[Steemit] A recap of the current situation
Hi, @jayplayco here,
It is now history that Steem had its first chain split including the whole content and user information. Shortly before the split 10 of 20 witnesses were moving to Hive and running a separate version, that would support the switch to Hive. Meaning that 50% of the witnesses would not anymore produce blocks for Steem would also mean that it could interfere heavily with the stability of the Steem blockchain.
The Steem community reacted on it and shifted the votes to secure more Steem related witnesses to keep the Top 20 witness numbers over 60%.
The Steem blockchain was during the split not directly available, due to the stability of the full node of api.steemit.com, but the Steemit Inc. team took care of it within the first hour. There are still hiccups with the condenser for Steemit.com but, the blockchain itself is creating blocks without any big issues.
1. Fact checks
1) Witnesses
Most of the old witnesses have closed their witness server for Steem now as reaction of muting posts on Steemit.com. It has to be understand that all muted content is still available on the Steem blockchain and therefore also reachable on 3rd party condensers like steempeak.com, but not on Steemit.com, which is the property of Steemit Inc.
2) Spam Marketing
It seems that now spamming on Steem is ok for some users, as they have left the platform but still like to damage it as much as possible.
- a plagiarism fighting account called cheetah is now leaving comments about censoring on every post they may find.
- Other accounts are commenting on user accounts to move to Hive, some sounding reasonable, some more disturbing.
- Worst case is a comment with a long list of ~/br~ codes that makes it very difficult to read other comments.
I have personally nothing against informing people about a new service, but don't think that it should be in this way.
3) Selective distribution of Chain split
A controversial move even within the new community, but it had been done and is history now. As the claim is, there is no right for a newly created token, this is not wrong in the approach. Same as the approach of freezing the stake of possible threats of the chain. Arguable, but based on the logic of the community of the new chain a rightful thing to do.
It seems that we have now not a possible threat but a real one that happened already and I think that the community of this chain will protect the value with the tools we can use.
4) Copyright
An interesting part about the split is that it is the first time in Blockchain history that not only transaction data have been transferred but also content, which is based on legal views not easily transferable. Let's have a look into the current policy of Steemit.
Copyright and Limited License
We may retain data, text, photographs, images, video, audio, graphics, articles, comments, software, code, scripts, and other content supplied by us, the Steem blockchain or our licensors, which we call “Steemit Content.” Steemit Content is protected by intellectual property laws, including copyright and other proprietary rights of the United States and foreign countries. Except as explicitly stated in this Agreement, we do not grant any express or implied rights to use Steemit Content.
The next one we should have a look into is the following,
You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-sublicensable license to access and use the Service and Steemit Content for your personal use. You retain ownership of and responsibility for Content you create or own ("Your Content"). If you're posting anything you did not create yourself or do not own the rights to, you agree that you are responsible for any Content you post; that you will only submit Content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third-party licenses relating to Content you post.
As an easy example, I have NOT agreed that my content is visible on a different blockchain-based condenser like the current split blockchain. (And I am aware that some users from the split blockchain are mocking about it that these users don't understand how blockchain works) I have ownership over my created content. It may be difficult to grab the split blockchain itself, which is decentralized, but that is not the case for any 3rd party condenser that is displaying content based on this split blockchain.
Because this blockchain split had been anyhow selective, it should have been secured that only content from authors that are explicitly confirming to have their content on the new blockchain should be visible on any condenser that is supporting the new chain. As it may the blockchain itself is a decentralized databank, but the condenser is not.
Personally I think this will have consequences for all 3rd party condenser running parties, because the blockchain itself may not be held liable, but the condensers are. For myself, I will have to check if these condensers can be held liable for displaying my content without any consent.
2. Next Steps
Life is going on and the users are now split into different communities and blockchains. I wish the users on the new chain the best, as a lot of them have been good friends during the last years, even if there have been different opinions. I am also aware that nobody from the other chain will read this post, but at least I have left the message here. I will move on with the community here building up the chain I have been the last years and make sure to secure this chain from any harm.
@jayplayco ..I had not met you or even seen you around the chain before this situation occurred. But having met you and watched you in action, as well as paying more attention to your posts, I find you to be a reasonable thinking person.
I'd really encourage you to test the waters over on Hive. I'd be very disappointed if you were attacked or downvoted for posting your views in the manner that I've seen you write.
