RE: Blockchain as the liberator of the masses from the claws of the NWO
Dear @julianhorack and @everyone else reading it
Julian wrote amazing (a bit long) piece of publication that is related to topic of censorship online. And since I disagree with pretty much everything he said - I would like to know YOUR opinion, dear reader, on that particular topic.
Julian, you've wrote:
Unstoppable code or uncensorable speech is a very powerful thing
Do you really believe that? Someone out there is creating those blockchains and Im my honest opinion - authorities will surely find ways to put pressure on them.
Lack of censorship ? I have my serious doubts.
Steemit already proved that it's worse than youtube and facebook when it comes to censorship. All one need to do to "shut you up" is power up, downvote your posts and comments. Destroy your rewards, bring down your reputation and basically damage your profile.
Something that could not be done on any other social media out there. Steemit is actually the worst when it comes to censorship. Anyone with money can censor you.
Once it’s on the blockchain, no government can remove, censor or edit our words.
Goverments can easily influence Steemit Inc or other companies promoting their front-ends.Do you really think it matters much if some content is on blockchain, if this content is not being displayed by any front end? I really have my doubts.
However, on the blockchain here on this platform, I can call a spade a spade and fear no reprisal or risk of censorship in my expression.
Are you really feeling so safe here? It's just very fragile illusion. If Steemit will ever grow bigger and authorities will start paying more attention to this platform, then Ned and entire team will be under heavy pressure.
And please keep in mind that those are same people responsible for creating STEEM blockchain. And they will "dance" the way they will be told to dance. Or will end up being destroyed.
And again: let's say that some media outlet would invest 1mln usd and create their account here and start flagging publications that are not falling into their "narrative". Wouldn't it be censorship?
Current flag system is the worst tool out there, allowing full control over displayed content on Steemit and other front-ends.
This is obviously my own impression and I would love to know what you think about it. Share your thought with us. I read and reply to each comment. And I upvote once that are longer than 1 line sentence :)
IMPORTANT: @julianhorack I'm delegating 200 SP to you for next few days, so you wouldn't struggle with low Resource Credit (I boosted this post a bit since I found that topic very important).
Yours
Piotr
Flagging is bad IMHO. BUT they cannot truly censor opinions, only demonetize it and for a price - anyone who censors is actually LOSING money.
So I'll say: nothing is perfect but TV < YouTube < Steemit < Steem ecosystem < Crypto ecosystem... and we will see a better tools for free speech as tech evolves
Hey positive approach and vision there. Better tools coming. Flagging means there is a judging body who administers the blockchain for us, or even an AI algo, which would be worse. A difficult middle ground to find.
hope so
Hi @master-set
Thank you for accepting my invitation (memo) and dropping by. I appreciate your comment.
Cheers, Piotr
Hello Piotr. Thank you for making me aware of this post. In this case I tend to agree with your assessment of the situation. While @julianhorack speaks to the original desire to have blockchain allow us to reclaim sovereignty, we are now seeing the impact of laws across the globe that are once again limiting freedoms.
The vast majority of blockchain applications, including coins and tokens, are tied to various jurisdictions. And, in each of these jurisdictions, governments will enforce their own laws. It may only a matter of time before we see the same censorship in blockchain apps that we see in traditional venues.
One of the reasons for this is the overarching concern of governments to control bad actors. One way to do this is through KYC and AML which I recently addressed in KYC and AML are Good - Yum. Essentially governments are under pressure to maintain law and order. So, as more bad actors take advantage of the blockchain freedoms, more controls will be exerted.
There may be a few exceptions. The obvious is Monero, which I believe is the only truly decentralized coin. The other is EOSIO, which as essentially separated the blockchain infrastructure/ownership from the actual blockchain. An interesting concept that has yet to be tried in a court to the best of my knowledge.
There are a few decentralized autonomous organizations/corporations, DAO or DAC respectively. Again, their Dapp can be tied to a locality, I think they too can be censored.
So, while we always push the freedom movement, we need to consider the rights of others and ultimately there are limitations.
This was a great topic and I appreciate the opportunity to get involved.
Well stated, even if I continue to disagree with you @guysellars. I believe regulation of any kind will simply hamstring crypto while keeping it trapped in the race against government currency manipulation... a race that crypto will never win (and the penalty for loss is to fall out of use and become irrelevant).
The ONLY way crypto has a chance to compete (and therefore sustain it's own marketshare) is to change it's playing field to one in which a fiat currency has no legs to run on. That IS the deregulated space on the electronic wild frontier (and yes, there are "bandits" but, those bandits suffer from the "free market" as much as "good actors" do.
