I have actually had two death threats on G+ for writing about vaccine science and also had a huge comment section shut down on iflscience.com for posting peer reviewed studies that demonstrate the weakness of the 'official narrative' regarding vaccines - instead of commenting or correcting/rebutting me, they simply stopped comments (which had been live for a long time).
It isn't really possible for Steem as it is to be as controlled as youtube - it would require a huge shift in the code to make that happen, but it is certainly not impossible. That said though, the code can be duplicated and run by anyone with the knowledge to do so - so in one way or another the idea will persist.
Well, you are pretty safe on steemit because your reputation is high enough. If one with a lower reputation gets flagged by someone with a higher one, the reputation goes down and your posts will get greyed out and not be visible anymore. I have seen blogs destroyed by professional downvoters. I got attacked myself and have to avoid certain topics since my rep is not high enough. We now have a small window of opportunity as long as steemit is insignificant enough and does not pose a real threat to post our stuff onto the blockchain.
But in the end, it is not about information or the truth or discussion or right or wrong. If what you say is against the official narrative, you will get shut down if too many people could hear what you have to say. We live in a post-fact world. Opinion matters. 'It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.' — Henry Kissinger
i do appreciate the problem with downvoting and reputation, yes. i had that problem early on too with a post about 911 that got wiped out by a trigger happy corporatist. in that case i was able to buy a vote from a bot to counteract the problem (bots were a relatively new thing back then). i then went on a rampage to expose the situation and my post was the first one covered by the @freezepeach account (as I recall) that is set up to counter this problem. As a result of that I met some good whales here and learned how to defend myself.
I see the main issue here being a lack of understanding of the system and also an absence of coherent teamwork among those who want to be protected. I intend to co-create educational videos soon to help people understand some core ideas that can be used to make their life here easier, though I don't have an ETA yet.
Yup. I had a similar situation and got help from @freezepeach and @r0nd0n as well. They are great and most helpful. I also pondered the idea of creating some kind of support group. The main problem I see here is the structure of steemit. I don't know of a way to create a tutorial which would be easily visible or accessible over time for newcomers to read when they get hit. I am sure there is plenty of helpful information already out there but buried deep under millions of posts. You have to know what to look for and where. For me it was just plain luck that I came across freezepeach. I also used a whale to get my reputation up a bit just to be safe from a particular stalker. But at a certain level that can get quite expensive I suppose...Anyway, nice talking to you :)
I'd like to ask, "is the flag mechanism helpful at all?". People who post content no one likes get unfollowed. It may feel good to flag someone who is annoying you with spam, but does it really help with spam? I'm guessing a determined bot user would just make a new bot. Isn't there another better way to do this?
I agree with you. The potential of abuse far outweighs it's usefulness. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you disagree, write a nasty comment. If I don't want spam, I don't follow the spammer. If I am dumb enough to fall for spam, well then I am dumb. I don't need some politically correct moron to protect me from information he thinks I should not have. The only usefulness I could see would be to flag spam in the comment section, not for original posts. But I guess it would be pretty hard to change the rules. There are plenty of professional downvoters who make a pretty buck...
I like your style a lot. There is hope that some more people like heerleeb and ura-soul come and stay on steemit. My opinion on the topic: We need brainpower and the courage to use that brain like you two do, not bots.
Thank you. We need people who put their minds together and actually DO something. Come up with strategies to fuck them back :)
If you mean, "flag spam in the comment section" of your own post then I agree with you 100%. This only because I view post by yourself as being property, and as such, common law/ principals ought to take effect.
Yes! Of course. That is what I meant to say :) But even this one is questionable. Why would someone spam? To get an upvote. right? So, if nobody upvotes, spamming becomes pretty useless I'd suppose...and I'd rather deal with spam or trolls than to get shut down...