I'd also encourage you to post to the DAO when the process is up and would happily support you doing so. Community matters, bridges between them are always important.
I need to say this because I have huge respect for you and love you Jay. I have worked along side with you, and know you to be an honest person, and of high integrity.
I just can’t understand how you can keep defending evil corrupt person that is Justin Sun. He has made so many bad things already that no sane person would do.
I love you Jay. You are my friend, and will continue to be. But you are dead wrong on this. Give it some thought. No politics. Just honest thought, for yourself.
Defend the people. Not a rich and spoiled egomaniac.
Stay safe and healthy.
Hi @geekgirl, thanks for stopping by!
I do respect you and really appreciate always your direct and very clear voice as a friend.
I had a lot of sleepless nights and have been talking to a lot of people in the last couple of days to prevent the fork itself, but I guess my influence was not good enough.
I agree that a lot of people have moved to the new blockchain, that I care a lot, but I don't think that I will have a chance there as my voice would be nullified. I had been already attacked when I predicted the outcome of a possible chain split at Steem.
Similar to other users that have NOT been speaking the same voice as it is requested at the new blockchain.
Let us assume I will write a post (not at Steem) on the new blockchain to explain logically what is wrong with their behavior and why they are against their own ideology. I would not even get any support from the current KR community, as their stake has been nullified and could wait either to be ignored or downvoted from whales (which has been already a normal procedure before the split).
Sure, the content itself is decentralized on the blockchain and always visible, but we have to think about it that content visibility is NOT about decentralization but about visibility itself on each condenser. And all condensers for Steem or the split blockchain are centralized and don't need to follow any rule of decentralization. That is the reason we have the blockchain and can use separate condensers that can show explicit content.
So here again we have visibility as the key and not decentralization. Because if my content is not visible, because other forces can, might, will control the visibility, I have no use of decentralization, because my content is still not visible on the place where I would have the biggest chance of being seen. Should be one of the reasons why most witnesses have closed their Steem witness, as they have seen they might have also no chance for visibility on the Steemit condenser level anymore. They still would have it on Steempeak or peakd, which they would prefer and would be no problem, but that is the point where we realize that visibility, crossed with Domain ranking and power , is indeed a fact that people do care about.
If we would really care only about decentralization, it would not matter, because a domain can always be closed, sued, shut down from government, etc. But not the blockchain, as long as we have enough nodes running it. Just open a new condenser (which is anyhow open source) and start an xyz domain and your content is there. Steemkr, formerly busy.org, still Steempeak are examples of that. Users can just easily deny to use the condenser and choose something else. It should not be a reason to deny a blockchain, only because of that reason. (And yes, I do know that is not the only reason, but just the last trigger)
I am not directly defending Justin Sun. From the beginning, I am trying to keep this blockchain alive and fighting for it. Trying to listen to both sides and find some common ground, which had not been successful by the way. Trying to do it while being against some opinion of the former witness majority I have also as consequence lost the possibility and credibility in their view to do anything else, as I would not be able to place my opinion a brand new blockchain due to fear of violent voices, mocking and mobbing, downvoting and due to a selective distribution of the new token, nonexisting stake. Happy decentralized blockchain world. Don't exactly understand the difference of the result of what is happening on Steemit and on the new blockchain.
Yes, we should defend the people, but having a different opinion made me on the new blockchain, not their people. :) So I am defending my people on this blockchain, and I definitely will.
Keep safe and healthy from any virus, because in the real world there are many more important things going on than this.
xoxo, Jay
Despite everything, here’s hoping you will submit an airdrop proposal when those are ready. Many in the community do not agree with the selective airdrop and many will find support when they launch their proposal. I hope you will be along those.
On a personal level, this whole show has been one of vindictive reactive move, a never-ending escalation. I am not yet convinced the escalation will end soon(ish). As a user, stakeholder so far I have mostly felt that my options were “can’t win” or “lose”.
While I guess I may soon get to it, I haven’t posted anything yet since the split became an obvious fact. Staying on the fence, being across both sides is being made more difficult every day because due to the centralized nature now I think some semantic arguments fall in the water and there is effective censorship happening here (If argued well, I also support that the airdrop was censorship but I haven’t seen anyone make the valid censorship argumentation yet).