Regulated (non-free) markets are built to stifle competition and feed unhealthy monopolies.
Thank you for expressing your opinion, which I actually think is the wish of many. Perhaps we can agree that, whether regulated or not, we appreciate the forums that allow us to express our opinions and discuss critical topics together.
Good to meet you @jbgarrison72. I hope we will run into each other more often.
Dear @jbgarrison72, @guysellars
Personally I believe that this race has been already lost. Crypto and blockchain were created to serve humans.
And humans that have power and resources will always win.
Yours
Piotr
Not all humans with power and resources are bad although in our current paradigm, bad actors tend to get a greater share of the rewards.
In a true/ideal free market, power and resources will naturally funnel to those who provide the best service for the lowest price. :)
The greatest good is always served by emergent harmony arising through struggle.
Good to read your comment sir. I see your point that on the ground governments can reach your computer terminal or node and shut it down if they want. I'm hoping that there are enough decentralized nodes scattered all over the planet so that some will always continue, even if the others are taken offline. If a one world government comes into power we may have to head for the hills and transmit our pirate signal from an unknown location, though those are fast disappearing with all the tech around today.
Dear @guysellars
Brilliant comment buddy! Seriously great read.
Thank you for sharing your view and accepting my invitation. Appreciate it a lot.
I also never heard about EOSIO. Love to learn something new yeyeye
Have a great upcoming week :)
Piotr
There is a big difference between someone who can censor and an entire company that can censor. There is a fine line between decentralized and censorship. Some people think that a decentralized platform means do whatever the heck you want, which includes plagiarism, posting a porn picture with no content, and the inevitable one liners with bidbot abuse. This is where flags come in.
Sure a whale can simply disagree with you and censor your posts by downvoting, but that is still a needed mechanic of the platform. Reason being that anarchy, or decentralization, typically doesn't work due to human greed. Aside from the potential that Steem/Steemit has, it is also a social experiment that I for one, have never seen before. The big question is...
Can we govern ourselves?
In my opinion, if and when the higher ups take notice of this platform and want to get involved, we as a community should have safeguards already in place to combat any kind of abuse or plagiarism that would be deemed unworthy of rewards.
There are too many people more focused on upvoting than downvoting for various reasons, but that doesn't mean that the downvoting system is wrong. It might have a few flaws but censorship will always be needed, whether something is decentralized or not.
If there were no flags, for example, there would no doubt be child porn floating around on this site (which I have seen in the past), and surely that post is still lurking somewhere, whether it was flagged or not. If authorities caught wind of this, goodbye steem.
So it's not completely censorship free, but how much money is Steemit Inc. making off of content creators?
I think that there is a common misconception of what decentralization means.
We each make independent decisions every day on how we want to experience our decentralized utopia here using the Steem blockchain. The rules are stated very clearly in the welcome page, yet people choose to abuse instead. So censorship is inevitable. We as a community have taken a decentralized approach to censorship. Unfortunately censorship occurs even when there is a mere difference of opinion, and there is a fine line as to whether or not some of these censorship occurrences are justified. Is it new content, or is it the same conspiracy that's been on youtube for the last 10 years? Is there something new to add to the topic, or is the author just bringing the same news/facts/ideas to the platform that already exist everywhere else? It's a fine line but some people are willing to cross it.
Without flags, I can't imagine that my content would reach many people because it would get buried a lot faster. At least in this case, the people, the community, those who care about the future of the platform are working together to help fight abuse on the blockchain. In my opinion, this and other platforms like it are the most censorship-free platforms I can find. Not one central entity, government agency or company runs the entirety of the platform. Steemit Inc can go out of business tomorrow and Steem will still be there. It is up to us to govern ourselves on this platform. To govern eachother. This would be the only way to prove that it can be done without a government having to step in and take over, and tell us what we can or can't read, or censor our posts.
Those on the platform who are getting censored could just be going about it the wrong way and they should try a different approach. I have blogged about a controversial topic before and I didn't get flagged, so the censorship isn't always there. However; I did experience a bit of fear that I might get flagged since it was regarding a conspiracy theory, but reality is when it comes to conspiracy theories, those blogging about it don't know the truth any more than those who don't believe in said conspiracy theory. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a theory.
So is it a decentralized platform? Of course it is! Does decentralized mean censorship free? Of course not! Anyone with enough invested in the platform will surely do whatever they can to protect their investment, but for the most part -- keep it original, and you should be okay.
Dear @bitfiend
One of the best comment's I've read today. Thank you for taking the time to write it all.
I can only appreciate that you shared your view with me and others.RESPECT
I just think that noone could "buy" that much power.
