You're Not Getting My Money, @blacklist - Other Users Should Refuse, Too
So, a new gimmick on Steemit is the user/bot/thing @blacklist which basically adds people on the list for bad behavior completely arbitrarily, without even bothering to specify why the person ended up on the list.
The really funny thing is that they then expect us blacklisted members to pay up 40 STEEM to get out of the autoflag list.
Just in case you're reading: think again.
If there has been something about my behavior that bothers someone, I mature conversation is always welcomed. Blackmail, on the other hand, is not.
There's no way I'm going to justify this sort of trolling by playing by the troll's rules; a user is autoflagged, and then required to pay protection money for the mafia to stay safe.
Ridiculous.
I urge other users to opt out of paying, as well.
You can read this post to find out more about how I feel about blackmailing.
I am considering offering a bounty to anyone who can definitively prove who the authors of this bot are or who the "team" is that controls it. I have a feeling that I know who may be involved with it.
I'll give it some more thought before I decide.
Here is a mention of "blacklist" and the idea to act as a block for other bots - from 29 days ago. I'll let others decide on what to do with this info. I personally find the whole extortion aspect to be repulsive. There's no place for it on this platform and anyone involved doesn't deserve to earn a single penny from their activity here, in my opinion.
https://steemit.com/upvote-bot/@fyrstikken/updated-winfrey-upvote-bot-will-vote-for-everyone-who-post-on-steemit-with-a-2-upvote-except-posts-flagged-by-cheetah-or
Also - if this is the owner of @blacklist, then that means they're the likely owner of @asshole as well. They were created the same way, the same day, had the same amount transferred to them, and the voting was the same 1%.
Here's the link to their ridiculous explanation of this bot, if anyone is interested in a good laugh:
http://pastebin.com/h1unSks2
Id love to toss you 2 names
And since i'm so low, and mentions don't work. My names to throw after a definite pattern over 4 accounts being massacred are @adm & @abit. They are the ones also attacking skeptic and others. I've watched the pattern well.
This guy with the med and soldier bots, is decent people just needs to understand it's unbalancing the true values making all those "counter bots" but he seems harmless and just roll playing of sorts.
Btw, i'm after no bounty. Just justice. My information is free to the people, and my accounts remain for proof. @iloveupvotes @livehonest @livemoral @topikzmonster. For further proof please see skeptics last few posts. Not saying that all are right, but the attacks seem to not be directed towards any particular circle or type of users. Seems overall, a matter of powerful opinion.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think that @blacklist is entirely within his or her rights to flag whomever they want for whatever subjective reasons they want.
I imagine that in the future, people will delegate their SP to vote bots that trail/train vote behind various opinions like @blacklist (or perhaps more reputable ones). It's a sign of things to come, I think.
They're entitled to their opinions, flagging included. Counteract their votes if you disagree.
I mean you're right. In the Steemit world, it is well within anyone's rights to do this. Just like it's well within anyone's rights to frown upon and dislike it. Then people call attention to it and the community comes up with a consensus.
I'd point out, though, that all users here are stakeholders, and the health of Steemit is everybody's best interest. So, if something is considered harmful to the platform, there's a good reason to stop it.
I'm not disagreeing with your fundamental point, but I'm looking at a broader picture.
And different opinions are always welcomed, at least on my posts, so don't be afraid to express them.
I thought about making an anonymous bot not unlike @blacklist that would auto-flag everything from a list of users I deemed chronic shitposters, so that others might configure their own bots to follow all its flags if they chose. It's not a bad idea, and according to the pastebin doc (if indeed run by @blacklist) then they're asking for payment for review, not for removal, and only after cessation of the behavior they deem unproductive. That doesn't sound like blackmail to me.
It is, though.
The review is requested in order to be removed from the list. A user is being abused, and in order to stop the abuse, he must pay protection money.
And since no reasoning is given for why someone is added to the list, one must assume that it's done on a whim, and there's no reason to assume anything else than monetary gain as the ultimate motivation.
You are making several assumptions that are presented as fact that I don't agree with at all.
First off, a flag is not abuse if the user legitimately thinks you are misbehaving. Flagging is subjective.
Second, if their pastebin doc is to be believed, nothing about paying for a review suggests that such payments will exempt one from being blacklisted in the future should the original behavior they found objectionable resume. This pretty much rules out the payment as "protection money".
I think @blacklist is a good idea, and bots like this are going to play a big and important role in the future of social interaction.
