Should NSFW Content Require Verification (For Copyright)? Minimum Reputation To Post? Part 2 of 2.

...Normally, that's exactly what I'd do. However, the client side filter simply hides things from your view. It does nothing to prevent abusive content from being monetized, aside from preventing you yourself from clicking on it.

This problem isn't about me or my personal enjoyment of Steemit. My goal is not to enhance Steemit for my personal viewing pleasure. My goal is to make (this particular type of) abuse economically disincentivized enough by the community that it will mostly die out on its own, and in doing so, protect others from other potential knock-on effects. The last thing Steemit needs is a bunch of NSFW-revenge posts monetizing activities that are starting to be criminalized in some jurisdictions.

Anyway, off the top of my head, I see two options for restricting this content.
The first, and by far the easiest, is simply to attach a reputation requirement for posting NSFW content or using the NSFW tag. Depending on where this is set, it could mostly resolve the problem. This type of behavior is almost universally restricted to sub-60 (or sub-50) reputation accounts, many of which are likely recreated sock-puppets. A hard-line would stop a lot of this behavior without creating too much of a bar to new, legitimate posters or legitimate production companies with copyright and consenting, paid subjects. Unfortunately, this is relatively explicit censorship and may be ideologically inconsistent with other community positions.
The second option is for the community to require ID verification (or, in the case of production companies, copyright-holder verification) not unlike those already required in some online communities and with some businesses. Legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges that follow KYC (know-your-customer) laws also require verification images. Reddit is probably the best example of this, where if you post NSFW content without verifying either your identity (as the subject) or your copyright status, your content will be quickly removed by a moderator. Unlike Reddit, Steemit's content is preserved in the block-chain permanently, making it a particularly onerous place to have one's pictures illegally or immorally posted.

