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RE: Tron to Acquire Steemit, Inc.?
This is the first I'd heard of it.
After reading the article, I'm not sure what your specific concerns arise from. Would Steemit be subjected to Chinese censorship if a Chinese investor bought it? I'm not aware how such legal matters work.
Also, are you certain that Chinese censorship is worse than what we're currently under? I'm not.
I wrote about possible shenanigans around STEEM price, saying it could be driven downward for a takeover at rock bottom prices. Perhaps we just saw that takeover?
EDIT: I don't know TRON from Apple, so perhaps my ignorance on that is why I don't understand your level of concern.
At the bottom of the article is a link to another article on him. Basically he's hated in China, I am not really even sure if Tron (whatever Tron is) is allowed in China, it may have been censored out. The article in essence made it sound that he is so disliked there that the only way for him to go was west.
My concern is that state actors may acquire user data through corporate transfer of equity from extant equity holders to ones captive or otherwise associated with states. I currently do not believe Steemit, Inc. is so associated - but I certainly could be wrong, and the only evidence either way is how Steem is distributed and deployed, which I poorly grasp.
Given my personal experience with corruption, fraud, institutional power, and extant information regarding China, I will be unable to undertake posting under the expected surveillance and resulting censorship that China is purported to undertake to control society. Currently, while state actors clearly have the ability to closely surveil whomever they want, the West demonstrates little direct intervention at the user level to control information, and relies on subcontractors, such as Twatter, Goolag, and Microshaft to do so.
Absent institutions directly associated with state actors such as China, that clearly does directly effect surveillance and narrative enforcement on individuals, Steem remains available to me as a vector for my speech. Given Tron's dependence on China, I would be rash to undertake my current practices should Tron acquire Steemit, Inc. The events that have prompted my pseudonymity have apparently been precluded by separation of my speech from my physical person, despite that state actors can undertake such direct intervention. Threats to me and my family's safety have ended due to Western governments' subcontracting censorship and Steemit, Inc. not being such a subcontractor.
Thanks!
"My concern is that state actors may acquire user data"
What user data are you referring to? The phone number you gave to confirm your signup with Steemit Inc? (Sorry, I'm not very technical.)
Edward Snowden talks about how the CIA and others wire tap the Internet. This means that they archive virtually everything or like almost everything. They even try to collect encrypted data. Now, some governments, some groups, may not be breaking the encrypted data. It can be hard to encrypt. It can take time. Lots of time. But they at least try to collect it and store it. And later on, they try to break into the data. So, that means they try to collect personal information, emails, phone numbers, etc. China probably already has it. Others may have it as well. It is a long story. Just read Snowden's 2019 book for more information. Watch the videos of Naomi Brockwell.
Far more consequential to individuals blogging are the platforms like Goolag, Twatter, and Microshaft that are delegated the responsibility to censor and ban by state actors.
What we see across the world and internet today is that those platforms are the vector for surveillance and censorship. It isn't the CIA or Mossad directly banning and censoring us. This is why Steemit remains relatively censorship resistant today, as it is apparently not such a subcontractor for state oppression, which makes it available to us to speak freely today.
I agree.
That, email addys, off chain correspondence with Stinc, and it's principals, as well as any proprietary data collection Stinc may have undertaken. It is notable that providers of both email and phone services are clearly susceptible to the financial power of China to extract metadata, and perhaps even content, since we have no actual evidence that isn't collected and used by those institutions, while we do have evidence it is collected and indefinitely retained.
I am curious about your flagging of @informationwar in the comments on this post. Would you be kind enough to explain?
Thanks!