I’m torn, have constant ambiguous feelings over all and generally feel pretty lost in everything.
It’s all been quite the “excremental show” and I am always wondering ever more if our human culture, one driven with money at heart of it, is mature enough to make platforms like this work. Anarchy culture, born on socialist principles, is often not understood and for many the name alone is a deterrent. As we all know education is slow, costly, and apparently easily forgotten or rejected too.
Stay strong, stay healthy, and keep doing what you do... I am not sure I will continue to observe the chain for a long time but whenever I do or have a quick look, I hope to see a budding and thriving community. And here’s hoping many of you guys still come over nevertheless, and that not just to request a power down. 🤘
PS: One thing I would want to highlight though - two in fact - is to lobby for further decentralization as right now STEEM and SBD may be securities. Additionally, if funds are frozen or moved to the DAO - or nulled - the currently centralized operation of STEEM would effectively put Steemit Inc at legal risk (or Tron Foundation SF, whoever is on the company papers in Delaware).
I agree with @fknmayhem's comment. Proposal for the airdrops should be made. Maybe people can unite around it as a community and make a proposal. I have seen many expressing opinions in support of airdrop for those users who were excluded.
I doubt your voice will be silenced on Hive. You have many friends there. I don't think people will allow that to happen. This drama has been too much for everybody. Hopefully, we can start fresh and move towards better future together.
I find the Koreans nice and people with manners.
Hope you understand that not everyone agrees with the forking out and I hope you submit a proposal to get your HIVE.
Maybe it can be done in a group effort all at once.
While SteemPeak for now shows the uncensored view of the blockchain, they may shut down as Justin Sun defunded them at the instructions of others (who had to tell him where the upvote button was). If nothing else, it is doubtful they will continue to update their site. Meanwhile Sun continues to add people to his blacklist. You don't have to worry about Cheetah anymore since its "spam" was hidden to hide the fact that Justin Sun is censoring people.
Are you aware that Sun is pinning posts to the top of trending and removing the old indicator that showed they were pinned? He is also hiding the fact on the feeds that he upvoted posts with his @steemit account by showing incorrect payout values.
Are you ok with Justin Sun lying to people by altering anything he pleases on Steemit.com?
I'm not super intimate with other forks. So when bitcoin cash split they did not carry along the blockchain history. Or ethereum classic? All of those transactions gone? They started with zero content, zero history, 0kb in the block chain? I had in mind that those chains in fact consider themselves the original chain even if they changed their name.
yeah, there is nothing more annoying than the spamming.
It is indeed.
I have been curious about the copyright situation regarding duplicating the old posts. I am not an expert, but intuitively it seems strange to assume there's implicit permission to publish something on the Hive blockchain just because it was previously published via the Steem blockchain.
Great to read a supportive post towards the steemit blockchain and get to the end to see no spam.
I was thinking the same thing about copying over user content without permission. I've also noticed that the brand name has been used by quite a few other blockchain projects/companies including TRON. Wierd.
I also hear alot of talk about price, but what I don't hear is the impact this split will have on content and interaction in the comments. I only have so many hours in a day so cross-posting and cross commenting has no long-term future for anyone.
Also spamming is a pain in a butt and has long been an issue with blockchain. However communities is the big issue to that. I've done done a pretty good job at updating our communities to add certain spammers to mute list. And steempeak has a cool feature that if you mute a user that often others users will choose to have muted those that you mute.
Anyway communities is a huge tool in all this I hope users here realize it's potential.
Hi @jayplayco, how are you doing? Two days, I voted for your witness '@steemhunt' with my account and proxy and I explained why I voted on it in this post:
https://steemit.com/hive-148441/@surpassinggoogle/updating-my-steem-witness-voting-list-see-the-additional-witnesses-i-voted-for-kindly-support-the-surpassinggoogle-steem-witness
In the post, I also discussed some things that may be worthy of further discussion in relation to the steem blockchain. Kindly take a look. Where possible, you can share your thoughts as well.
I also started a witness on steem called 'surpassinggoogle'. I announced it here. Where you decide to support it, that would be inspirational.
Is there a group for steem witnesses that is current? I will like to join. I am on discord as 'surpassinggoogle#1660'
Your boy Terry
@surpassinggoogle