Whats up with the new accounts that just flag content?
I logged into my Steemd page the other day and noticed that one of my posts had been flagged. As far as I am aware the post is nothing offensive, or spammy - it was about The World Series of Poker. I know I am not the only one to have been targetted by flagging accounts and have read blogs from @johngreenfield about how he has also been attacked by these accounts for no apparent reason. Thought I might investigate the person who flagged me, and also propose some possible reasons for this behaviour. (i'd rather not name them, its more of an informative post/rant).
Checking out their account, they have 15SP (delegated from Steemit), and have only been on Steem for 37 days. This account has a reputation score of 25 - they have created 0 posts or comments (althought they have resteemed alot of posts). Their voting power has been drained to a whopping 19% - which means their flags will be worth pretty much nothing. It seems as though once a day this person logs in and goes on a flagging spree - flagging 10s, if not 100s of posts.
Possible reasons for flag accounts
Lack of education about Steem
The most probably reason for these accounts is a lack of education/knowledge about how the Steem ecosystem works - flagging someone when you only have the 15SP (and 19% VP) will make little to no difference. What they are doing is really a waste of their time and not helping anyone. If you are new to Steem and have little SP and notice someone spamming/scamming then your best bet is to report them to @steemcleaners.
I do my best to educate my followers about the ins and outs of Steem (it can be complicated for new users!) - do we need more people who are knowledgable to edcucate and help out new users?
Attention
It seems that some new accounts do anything to gain some attention, and increase their following. There are so many 'resteem bots' these days who basically started as 'follow for follow' type accounts and have 1000s of followers. The newest theme I have noticed is that more and more new followers are resteeming my posts - again probably in a hope I will follow them - has anyone else noticed this? The account that flagged me has resteemed loads of posts aswell - possibly they are trying to work out the best strategy to gain followers without actually creating content?
So it could be possible that these flagging accounts could be doing this to gain attention and thus more followers? But why would they flag content and not just upvote it?
Conclusion
Because the flag that came to me seems to have been a one off, and didn't come from someone with large SP it didnt affect my account in any way, but I just thought it was interesting to share. Has anyone else been flagged in a similar way? What are your thoughts about why people are doing this?
I've just checked the account name against my list and it's a known SDL account.
I struggle to believe at this point that they're unaware of how Steem Power and Voting Weight works, this has been going on for over 3 months now. I think they just don't really care, they're well aware that their flags are worthless but it's about trying to attack the platform as a whole in my opinion.
They've setup accounts that haven't flagged but have instead posted, and then gone on to flag the accounts that upvoted their posts. At this point, with the amount of time and effort put into this, I think they're too invested in this crusade to just stop.
It looks like they may be paying other people to setup these accounts too on Microworkers.com. I've seen some people say they're contacting the site to get the tasks pulled, which would at least slow down their ability to create new accounts. 86 in total now!
Yeah I saw the post you made about it and checked :)
I checked out your Steemd page they are hitting you hard! I got another downvote today (for this post actually!)
They are definetly bots of some type but I struggle to figure out what they are trying to achieve!
I guess people are trying to bring trolls to steemit... I was hoping we would be free from that here!
Luckily it didn’t do any harm to your account, hopefully these people get removed
There is loads of people hhere trying to hurt the system - it is pretty sad!
They might get removed/flagged but they would probably just start up a new account...
Last month I would get 5-10 followers instantly after I posted. Then that stopped. Now this bot flagging business. Sounds like someones trying to test the limits of Steem?
I remember getting those followers as soon as I posted to - I guess it boosted the number of follower I have :P
Someone is definetly out to try and do some damage to Steem
Same has happened to me over the last week for the first time. It is kind of sad given that I have been increased the amount of post in support of the #minnowuprising initiative. However, in reviewing some of the activities in these accounts downvoting, they must be bots because some have dozens of downvotes done within minutes. At first, I thought it was a legit downvote which I could understand but would also like to get the feedback as to why it was given. I think it is a trend that someone or group has started to hurt the community which is sad as well. We need to keep our heads up and support each other! For every downvote we get, we should give 2 upvotes!
Yeah I have been joining the #minnowuprising aswell! Maybe they are just out to attack anyone trying to make a difference here... wouldnt surprise me! I am convinced that they are bots!
I was flagged last week by a really odd accounts which has a database link in its bio of all these other accounts on a master Steem flag list . Apparently they flag content from users who follow a myriad of different accounts which someone in the steem ether has gotten into a grudge with.
That user is https://steemit.com/@niquetarace and the link for this list is here: https://jpst.it/1gMi7
And the mystery continues!
I got smacked with a flag also ( in a giveaway topic ) ... there is a team of them or a single person using multiple accounts to flag random topics for some reason.
Just some internet troll ..... It was only a matter of time before a flag troll serviced.
LOL trying to give back to the community and then getting flagged - ohh the irony!
Yeah I just think it is a troll having a laugh
Yeah, the same thing happened to me. I don't know, maybe it's an attempt to attack Steem by creating spam?
Yeah it seems very odd to me - I couldnt think of why but just had some thoughts
Be prepared for a lot more there are numerous accounts recently set up just to flag content seems to be some kind of plan devised by certain individual but as they have little to no rep they do not affect account with higher rep currently however given time this could I have noticed atleast a few accounts a day being set up with zero posts zero comment just down votes a lot of people are getting numerous downvotes a day and surely something needs to be done about this
One of them just flagged this post haha - the account had been created today and had 15% voting power left and had just gone straight on to a downvote spree
Ridiculous is anyone doing anything about it, if nothing else it's a waste of power being delegated to these accounts
Lets hope in the future something will be don to fix this problem!
Yes, I've had it happen too. Though I never would have known if I hadn't gone to Steemd just at the right moment. The motivation for it baffles me.
Hope you are well :)
It seems as though it is a wide spread issue. I dont know the reasoning either
I didn't get aby downvote yet, but I've heard a lot of people already complaining about it...
Your the lucky one :)