Flagging provides a similar power in the hands of the community here on Steemit, since down-voted posts are hidden by default, as well as their images...but who wants to spend their voting power and time, forgoing rewards to manually flag this behavior? This is one situation where I would not have a problem with a carefully-controlled, community downvote bot, though hopefully better options may be forthcoming from the more technically savvy.
I'm eager to hear any other suggestions or thoughts anyone may have. I realize these ideas may slow the free dissemination of uncensored ideas in a limited fashion, but I think broad community agreement can be reached on what abuse is and the fact that disincentivizing it is in all good-faith actor's best interest.
We don't want Steemit to be known as the place to monetize plagiarism and other sewage.
Sources: U of Maryland Law, U of Miami Law, Cornell Law, Kraken
Copyright: Office Space
I think that you have proposed very intelligent solutions. The things is that many of us have proposed many times many different solutions for Steemit and non of the owners of the platform, whales or developers have given any shit about these proposals. They are too busy circle jerking each other, their friends, and their favorite Steemit mascots.
I have offered some solution similar (for the nth time since I joined a year ago) to yours but referring to some plagiarism.
https://steemit.com/steemcleaners/@logic/idea-for-helping-to-fight-plagiarism-on-steeemit
Thank you, I am going to check out your article.
I can't believe that I wasn't already following "logic"! Going to poke around your blog now.
Ok, no problem. Thanks :-)
I would skip my very old posts though. They were total trash :-) I've learnt how to post within time lol
I'm already following you, btw.
Haha, that goes for my early posts, too ;)
ID verification would probably work the best in this case. Reputation option is not the best because new users that want to post legit nsfw could find it hard to increase their reputation.
I initially thought that as well, but the reality is that when I look at created, I think almost all of the stuff that I am talking about is plagiarism. Most of the NSFW posts are image and gif dumps of a bunch of different people from someone who pretty clearly is not the production company with the copyright. I've seen almost none of the type of amateur stuff you might think was legitimate individual posting from Instagram or Reddit places.
If production companies wanted the rep, I think they could get it very easily. As for individuals, perhaps maybe employing both options is best. Low rep users can bypass the requirement by getting community verified.
I see your point. You're probably right, employing both options sounds best. Unless even better options would come to mind.
I have a feeling that a clever algorithm could do this even better than my solutions.
Haha that's true
You can't post pictures in the blockchain, only text which includes URLs to pictures.
If blockchain posts contain text which links to images you don't like, then sites hosting those images are relatively easy to track down and convince to stop hosting them, as URLs point (usually) to centralized services.
Great point. Thanks for clarifying this.
Is Steemit Inc hosting the image servers that our uploaded pics go to?
No. Steemit is using Amazon Web Services.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/01/17/fintech-steemit-migrating-servers-to-amazon-unveils-blockchain-roadmap
Aha, that explains it. Very interesting. Maybe they should migrate to SiaCoin (heh).
This is one of the things that bothered me even before I actively started using Steemit, the fact that it uses Amazon for it's hosting. It's the same Amazon who is actively working with the NSA and CIA.
I doubt @dan would be very pleased about this knowing his anarchist views. I wish someone would have asked him about this issue, but he left Steemit about the same time when it was announced that Steemit will start using Amazon's hosting services. :)
The Details About the CIA's Deal With Amazon
Government Cloud on the Rise: NSA, DOJ Move to Amazon Web Services
I haven't read anything about SiaCoin yet. :)
I just assume any large corporation is captured at this point.
It would have been cool for Steemit to partner with or power their own storage solution, but I suspect this would have been a huge layer of additional complexity. Not being able to smoothly and easily host images is immediate death to social media in 2017.
Thanks for the comment.
There is no way for Steemit Inc (operators of steemit.com) to prevent people from posting whatever they want into this blockchain, regardless of ID or anything else.
Any requirements we place on posting certain types of content are very trivially circumvented by anyone with the desire to do so. We are not gatekeepers of what can or cannot be posted, and if we were to try to act as such, people would rapidly demonstrate to us just how much we are not gatekeepers.
I generally agree with what you are saying. But if you look at /created, I think you'll see that even a trivial level of prevention, like a reputation bar, would stop a rather high percentage of this junk. They're abusing for pennies in most cases, not dollars.
The time required to sock-puppet more accounts isn't a high enough bar at the moment, but it would be if they needed even 30-40 rep to post using the NSFW tag. I don't see why a hard fork couldn't include a restriction like that, hypothetically.
Interesting read :)
Why ?
Why should anyone have to flip out ID for anyone ?
Why should anyone listen to some court logs in a jurisdiction somewhere on planet I dont care ?
For example;
I do not Understand or Submit, nor do I Acknowledge said Courts. They do not apply to my Self, they have no Standing.
Just like the jurisdictions mentioned have constitutions created and collectively agree upon benefits and penalties with methods of Remedy and Cure; so does Steem - called Terms and Conditions.
If ones doesnt agree with them one is in breach of the contract entered and therefore may be subjected to them at the discretion of the whole society if the society wishes. Or, if one has honour then one would leave on ones own steam.
If one doesnt know what Not Safe For Work is then one is probably too young to be playing in the big Grown-ups world and maybe Mummy or Daddy should take some notice of what the kids are doing.. for instance. Getting adults proving they are adults is one tactic.. its not going to be any better than a checkbox or click-thru warning message.
Flagging is a great way of weeding out undesirable content - have some faith in it :) call it Crowd-Control
Interesting read, dont know if it applies in this space though.
Dont walk - Boogie! :)
I think you may have interpreted that I meant ID verification for age.
I'm not worried about that, I'm just concerned with preventing as much abuse via plagiarism as possible. Flagging is a thankless, rewardless job so I don't really expect "the free market" to handle it.
Phew ! :D
I suspect that plag'ers will suffer the same mocking and finger pointing as in the real world, they dont get a lot of upvotes other than mindless bots. There is a Cheetah Bot wandering the posts looking for that stuff (not that I like bots and wish someone create a bot-killing bot and let it loose but hey ..another story). The folk that do get stung by the cheater-bot seem not to stick around long.
Peace, Love, Disco baby!
Heh, your parenthetical made me think of Terminator 2...anti-bot bots.
I think it's easy to get carried away on the platform with whatever you can get away with. Many people are so in the clouds with this that they expect this to be something that STEEMIT regulate first. Is this STEEMIT's responsibility to eventually start putting up these filters or SOP's in place. Or is this something that we the user should start being more ware of and preparing for?
I just don't want to see Steem's first mention on mainstream news be because some guy made $1500 with his legal/illegal revenge porn posts. That would put a target on Steemit for SJWs, feminist sympathizers, and that whole shrieking crowd.
You're right. We have to keep in mind that every member in a sense can always create a "first" impression of the platform
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if it's about copyright then everything should be verified not just porn...but we are on internet