We're all choosing witnesses. But we cannot have any impact on those who "keep order with flags". That doesnt seem to be right.
Yours
Piotr
Dear Mr. Piotr,
Whenever I get a memo from you, my mind tells me that I am going to learn something new that day. I enjoyed reading almost all the articles referred by you and the fact is that it is expanding my knowledge beyond any doubt.
"....Goverments can easily influence Steemit...."
There is no second thought about it.
".......authorities will start paying more attention to this platform, then Ned and entire team will be under heavy pressure."
Of course, until and otherwise, it won't affect them, they will keep mum as if nothing has had happened, but if anything goes against the government, they will go to any extent to stop us from progressing forward. Whether we like it or not, we will have to accept it.
"......Current flag system is the worst tool out there, ..."
With regards to this flagging, let me say a thing, Mr. Piotr.
For example, let's say that a whale is unnecessarily flagging a negative comment(but a correct one) the one who does so will bore the brunt and gets depleted in his reputation rating with an open message visible to all the Steemians in the Steem blockchain about his flagging intent. This is regarding a whale flagging a plankton's comment.
If it is the other way around, the flagging will destroy the reward and this holds good at this point in time.
If suppose, the flagging is justified, the one who did so will be rewarded.
This is my opinion, Mr. Piotr.
Good points there, government are certainly watching if we raise any of their flags. Lets see what we can do to raise awareness.
And your description of flagging has some relevance if the whales can get outdone for bad flagging like that. It sounds very hopeful.
@julianhorack, thank you very much for your kind words.
Posted using Partiko Android
Sure my pleasure.
Dear @marvyinnovation
I absolutely loved your comment. First sentence put a huge smile on my face! :)
I think a lot has to do with "size" of this community. Goverments would not care about some small gathering in the basement. But if this gathering would already grow then at some point it will attract unwanted attention.
So in a way it's great that Steemit is so small and is not gaining popularity :P
Perhaps you can call me "Pete"? :) Mr. Piotr sounds official and also make me feel like old grumpy man hahaha
Enjoy your upcoming weekend
Yours
Piotr
I agree with you that downvoting is just a method to 'shut the mouth' of the person who expresses 'unpleasant' thoughts. In this case steemit it worse than facebook et al. I have seen many accounts being destroyed just because they expressed something which the powerful people didn't like.
Wow that is scary to hear. The reputation can be destroyed so that people don't see your posts. It stays unseen on the blockchain. That is as manipulated as ever. And of course, money still carries a lot of weight and power here. These are dire signs. What can we do to improve it?
Dear @akdx
Thank you for sharing your view and accepting my invitation. Appreciate it a lot.
Have a great upcoming week :)
Piotr
Welcome dear!
Hi @piotr,
Thanks for your invitation to such interesting post. I’ve already put my bit answering my thoughts about the subject. I’m not going to duplicate it but can tell you I’m quite sceptical about putting in other hands the merit of giving freedom.
Freedom ( and the real power) lives inside us no one can give it to you nor take it from you but it’s possible to hack you(your brain) and prevent you from realize the fact you’r being manipulated therefore enslaved.
Hugs
Good point, freedom is a state of mind. I aim to assist others in freeing their minds from illusion or ignorance, to help then awaken to their true identity or state of being. As a free spirit I want others to feel the same sense of liberation or potential for liberation.
You can try to assist them once they realize about their lost and want/need to revert.
I’ve tried lot of strategies and found none but making your life an example, a mirror in which others can look at themselves. The image may not like all of them though, diversity comes around.
Good point, be the example. I used to run around bagging a drum to get the point across in my youth. Now writing works.
Social media and internet platforms have been a great source of free expression, debate, and political participation but private sector actors and opaque forces, corporate and governmental, are shaping the ability of individuals worldwide to exercise their freedom of expression.
If by private sector actors @royer94, you mean those multinational "banking elite" entities that exist above the level of national government (and therefore pull it's levers to their benefit), then I believe you're absolutely correct.
Shaping you say, I understand. Media propaganda and certain laws even herd us, the mass mind. It is truly Orwellian.
Dear @crypto.piotr,
You keep sending notes for maybe a year now? Idk. But in this long time, I NEVER received any upvote from you. You have the idea that what you're doing is engagement. Don't get me wrong. It totally is. You are engaged. I just don't know how this is really helping in terms of bonding people. It's always one blog post that you draw a lot of attention to. Being the privileged guy you are, you bundle people behind you who, like an army, follow you through the steemiverse. Obeying to your notes, maximizing YOUR reputation by defending your ideas or at least relate their opinions to yours. Do you notice the irony?
