Steemit, Free Speech, Censorship and.... Comment Spam

Since Steemit is a social content site, it's pretty inevitable that there will be a share of users who join up with the single-minded determination to "use" or "game" the system to earn a few dollars.

This morning, I ran into a few examples of what many would call "comment spam."

Truth in disclosure: I really do not like mindless spammers! In this case, it was not that this particular individual was trying to sell anything (although they MAY be), but they go around and leave hundreds of comments that might look something like this:

"Cool post, thanks for the info! Upvoted and followed!
Please upvote and follow my posts!"

Generally, the comments are identical and just copied and pasted to each post they "grace."

Personally, I find them a bit annoying and cluttering, even if they are basically "harmless" (aka: no malicious links or sales pitches) and only serve to get the user's name plastered all over the place... in hope, I suppose, of gaining followers.

I don't see such "comments" adding any value to the community. So should they be downvoted into oblivion, by the greater community?

But Isn't Steemit is about Freedom of Speech and Being Censorship Free?

Of course, then I got to thinking about the "ideal" of Steemit, and what it stands for.

Part of what we highlight here is precisely that members have freedom of expression, and that can contribute content and ideas that perhaps are too controversial or "out there" for platforms like Google+, Facebook or YouTube.

I know we already have numerous members who are "refugees" from these platforms where they had accounts banned.

Which leads to the extended idea that ostensible "comment spam" is just another form of "freedom of expression," right?

I mean, nobody was harmed; nobody's lying on the floor, bleeding out. On aggregate, we might say that comment spam is harmless.

So What do we DO About Comment Spam?

But is it really harmless?

One obvious argument is that we should merely "ignore" comment spam and the person doing the posting will eventually get tired of almost no results, and their posts not being followed-- hence no money.

But it's not that simple, because we have bots cruising the platform, and they cast upvotes for anything simply because "it exists." So the spammer will get some minimal results.

You might thinks "Yeah, but not enough to count!"

I respectfully disagree... a lot of the time, the individuals who engage in spamming like this are the same people who think earning ONE CENT for doing tiny tasks on Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" is a good deal... even if they are getting five cents an hour.

I bring this up because I have previously seen user-generated content sites like Steemit become a wasteland because there was no organized approach (or policy) in place to deal with comment (and other forms of) spam. I'm serious here... spammers can invade a site like a swarm of locusts and sink the entire ship.

So, I'm basically just bringing this up for discussion and consideration.

What do YOU think? Is comment spam a problem we should be concerned about? Should there be a site-wide guideline for what to do with it? Do you feel like comment spam can be a detraction from the potential success of a site, like Steemit? Have you been part of other venues (Tsu, Bubblews, Squidoo, others...) that were "killed" (in part, or in full) by spam-like activity, unchecked? Leave a comment and share your experiences-- start the conversation!

(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise specified. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)