Well, we disagree.
I am making assumptions that are based on what the owner of the bot tells me. Since no reasoning for flagging is given, and a payment is the way out of it, then I am simply left to assume that a monetary reasoning is the real reasoning. This assumption can be corrected, if one so chooses.
Also, the owner has not stepped up, which to me goes to show that he has something to hide.
And think copyright trolls: they charge you for sharing content online, and demand money to get off the hook. Of course that won't stop them doing it again. In fact, if someone pays once, there's all the more reason to continue harassing that person since he or she has just given a monetary incentive to do so.
Just because the blackmailer can blackmail again, doesn't mean that it's less legitimate.
But again, I think this is a problem that we currently face because we don't have communities and better ways to filter out content. Everybody is exposed to everything, so people are bound to get annoyed by things. It's just human behavior.
And flagging is subjective, everything is. This post is, too.
Possibly. But their impact - particularly the extortion aspect of it - will likely push people to interact in places where they aren't used and supported/defended. So, if your position is that this is a "good idea," then I'm afraid that Steemit may not be playing an important role in the future of social interaction.
dude subjective flagging to everything is abuse, it's the real world analogy to jail. for 40 days, you have to plea to your friends to take losses for you so you can then give 40 steem to some blacklist so he is stronger the next day :|
Yeah social interaction with bots that is, I wouldn't and I don't want bots being jailers.
Plus flagging being subjective, can't be used as a argument when a bot is doing it, because it didn't decide to anything, no reasoning, just a remote controlled channel, flag for life
How about you take a step back and imagine a little fishy with 50 hard earned steem having to give up 40 because he stepped on somebody's toes after 1 month of flags, what would you do, become the next iloveupvotes and bot people off sinking in deeper and deeper :|
They have already well stated that priv mess are not in the immediate future of steemit.com. To make it too social is to spread wildfire, and they lose control.
stalking and following someone all day everyday is not cool anywhere in life. It's invasion. This is the same type of situation.
Perhaps a new element in the business model for Steem. Anti-promote feature?
@blacklist
Version 1.0.0.0
The Steemit @Blacklist uses a range of metrics to determine who's a repeat offender of plagiarism, hate speech, bullying, ongoing power-abuse and so on. The Blacklist is computer-generated and is updated irregularly to make sure bad behaving accounts get a quick flag so that other upvote-bots can avoid upvoting the blacklisted accounts and simply skip to the next post. The @blacklist-project is a much wider and further stretching authority than any of the singular up or downvoting guilds currently running on steemit, it is also complimentary to current projects in the same genre which are to keep the steem-blockchain unattractive for scammers, spammers and miserable trolls who are caught bullying or go after steemians in a power-abusive behaviour and so forth and so on.
The @blacklist account is a very serious project who aim to grow over the years with supporting bots and guilds respecting the black flag as the black flag is computer-generated by a popular opinion from a wide range of always active members of the community.
There are one way to get off the blacklist once you are on it, and that is to change your behavior from evil to good over your next 40 posts. Once you have reached that number you must send 40 STEEM to the @blacklist account with "REVIEW" in the memo. Someone from our staff will then manually look at your blog within the next 24-48 hours and remove you from the list if your account now qualifies for it.
The Blacklist contains between 200-500 accounts at any given time. The list grows or shrinks depending on user behavior (1) and user-reaction (2).
http://pastebin.com/h1unSks2
Shouldn't the person be warned? Someone I follow has no idea what rule they supposedly broke. So how can they change a behaviour when they don't know what triggered the flag? Why would they pay $40 when they don't know what behavior to avoid or if they will be removed from the list based on someone's whim?
Voting to attempt to bump.
I've been on this site for about a week now, just trying to get the basic lay of the land here. On the upside (and I am a blogger/writer, not a developer) I see a lot of potential here to (over time) create a community similar to the long lost "social blogging" venues that slowly died as a result of the "social" part becoming Facebook and the "blogging" part becoming Blogger/Wordpress. There are still millions out there who'd come to something like this, if a true sense of community could be built... not meaningless fluff like Crackbook, but real content appreciated (and read) by peers.
