Facebook Censoring More Political Speech - Target of Opportunity for Steemit
This is a perfect example of 'Statist' behavior that needs to go the way of the dinosaur. Facebook is again censoring political speech --
I sent this message to the author, Matt Orfalea:
Matt - just saw the story about your video being censored by Facebook. Come check out www.steemit.com -- its a social media platform running on top of a blockchain so censorship is not possible AND you earn digital currency (like bitcoin) that can be sold for bitcoin and/or dollars. Its growing in size and scope and Facebook's political censorship is one reason. Let me know if you have any questions about it
I highly suggest that if you believe in the long term value and viability of Steem, you should send a message to Matt to take a look.
As a point of strategy, our community should be aware of ANY censorship on ANY social media platform and immediately reach out to those being censored. This is an easy 'target of opportunity' for us to demonstrate the value proposition of a censorship-resistant social media platform.
Aside form the ubiquitous empty cheerleading, no one has ever presented a compelling argument that steemit is more censorship resistant than facebook.
1- Once a post or comment is posted, it's on the blockchain. Data in the blockchain appear something like that: https://steemit.com/steemit/@alexgr/have-you-ever-wondered-what-your-post-looks-like-while-stored-in-the-steem-blockchain
There is no mechanism (that I know of) that prevents commenting or posting unless we're talking about spamming which is dealt with bandwidth limitations.
2- Everything that is grayed out on steemit.com can be ungrayed through changes in the (open-source) software and then you may have sites like steemit-uncensored.com, or even have the blockchain downloaded in your disk along with a web-like interface, for local browsing.
Hm. The burden of proof is on you to prove that censorship is possible? Even things that are downvoted out of sight still exist on the blockchain AND are still visible.
What exactly are you talking about ?
Youre the one making the assertion -- that steemit is more censorship resistant than FB. The burden of proof is on you. Or at least it ought to be. Attempting to place the burden of proof on me is like you saying
Blake:"last night, i had sex with a purple and green spotted unicorn with three boobs and five faces, and one of the faces was sarah michelle gellar."
Me: "i don't believe you, and youve presented no compelling evidence that you had sex with the sara michelle gellar spotted unicorn of the apocalypse"
Blake: "but the burden of proof is on you to prove that what im saying isnt true"
But OK, ill bite anyway.
The mere fact that that certain information remains visible on the blockchain, which 99% of people don't know how to access, doesnt mean its not censored. Censorship includes the supression of information, not merely its absolute annihilation.
By its very nature, Steemit is more censorship resistant than FB because its not centrally controlled, the code is open source, and any number of tools can be developed to explore the blockchain. (steemd and steemdb exist already). You can see every post.
On Facebook, you CAN'T see when things are removed or accounts are blocked.
Blocking accounts is FAR more effective at censorship than simply deleting posts and we know it happens.
People don't need to know how to access the blockchain since Steemit is essentially exploring the Steem blockchain as well. Anyone can post whatever they want. How is suppression possible?
I can only lay out the fundamentals, and run some game theory. Can you prove a positive instance of censorship, or at least the game theory for such censorship to happen on Steemit?
Here's mine:
Now -- such a tactic on behalf of individual B and any others who participate would put their reputation at risk and given the general ideology of the Steemit ecosystem, any word of such behavior would be countered. Upvotes from other whales can counteract a large downvote, as can a bulk of upvotes from minnows and dolphins.
Also from your anecdote, it would be more like me saying "My car is not able to fly". Since the majority of people know that cars can't fly, a) how would I prove that it can't fly and b) who would be my audience that believes cars can actually fly?
For anyone who understands blockchain technology, its understood that the data of the blockchain can't be altered without a 51% attack (which can be identified).
Im about to grab lunch, but i will reply to the rest of the comment when i am done. However, this stands out:
No, it would not. Because in that situation i would be asking you to prove a negative. As the individual making the affirmative assertion (that your car can fly) the burden would be on me to back up that assertion with evidence.
You have made an affirmative statement about the comparison between 2 different things.
If you want a car analogy instead of a sara michelle gellar unicorn analogy (which i personally think its more fun), our conversation would be like this:
Blake: Sigma, my car is faster than your car.
Sigma: You haven't presented any compelling evidence that your car is faster than mine.
Blake: I don't need to present any evidence, the burden is on you to prove that my car isnt faster.
The mere fact that you can get a bunch of whales and sycophants to say your car is faster, doesnt make it so, and doesn't change the standard necessary to prove your point.
Youre employing a very popular logical fallacy argumentum ad populum (get it... a vert popular fallacy)
as a matter of fact, the number of fallacies you have to go through to get to where your going is kind of impressive.
@sigmmajin - Fair enough on the fallacies from me, but at this point you're asserting that censorship is possible. What proof do you have of that?
I provided as much game theory as I possibly could to back up my assertions, and @alexgr added to that.
I just opted to make a post out of my response instead. I'm obviously not competent enough to make any coherent arguments, so maybe someone else will be.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@blakemiles84/is-facebook-more-censorship-resistant-than-steemit
my reply
https://steemit.com/censorship/@sigmajin/censorship-and-sensibility
the stoopids...
Yeah, Fb's censorship stinks. Clearly a progressive state servant, like so many US companies. They've become so powerfully present that it's really hard to avoid using it.
On one hand, I defend their right to do whatever they want. On the other, I hate being censored. This won't post there because it's a security risk! Go ahead and try it. :)
I think it's a legitimate question ... how censorship resistant is steem at the end of the day?
Whales defines what is to be shown on the front page, the "steem middle class" has very little power to decide on that - but not being promoted to the front page is not the same as being censored.
Steemit, Inc has the power to hide things from their Web UI, which they will probably do if they get a court order. Other providers are free to set up altnernative web pages or software applications to access the blockchain. Does there exist any alternative steem browsers? If they are easily accessible, I wouldn't call it "censorship", the content hasn't been removed.
But ... please do have a look at https://github.com/steemit/steem/blob/master/LICENSE.md ... there is one big point of centralization there. Steemit, Inc is defining what is the valid blockchain, no other forks allowed, software is not free to reuse on other blockchain projects.
Steemit, Inc is under US jurisdiction, meaning that if the US government says "jump" ... (well, I suppose a court order would be needed) ... then Steemit, Inc has to jump. They do have the power to censor content through a hard fork of the blockchain. Those sticking their guns to "freedom of speech" will not have the juridical right to do a "steem uncensored" hard fork.
Steemon
Thanks For The share
Definitely one of the better aspects of Steem and there is no doubt we'll have numerous opportunities to reach out to people like Matt in the future. Thanks for posting, I'll keep my eyes peeled for additional censorship on facebook, twitter, etc.
Thanks you for making us all aware of it @blakemiles84. Now just Keep calm and Steem on!!!
Since i am on steemit i didnt look at my facebook account for weeks, only to promote Steemit :)
@blakemiles84 ...My bone to pick here is you CAN'T make a 'controversial' post on Steemit because THIS is a 'trolls' Wunderland...if you DO make a controversial post here...you WILL get 'ambushed' by trolls...they aren't here to cut a profit...they're HERE to make sure you don't!...In my estimation THAT is what will bring down this platform...Minnows getting 'tired' of no value, getting screwed by 'trolls'...will cause us to migrate right back to Facebook!...I've had some 'censorship' there...but at least you don't have trolls attacking you to the point that your post gets buried anyway! If Steemit at LEAST tries to handle the 'trolls' here...they would stand a better chance of keeping members!...The bullying & stalking here has NO end!
https://steemit.com/steemit/@terryrall/conservative-trump-trolls-do-not-own-this-platform
Here's more of the same!