Spam Bots, retributive downvoting and censorship
Though many people don't agree with me, i like to think that i do my part to try to make steemit a better place. I've given away steem to help people fighting spam and plagarism (200 steem, valued close to $1k at the time). I try to put some thought into my posts and make them informative... even though theyre not always the most popular, i get a lot of upvotes (minnow upvotes to be sure) and ive been told my posts helped a lot of people out.
Today, i noticed that that everything i post is being followed and downvoted by several bots, undoubtedly prompted by my criticism of the Weenis bot, who posted some distracting trash in my thread.
This bot seems to be related to "wang" a whale, and given that i am critical of the way the current system favors whales, its not really surprising that i would be a target.
EDIT: as a side note, it seems as though I am not the only one these bots have been attacking... they have, in fact, been quite active.
example https://steemd.com/@younlong
EDIT: as you can see, this post was downvoted 11 times within moments of posting.
Ultimately, this is gives more and more credibility to those outside of steemit who are calling it a scam. Just one guys opinion
It's paralyzing! I thought I was in such a great steemit love affair too.. =(
i am working on getting something to combat it up.
Let me know if you have any luck. I'm going to just give steem a break. I'm discouraged.. =(
Sorry, I keep posting on here.. Draining them a bit I guess
Once they calm down, they pop right back up..
For what it's worth, I do think it's very lame that you two are being attacked like that. The attacker should state their grievances with you rather than sending bots after you.
But how would you ban bots? I think of anything that wouldn't completely change and ruin Steemit. Personally I think the flag shouldn't appear if you are still in the positives. That would help a lot.
Yeah, idk what to do or think. I just need to shut up for 24 hours and see if they're forgiving or not.
Thanks for your upvote. My 24 hours will start NOW, lol. I'll try to post again tomorrow (if this comment is or isn't attacked)
Hmm, interesting. I'll have to think about it more, but the bots seem pretty weak at least. As long as your post is still in the positives, maybe it's not such a big deal...don't know.
ty Neoxian for helping keep this on the board... unfortunately, though these bots are weak, their impact on total positive to negative votes ensures that anything i post will always be at the bottom of trending...also, with comments, it forces me to upvote all my own comments, or have them flagged to invisibility, which in turn weakens my voting power
also, with comments, it forces me to upvote all my own comments, or have them flagged to invisibility.
Just today?
How long have you been going through this?
just started today
It seems if we only post once in a blue moon they leave us alone. The more we complain about them, the worse they get. Seemingly that is.. Maybe this comment will survive
no, they just get too weak to downvote for a while.... im baiting them right now in an old thread to exhaust them all
Damn, that's crazy..
I believe all will come in order with time, the day this has any real impact the admins will take care of it, or it would be too simple to destroy the reputation of someone here. Actually your post is standing out, i clicked on it because it has so many down votes and i wanted to see what is it going on.
the platform seems to be getting worse with time, not better. I want to believe in steemit, but every time i start to, things just get worse. I wanted to continue to hold the 5K or so steem i have, but at this point.
Also, this does have real impact on me. I know i don't matter, because i dont kiss the whales ass and im not on slack and i dont have nice tits, but most of the people theyre trying to get interested in the platform are kind of in the same boat.
If you look at my posts i don't kiss the ass of anyone neither. I do what i like and that's it. Who cares if you are downvoted 50 times per post, their votes don't have any meaning or power. Your account is much more powerful than all the bots together. And you are standing out from the crowd with your downvotes, anything you post is going to attract attention.
my account is more powerful than them, but i have to use up my votes upvoting all the comments i make... this means i can only protect myself for so long before im just effectively shut out of the system when my votes lose power.
Also, given that these bots are likely run by the same whale that runs wang, its not a given that i will always have enough power to fight them off. It looks like there are 25 of them right now... it would take around 5 times that many before i couldnt fight them off anymore, but thats not completely out of bounds for someone to make.
yeah, a system like that seems like it would be great for those already recognized authors that bots like wang and weenis support.
Or you could simply create another account and start over, and this account keep it with your power and vote some nice posts only.
I've also been recently targeted by a bot @sigmajin I wrote a little piece exposing the bot and it helped
https://steemit.com/steemit/@desmonid/s-o-s-i-m-being-targeted-by-a-malicious-downvote-bot#@sunshinecrypto/re-desmonid-s-o-s-i-m-being-targeted-by-a-malicious-downvote-bot-20160728t150