But I find myself disturbed by this type of thing... which comes across a bit like a clique-ish form of nasty interactive ransomware. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's going to be hard to attract an audience beyond a small group of hardcore developers and scripters if this is primarily a game of bots, rather than of real humans. Which, of course, is fine... if that's the vision, but it would make me disinclined to pitch Steemit as a venue to anyone. I was reading another post about someone's count of "real eyeballs" and maybe there's room for some kind of algorithm in which the vote/words of a real person outweighs the vote/words of a bot by a factor of 20-to-1 or something.
Bots are a difficult subject, whoever made any specific one did it with a reason, so they are like extentions, and most people voting in a bot fashion are using scripts to follow other voters, that is what trails are, I would argue it's a natural way to get around such a ecosystem when you don't have more than 2 hours to spare, all your votes would be going to waste. All you're power sitting there doing nothing to contribute the divide in the pie :|
Anyways it's another topic I wanted to talk to you, I like you a lot, always taking the time to write your opinions, I'm not sure about your blogs and such, but I like you as a active part of the community, you are one of the people that goes around and shares his mind and perspective.
I wanted to ask you about that blogging phenomenon and how could it be revived, forums used to be a great thing, until people picked up the phone and now it's all dead and gone :| at least for the most part.
I'm waiting on some ideas to bring some life back to more traditional mediums.
There is a surge on other platforms, like minds, and some other I've heard(can't think :D of any)
but how do you think a natural community should form, I'm still not ready to give up on the steemit :)
I think that's a real good idea. I don't think it's fair to have both upvotes and flagging done by bots on a site where money creation is based on content creation.
Wow ... I must be honest I have been using steemit for 3 days now and in my honest opinion I can see alot of infighting and clickyness on steem . Its a great concept but I feel it has a very dark side and not so easy going as it makes out . There are little wars going on between members that other unknowing members can get themselves mixed up in .. its all a numbers game lol
Personally, I believe this to be a negative side effect of not having communities.
The way things are now, everybody is exposed to everything, and people will always find stuff they don't like, and it causes problems.
This is true online, as it is in the real world.
This is why likeminded people should be able to form their own communities. People that are too different rarely get along, no matter what the hippies say.
Dont worry its only the small minded people who dont get along with others or have alternative agendas in their actions.... its just the way people are and that wont change ... I must say i have had some great chats on steemit so there is a very good crowd on here rather than bitchy facebook omg now that is mental challenge facebook just reading some posts the arguing that goes on there is mental it should be called RAGEBOOK lol
Plus this is some pretty heave feedback right here. Here we have a new user - something Steemit desperately needs - and already he feels like the community is not a fun place to be in.
This is exactly the type of feedback that should be taken seriously.
The only problem with steemit is money... as soon as money is involved you will ALWAYS have people who will do anything to make a quick buck hence the @blacklist - I think Steemit is a great place but you scratch the surface and can clearly see the turf wars going on... Its a pretty confusing system for a starter and a rather big learning curve .. i mean how many people actually read how to use steemit most people just jump in and have a go and see where they land .... lol i had the steem police as someone said on my back yesterday for still introducing myself after 3 days .... i mean what ha ha im self employed i make handmade goods so have very little time during my working day , so i have lots to say and very little time to write LONG introduction posts about myself so i broke it up into smaller posts over a few days and got called up on it .... lol talking about fun yesterday i seen a post "GIANT JELLY FISH IN BLACK SEA "with a man holding a jelly fish so i scrolled down to see the rest of the pic and he had his LITTLE pecker out holding a jelly fish ... i mean im all for freedom of exposing yourself to people who want to see it but I DONT lol would have been nice to be warned first lol
Another day, another troll with a bot. It's discouraging, but as Dan always says, these things make us better as a community; we learn how to respond and improve. If it's the same person/team as asshole, then maybe it is just experimental like that one proved to be.
Yeah, in way it has made us stronger as a Community. We are still a small community, so everything happening on Steemit is in ''Spotlight'' for the world to see as they speculate this new project. So far so good, see a lot of engagement and growing communities of creative individuals. Our concern for Steemit indicates that there is a growing number of people interested in seeing Steemit Succeed! Another Day, another Troll as we work on betterment of this upcoming Community
Good for you! I spent more than a damn day - more than a full day - repairing my system after it got jacked by ransomware. I didn't mind losing the day, as there was no way I'd pay the ransom.
resteemed
Interesting concept - the steemit mafia lol. Bada bing bada bang bada boom.
hahahaa :)
:)) haha for real!
This would only have an impact if the voting bot was taking the @blacklist into account...? correct? So, it would have to be written into the "voting bot" to make any difference? Asking.