Steemit and Spam - The Consequences of Bad Algorithms!

2 months of using Steemit has given me ample time to get an idea of how this platform works, what the people are like (mostly very friendly really), and the means to better understand how this platform values its creative minds and the content they produce. The problem is, it doesn't appear that this platform values creativity and hard work, so much as it does money. The real issue at hand is what are clearly horrible ranking algorithms that are reminiscent of the earlier days of social media when platforms like Facebook used to put a lot of weight on things such as likes as being a signal of relevance and value. Other issues at hand here are the exponential growth of out of control spam, and the negative consequences of bad SEO that follow.

The lessons that Facebook and others learned over the years clearly didn't resonate when it came to the development of the Steemit platform it seems. Rather, Steemit has continued to follow the tried and failed approach to ranking content based on a system of likes anyway. Although, the situation is a bit different here, as Steemit appears to rank posts based on the strength of upvotes acquired. The more valuable the vote, the higher the content ranks.

While this platform has taken some measures to combat the issues with spam and plagiarism with the use of Steem Cleaners and the Cheetah Bot, its become perfectly clear these measures are not enough to keep bad actors from further ruining the social experience of users here; as well as undermining the hard work of creators on this platform.

All it takes is one quick look at the Hot and Trending tabs to see post after post of what is essentially worthless content produced with no intent other than to earn more money.

To make matters worse, the excessive amount of spam that manages to infiltrate the Steemit platform also hurts its credibility with search engines, and its overall ability to rank where it should. You see, when it comes to search engines like that of Google's, Google has taken an approach of weighing the positives against the negatives when it comes to ranking entire domains. If the negatives outweigh the positives, you lose rank and visibility as a result.

Each piece of spam counts as another negative. Likewise, each piece of high quality content counts as a positive. Too much spam, and you could lose your rank altogether; or worse yet, have your entire domain get de-indexed. While Steemit has succeeded in understanding the implications of SEO as they're related to the technical functionality of their site, they also failed to comprehend how things like spam would hurt their search visibility over the long term.

The question then becomes what do we define as being spam? While the word spam is often loosely regarded with things like low quality content, and or junk ads, spam is often defined by search engines as content that is duplicated word for word across the web. In the case of the Google+ platform, we've actually banned a number of big name bloggers (not giving any names) for spamming in our communities, many of which had their accounts suspended by Google for violating their guidelines regarding spam.

Simply put, even the best quality of content on the web could be considered spam if it was republished too many times, and to too many places.

As for the issue with low quality content, the consequences are just as bad really. Though, people often make the bad assumption that a really short post is of low quality, which isn't always the case. In fact, one of the web's most notable bloggers in existence, Seth Godin, rose to fame by penning a series of very short blog posts that were typically nothing more than a few short paragraphs, yet he ranks very well in search engines today.

And, what about videos and DTube? Often the real context at hand is within the video itself, not the text surrounding. Assuming a short amount of text by the side of a video equates to low quality would often be a false assumption.

Either way, the battles Steemit faces in terms of dealing with spammers and low quality content are wholeheartedly nothing new when it comes the world of social media. It's honestly a battle that social platforms have long been fighting since day one, and its a battle I've been working to fight myself on platforms like Google+ for the better part of over 6 years.

You see, if you change the algorithms, the spammers and other bad actors will always try and find a way to adapt with those changes. Its a constant game of cat and mouse really. But, I think platform's like Steemit could learn a lot if they paid more attention to how social platforms like Google+ deal with the issues surrounding poor quality content that constantly attempt to clog up users home streams.

Back when Google+ first launched, Google took a totally different approach in terms of ranking users and content as compared to the traditional social media platforms at the time. Rather than ranking content and people based on simple vanity metrics like likes and shares, they implemented a set of intelligent algorithms that instead focused on ranking content based on metrics of authority, influence, and trust. While metrics such as likes and shares still counted, they were only secondary to the other factors involved.

Even then, the issues with spam on platforms like Google+, and even social media as a whole, will always be a problem that is likely to persist.

The problem with Steemit is that, unlike with Google+ and other social platforms, this platform knowingly and willingly promotes spam and junk content on the front page. This is bad news, as having issues with things like rampant spam persist so openly are more than likely to devalue Steemit as a social platform, and ultimately its treasured cryptocurrency Steem.

Meanwhile, I keep seeing these posts from @Ned that tout all the wonderful projects they're working, like Smart Media Tokens. Yet, there appears to be no focus on dealing with the issues facing their core platform Steemit. This just seems counterproductive really. While I totally honor the work that Ned and others have done here, I think its quite obvious that there's serious problems here that need to be addressed.

So, what is the solution to these problems? This platform seriously needs new ranking algorithms that can better differentiate between content of quality vs. content that's essentially worthless. The problem is, there are often very little if any consequences as a result of spamming and the purposeful dumping of low quality content on Steemit.

I know from experience in dealing with spammers and the purveyors of junk content on Google+ that, you must have a system of accountability in place, otherwise people will do bad things. Google's approach to dealing with these issues is to flat out cut off the visibility of spammers across the Google+ platform once their content is flagged. For the most part, this is a system that appears to work fairly well.

This doesn't mean that Steemit and its users should expect an algorithm change to completely stamp out the bad actors either, but the use of Steem Cleaners and Cheetah Bot does help a lot. Again, spammers and other bad actors will attempt to adapt to whatever road blocks are put in place.

Just to note how significant the issues with spam on social media are today, I personally banned and reported close to 5,000 users for spamming on Google+ from just 2 of our communities in less than a week last month. My moderators reported and banned tens of thousands more. But most of these accounts were already flagged for review by Google, and rather sent to us for further clarification. But platforms like Steemit often don't hold posts for review, and often don't take action until an issue is actually reported.

In many cases it appears that Steemit users often blame the problems with spam and low quality content on the proliferation of bots. But bots aren't the problem, its bad algorithms. Google ranking algorithms would easily make things like resteems and upvotes irrelevant. After all, I see nothing wrong with promoting good quality content.

Some users on Steemit have insisted the answer lies in getting the wider community to flag spammy posts altogether. The problem here is that doing so could end up creating a pissing match between users. Likewise, a lower rank user flagging a higher ranked one could the doors for the potential of the person being reported retaliating by flagging down the other users posts.

One thing that does seem to work is reporting bad actors to Steem Cleaners. While Steemit doesn't have the best of ranking algorithms in place, anyone can report what they feel is spammy content.

All being said, I see a lot of potential in the Steemit platform, but things need to change if this platform wants to continue to grow and stand the test of time. Employing the use of updated algorithms that can better differentiate between content of a quality nature and content that is worthless would be huge step in the right direction.

Written and published by Daniel Imbellino, co-founder of Strategic Social Networking and Gamers Bay! Connect with me on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DanielImbellino

Check Out Strategic Social Networking Community on Google+: https://plus.google.com/communities/116564172151613669656