Has SteemIt a bigger censorship than Facebook?
I really like the idea of Steemit and one of the features that I most liked was the lack of censorship, but now I'm not so sure about the lack of censorship in Steemit. May be it is not centrally censored like in FB where Zuckerberg's political views are imposed, but apparently some posts can be hidden by a mechanism that I still don't fully understand. If you know that mechanism please explain it to me on the comments below.
I say that Steemit is censored because I had a "controversial" post that has been hidden, which is to say the same than censored. This post is about Vaccines, an open debate with many people in favour and against, so it is a subject open to discussion and posting.
The post in question is this one:
https://steemit.com/food/@freedomvigilante/don-t-legally-posion-your-kids-please-you-probably-don-t-know-that-you-are-doing-it
You will need to click on "SHOW" to see the post because the first thing you will see is "This post was hidden due to low ratings." and that is censorship, because obviously if it is hidden it will not show on the feeds.
Who gave the low ratings? Where can be given? Why does Steemit hide it when there are low ratings? So if some content is good but a few people is against that content for ideological reasons they can censor it and prevent people in favour of it to read and upvote it?
Unless someone gives me a good answer, I believe that this is not a good policy on SteemIt. It should be completely uncesored and no content should be hidden even if it offends some people, because freedom of speech is totally above someone feelings. I could feel offended by people talking about higher taxes but that doesn't mean that I can censor them, and it works the other way around also, of course, I can say things that offend some people, but that doesn't me that they can censor me.
May be SteemIt has an appeal process to remove censored posts, if there is please let me know.
If this censorship in SteemIt is like I currently see it then I'll lose all my interest on this platform, one of its main points was the lack of censorship but I currently feel like more censored than even in Facebook!
There are many of us here that speak out about vaccines.
I guess with you being so new here, none of us who would have upvoted you saw your post, and one troublesome Steemian decided to take advantage of that and flag it invisible.
Please contact me in the future if your vaccine posts get flagged, and I can hopefully get it visible again.
I know that this flag has left a VERY bad impression, but I hope that you stick around and give Steemit a try. There are LOTS of open-minded people here and just a few that cause trouble like was done to you.
The flag feature does good in most cases, and keeps abuses to a minimum on Steemit. Unfortunately a few people get really emotional on this vaccine issue (as I'm sure you know) and in their misinformed and brainwashed minds they think that we are dangerous for speaking out and that is how they justify the use of their flags. But there are people here who have your back on this topic at least.
Hey! Thank you so much for this post! It really gives me hope, I was so disenchanted after the down vote...
I completely agree with you, I'm going to follow you and your "community" so we can spread the word, with the work of all of us may be one day we will make a difference and the general public will start to take conscience of the problems with vaccines.
Thank you again! :D
There are most definitely many of us who agree with you on this matter. I find it terrible that someone with a great deal of influence and clout chose to use his flag against you in this way (I went and took a look at the post). I do not believe that flags should be used because someone disagrees with an individual's point of view, especially someone with influence who didn't even have the decency to leave an explanation or express his own opinion on the matter. It was a bully move and I'm disappointed to learn of it.
Awesome!
I'm glad to hear you will continue spreading the message.
Now I'm going to have to read the post :)
Hi again @canadian-coconut
Thanks to you I have found the inspiration to make a new posting, I have worked a lot on it doing research like you like to do ;)
Just to let you know in case you like it and to prevent possible whales downvoting and hiding it :o
https://steemit.com/vaccines/@freedomvigilante/why-i-m-very-happy-to-not-have-vaxxed-my-baby-girl-with-the-hepatitis-b-vaccine
Best wishes!
Yes steemit is censoring everything. I think they're cashing the idea of freedom of speech and stuff to engage more people and once they have enough to run their li'l business the policies will be changed pretty much like all other mainstream stuff. However, there are all sorts of people uses internet for all different kinds of purposes and intents. Such practices needs to be discouraged too.
I think if steemit needs to stick around it should work on its algorithms or alternatively steemit should stay transparent about what kind of content is welcomed here and what shouldn't be posted. People are getting confused in many ways and in the end they don't get anything in return but just frustration. I mean I can post tons of cat pics and such stuff nights and days if that's what this community decides as "quality content". If that's not the case stop with the god damn targeted censorship.
While there isn't 'formal' censorship, it is true that there are those with influence who abuse the flagging system. @freedomvigilante did well to put up this post, because the facts are that there are different factions of people at the top. In the case of his post that was what I call 'flagged into oblivion' it was a matter of a member with clout who disagreed with his opinion discovering the post before a member with clout who agreed with it. For instance, if @canadian-coconut had come across his post first, she would have upvoted it, and even had @sneak flagged it, he actually has much less voting power than she does so not only would it not have been hidden, it would have earned.
The simple fact is that no matter how great a place is, when it's filled with people it's always going to have problems. In my experience it's good to address the negatives but focus on the positives. By which I mean deal with the problems as they come, but make a much bigger deal out of the good, and ultimately the good will win out :)
Hi follow back me i joined your profile a few sec ago
No.
I'm not very active on Steemit and this is one of the reasons why. When FB censors you, you at least know who is doing it. Here on Steemit, a group of people who disagree with what you are saying, have the ability to make your post disappear. Just like the Antifa people who refuse to even let people speak, these people can shut you down, just because they don't want people to read and think about things that they don't like.
Yea, I am slowing down on posting as well because I just don't care for the system. It seems that a small few control the many. You don't get valued on content but rather on who you know. Many low quality posts make a lot of money because they "fit in".
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STOPJust for your information you can downvote(flag) posts aswell as upvote them. If you upovte a post the rating and payout increases if you downvote them it decreases.
So the low rating was given by steemit users like yourself.
And I agree with the flags since vaccines are very important and helpful, I mean do you still see kids who need iron lungs due to polio around?
But thats a discussion I dont want to start right now just thought id let you know about the flags you can give.
I understand the concept of downvoting, but I disagree with the implementation on SteemIt of hidding content that is downvoted because that is censorship. Imagine that you post something that ideologically is contrary to some whale and he downvotes you, then your post gets hidden/censored and no one else could see it when may be there was a whole community with the same ideas on that post that could have upvoted it but will no longer be able to do because it is already hidden.
So in the end there is a censorship even worst than in Facebook where I can post the same article about the real danger of vaccines without getting censored. I see it as a huge problem in SteemIt.
I believe that upvoting and dowvoting should be about the quality of the post and not about ideology specially if downvoting is going to hide/censor the post.
You can keep believing in the lies from the pharmaceutical industry injecting mercury, triclosan, cancer causing viruses from other species (like it is proven by scientific papers to have happened) and other posions to our kids, you are free to believe on those lies if you choose so, but you cannot censor me to say the contrary because that is not freedom of speach and in theory SteemIt was a flag of freedom of speach and one of the most important features, if not the most important one.
I'm going to try to rase this point to Jeff Berwick to see what he has to say about it. If he is a real guy he should make a video about it, if he is just after his personal interest and not about libertarian ideals then he will not do it.
Very sad to discover that SteemIt is not the libertarian idea that it was suposed to be, libertarians like me should get out of here and create a better system with real freedom of speach and total lack of censorship.
I disagree as I don't see this as bad censorship as fb has. even though posts and comment can be hidden, they are never completely hidden and deleted like on fb, neither are users banned for made up reasons.
The flagging system helps to keep the discussions civil to a certain point and not going overboard with different claims and having to think and explain everything good enough there are no reasons for flags.