I would love to stay a part of this community. Let's just make it fairer: Upvote one of my posts from time to time and I comment below the ones you send us to.
OK?
oh, and @julianhorack: You had me at "trained in Vedanta". Started following. :)
Hi @mayb thanks for your kind words and follow. I'm happy to meet you as a fellow child of Gaia and Sun/Moon. Deep thinking is much appreciated.
the tribe keeps on growing … <3
Just my opinion @mayb : i also get the notes from crypto.piotr and you know what? If the topic is interesting for me i will share my thoughts even it is different from his or his friends opinion.
Thats why i like this because even we doesnt agree sometimes we can have a good "chat" about the topic.
So actually i dont feel myslef like i am a part of anybody's army. 😉
Peace😊
Posted using Partiko Android
I feel like I mentioned that, @gabbynhice:
You don't need to feel like anybody's army. Me neither.
Yes, Peace. Exactly.
Im glad @gabbynhice you don't feel like part of anybody's army :)
That's the last thing I want to achieve - mindset of people relying on me and having some expectations towards me. Army is not easy to manage.
Yours
Piotr
First of all, 80% of the ideas regarding blockchain, smart contracts, unstoppable, and so forth code are taken directly from this video of Andreas Antonopolus. In my opinion @julianhorack kind of plagiarised this post, but that is another discussion.
Now to the issue at hand. Blockchain is an infrastructure that can be used to guarantee freedom of speech, some human rights and access to information. This does not mean the current applications are doing this, but we have a test bed that is giving us real-world data and can learn from it. I believe we will get there.
On the part regarding censorship, I have to agree with @gtg. Downvotes are a way to reduce visibility, but cannot actually censor information. When enough pressure will be put on Steemit Inc, the company will need to close and maybe that is for the better. Steem will still go on as a blockchain, but with different API's, like busy.org.
Regarding the power of authorities to stop blockchain enabled code, I really hope they cannot. The moment when blockchain becomes a problem for the military, that's when we'll see how unstoppable it is. Luckily, there are several types of blockchain and more are emerging, and hopefully at least one will prove to be immune to outside interference.
And finally, regarding the conspiratorial tone of the original post, I believe that more of the bad things that are happening in the world are due to the shortcomings of human nature, rather than opaque groups of interest that influence many aspects of human existence. And to be honest, today I would be more afraid of google and facebook than Illuminati or other such groups, money and banking was last century's ace up the sleeve, today technology is the focal point of freedom, as well as control.
Dear @lishu
Thank you for sharing your view and accepting my invitation. Appreciate it a lot.
ps. just wanted to check your own recent publications and realized that your latest post is quite old. hope you didn't give up on steemit buddy
Have a great upcoming week :)
Piotr
@crypto.piotr for the past week I have been working almost around the clock on setting things up so I can launch my ebook "Introduction to Cryptoeconomics - The Path Towards a Trust Economy".
I have almost all thing in place now. And part of the promotion campaign will be here on steem, so I will have some activity.
You can check out my site www.prosocilallabs.com, I also have a crypto shop for the ebook :D
It's me again @lishu
I never actually thought about it. Good bloody point!
Thx again, Piotr
I disagree with both... Both of you for me are Wrong.
The reason is simple. You both fail to see the positive virtue within the technology.
You can't solve all problems with fire... even if that was what Homo Sapiens though...
It depends... and yes.. a shit of answer... but that's the reality.
Hi @forykw
you got my attention the moment when you said that we are both wrong :)
Thx for sharing your opinion. I still don't know how could STEEM (or any other blockchain) protect us from increasing censorship and I wish to know how can we protect ourselfs here and our content on Steemit from those with large amount of SP (who can censor us whenever and however they please).
Cheers buddy
Piotr
censorship is important, but it's one of those issues people generally don't worry about. Maybe because there are so many degrees of censorship. Some kind of balance is usually arrived at. If you want more freedom of speech take a look at Peepeth.
Dear @ade-greenwise
That's very unique approach. Very different from what I got use to hear. Wow.
Thx for your comment
Piotr
Unfortunately, the definition of words differ around the world, due language, culture and others. Even myself can be miss-interpreted, and we should always try to work on communication, positively.
For me, flagging someone is not really a censorship... what's really happening, is a vote. The vote of someone that does not agree I get rewarded for what I broadcast. Although, what I broadcast keeps on the blockchain... and that only I can control. Same happens to most blockchains, with some of them allowing different flexibility and features on top of this.
Now... if we speak about the front-ends... that's a different story. They can indeed censor things... and that is up to everyone to use or not those front ends. Fight against them or propose new changes... it's all dynamic again. But depends much more on a closed group of people if we compare it to DPOS blockchains for example.
