. Fakebook is probably about to emulate the rewards mechanism, in some subtly twisted profiteering, propagandist way.
Dlive following in Fakebook's footsteps is a shot across our bow. We should consider what this means for the platform, Steem, and how the blockchain can be used against us.
Nothing can't be used as a weapon. We do have enemies. They are going to hurt us.
Only by paying attention can we better avoid that harm, and prevent further harm in the future.
Thanks!
I think they are doing it, because they are still new ad trying to catch the attention of more users. Maybe it will change in the future once they have more users in their platform.
I don't think that it is that or, that they would change in the future. Why would they if they are able to make more profits by not changing?
Because many other users will be annoyed and they will realize what they are doing wrong. Might be a matter of time.
Dlive is a bit slow i hope, it will get better for streaming too.
Seems you have missed the point - I hope they stop their poor behaviours.
yeah! i meentioned the technicality.
That is very good analysis.I appreciate that.
follow upvote and resteemit has been done
what a timeing for takeing of photo!
Dlive however is certainly new at least it's not been too long they joined the rest of them like dmania they should not however be making mistakes such as these as it can ruin their reputation and make them less desired
They have been around for about 4 or five months, the operators longer.
@upvoted
Your comment about a happy person at a funeral kind of resonated with me. I had a friend who sometimes had real problems with depression and when she visited one day I gave all the support I could. When she left she was fine and it was me picking myself up off the floor.
Great information Good work thanks for sharing
Keep it up
I wish you all the best
Good information....nice
great post.
Wonderful post sir. Just nothing to say about this post ☺☺
@Upvoted