Censorship via big tech and governments are here. Men are next: Better Bachelor

As members of the Steem community, we have it pretty good. We self-regulate our society for plagiarism by downvoting posts that fail to meet our standards. Still, it isn't like a single arbitrary entity that imposes external rules on our members. Typically the Better Bachelor channel on Youtube talks about men's issues but has to paraphrase sensitive words like many other content creators on that platform. You might be able to put up cat videos, but a creator might not be able to use the word "pussy".

Governments can shut down dissenters by blacklisting websites in their countries, but individuals can get around that by using a VPN. Since that blacklisting is not necessarily an option, they can go after the content publishers (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter). Either by legislation or sanctions they can force the publishers to censor content publishers.

WikiLeaks can protect its content because it is mirrored around the world. Taking down one server would not shut Wikileaks down. Better Bachelor has also set up an alternative site at https://betterbachelor.locals.com/. I am not sure that it can be said that it is secure because I don't know how their security is set up. Sometimes it just takes someone putting pressure on the ISP housing the website. There is also the alternative of attacking individuals in the executive of the website. Julian Assange has been locked away for years, but WikiLeaks continues. I don't know how Dave Rubin (https://www.youtube.com/user/RubinReport), one of the creators of locals.com, would be able to insulate himself if the US Government decided to "lean in ."

Cryptocurrencies, in general, are immune from intrusions because "miners" could be a simple as installing a "wallet" on a computer or cell phone. Steem is a little more vulnerable because we "elect" witnesses who have the computers that maintain the network. All witnesses would need to be taken down simultaneously, and the witnesses could be quickly replaced. This possible insecurity does open questions about having alternates lined up and a method of obfuscating witness ids to protect them - remember the "Dread Pirate Roberts" of Silk Road. I am not saying what we are doing on Steem is illegal ... yet.

While under my "Bleeding Edge" banner, the posts I make are intended to be so close to the knife's edge that they would be banned elsewhere. I am not saying posts in this area concerning COVID or Climate Change are true or false, but the studies reflected within my post should be considered in their entirety.

Ironically a program I use, Grammarly, doesn't like the word blacklist.

This is just my two cents worth.