The end result of the above associated problem, is that most people don't yet understand the relationships between a blockchain (like STEEM) and (d)Apps (like a steemit, partiko or eSteem where I am writing the comment for example). As consequence that generates obfuscated opinions that generate noise inside what is or not censorship on blockchain.
So, in resume, for me, what you are worried about "does not apply". I am not saying that there are no other problems around, but that's like a conversation for a LOT more than just 1 reply.
I call that financial censorship. You are targeting someone for them to lose crowdfunding from the niche community that they have built up. When you upvote content you compete with other posts for % of the reward pool, but flagging is actually sniping someone's rewards. Sure, you're willing to take a loss too, but the pro-flaggers are actually trying to get that changed, they want to be rewarded for flagging. Incentivized flagging is the death of Steem from my view.
I agree that we need to discourage bad content and encourage evergreen content. I'm all for that, but not this way. There are better options available.
Hi @hobo.media,
"....but the pro-flaggers are actually trying to get that changed, they want to be rewarded for flagging. Incentivized flagging is the death of Steem from my view."
The pro-flaggers must be rewarded only if they flag bad content, but not if they flag just because they found the content against their thoughts. Let them be whales, all the rules and regulations are same for everyone.
If flagging is done just to take revenge or to make that person's post invisible just because he is against their views (but correct), the one who has done that must be downvoted and flagged by automated bots. At the same time, if a plankton/minnow flags a whale's content for making a nonsensical/highly unacceptable/practically not feasible/false comment, then that minnow/plankton must be highly rewarded for flagging for the right reason.
If we made this possible, then this unnecessary censorship will come to an end. But it is easier said than done.
If this thing become a reality, then I can say for sure that people won't resort to flagging unnecessarily, but only will do it for the RIGHT REASON!
If that be the case, how can the incentivized flagging may become the reason for the death of Steem, please clarify.
I must thank @crypto.piotr for inviting me to comment on this fascinating censorship topic by @julianhorack.
Thanks for your amazing comment @hobo.media
Hi @marvyinnovation thanks for the reply. I'll try to answer your questions to your satisfaction.
Flagging at cost to oneself forces a person to decide how much they care to attack the content. It is designed to be a cost because if there is no cost people can do it whimsically, and if its profitable people are incentivized to find fault with content.
Sure, in an ideal world if its not faulty it won't pass for rewards, but what about when Steem is hugely popular and the flaggers swarm the verification process? You shouldn't think that can't happen, its already an issue on Twitter where they can't keep up with all the abuse reports. This is with no financial incentive, add incentive and you'll see bounty hunters and bots flagging everything they can get away with.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of incentivized editing, verification processes for some things, but Steem is more than one platform. Its the future crowdfunder and stage for free expression, at least, that's the idea some of us hope it will be. We can't ignore that the crowdfunding part is a huge part of what makes Steem what it is.
We also cannot ignore that Steem is suppose to be the solution to the financial censorship happening with Patreon, Youtube and other financial/social platforms. Steem is somehow losing its identity and the culprit is the flag system.
Arguing that its technically not deleted does not fix the issue. Flagging is highly abusable by the rich and powerful or really any influential group. And it can effectively shut down the crowdfunding design of Steem for controversial niche communities.
A lot of people just put their faith in the idea that the overall community will prevent abuse. Where in the world do you ever see that work out? It never works... The whole point of decentralized systems is to create something with fair rules that nobody can gain control of and change into an unfair rule system. So, we have to make Steem incorruptible from the inside out. We all know that mainstream media, governments or corporations could buy out Steemit Inc.'s share any day of the week and if that happens the flagging system is in their discretion. They can ruin anyone's reputation and flag opposing opinions right off the platform. Get rid of flagging or heavily decentralize it and we never have to worry about that happening.
You know what... Fine, a post must be made... and by beard of Zeus, I'm making it!
Hi Hobo
Sometimes I also have this impression.
I wonder if facebook would say that "technically removed content is still in our database and you can access it via our very limited API" then what would people say?
You nailed it. People dream that "decentralization" will change it all. But noone knows "HOW" could that happen.
Cheers, Piotr
Thanks for all your great replies!
I'm glad that you enjoyed this hot topic @marvyinnovation
And big thx for sharing your view
Piotr
That would be incredibly bad. There is a reason you loose reputation when you down vote on StackOverflow:
You should only downvote if the contribution is really bad.
Dear @hobo.media
I fully agree with you, that is nothing but financial censorship.
Thx for sharing your view
Piotr