RE: Bots upvoting posts? An investigation
I think we really need to have a proper conversation about bots and whether they are actually what's best for Steemit in the long run. If we want this to be a legitimate social and intellectual network where posts are read and valued by other human beings according to their merits, bots are just going to end up making it more difficult to tell which posts are actually good and which are just being uprooted arbitrarily. Bots are also just 'rewarding' their creators for being good at coding, not for actually interacting with or adding value to Steemit, which is not the point.
Personally I think Steemit should look into restricting or even banning bots (apart from the ones like @cheetah that are actually good for the network) before it all gets out of hand.
We certainly do need to have a debate about this. I hope there's more discussion and posts on this matter. Especially from more influential steemers.
I have to disagree with the cheetah bot. Ultimately what's going to wind up happening is bots like cheetah will discourage legit posts from happening if a mob mentality forms based on misunderstanding. The bot is pretty harmless right now but as it grows in it's "power" more & more people will just look at it without actually reading into what it does and simply assume anytime they see it they're supposed to flag that post. Don't believe me, that's totally cool... but literally every single other social platform has already proven this to be the case. I 'm not saying cheetah isn't a good idea but I am saying it has potential to drive a huge fork in the community at some point in the near future.