My Self-Experiment: Arbitrary Power Used By Arbitrary People
Steemit is decentralized which brings a lot of advantages. But there is also a great danger involved: it gives people power over other people who may not be able to defend themselves.
This has been a topic which has arisen quite a few times on steemit and there hasn't been found an adequate solution yet. What I mean is this: you might get censored by someone who has more voting power and can therefore hide your comments or prevent a payout of your posts even though there is no legitimate reason. The problem? You can't go anywhere and talk things over if the person in question is not interested in a dialogue.
It is simply a question of power: whoever has more voting power "wins".
Another problem is that automated anti-spamming-bots can't always distinguish between legitimate spam and posts which should not be flagged as spam. They simply use an algorithm to detect so-called spamming and blacklist users. While this has alleviated spamming problems on steemit, it does censor people who are falsely caught by the system.
To prevent unjustified blacklisting, spamming-detection-bots might have a discord channel like @steemcleaners do. The idea: you go there and appeal to someone to uplift the ban. While this sounds reasonable, I will show here that this does not always work.
The reason for this is that people who have been given this power can use this power in any way they wish. In other words, the arbitrary actions of the "handler" leaves room for abuse and prevents a correct handling of cases.
To demonstrate, here is an example of what happened to me.
I started by making several comments in which I self-voted myself to demonstrate how easy it is to use the system of steemit to his or her advantage (It should be discussed on steemit, however, if self voting actually really does constitute an illegitimate practice. For instance, is it really better to use voting bots rather than to self vote? But this is another discussion...)
You can see that my original posts were down voted by @mack-bot so that they will not have a pay-out. So far so good actually. A bot recognized self voting and removed the upvote. This is actually disproving my assumption that it is easy to "comment farm". good! (In hindsight I guess it would have made more sense to research about this topic first in order not to end up in this position...)
So what is the problem here?
The problem is how things got handled after that. I went to the @steemcleaners discord channel and appealed for removing my blacklisting. What followed was a not very enlightening conversation with @logic who was not able to understand my side. Here is an excerpt:
this ended up by myself being "timed out"
So what does that leave me with? I am not sure, really. I doubt that I can have a reasonable conversation with @logic. So will somebody else understand me? Maybe, maybe not.
And that is exactly my point: It is completely arbitrary. The decision to unblacklist me is dependent on a single person who is unwilling to see the background of my actions.
While I did not check the validity of other people's reason for being blacklisted, there are many users who feel that they have been wronged and almost have no way of explaining their position:
![Unbenan44nt.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZnnZeeHTSeqGaNGPQ19tfgPSEjcU4xmLtdJ35nnfMoFJ/Unbenan44nt.jpg)
![Unbenan41nt.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRrxw4sytUQDtDYxCz4tkcaVKVLAqYxPwyKvgmLSF9V1E/Unbenan41nt.jpg)
Notice how all these "defenders of steem" have bots upvoting everything they do, even their comments. They rape the rewards pool then decry people doing the same, it's pathetic and completely transparent.
At first I thought I wanted to appeal my being put on the blacklist so I talked with support and I was told I was warned and blacklisted because I pissed off the wrong guy. When asked for clarification about the warning I was told it was a transaction. When I informed them of the lack of said transaction I was told "I KNOW THAT ALREADY!" It was right about this point where I decided it best not to be associated with that type of incompetence and bullshit.
As long as the steemgestapo is uncontested this platform can never and will never hope to hold a candle to others like Reddit. At least Reddit has subreddits to limit the influence of the bullies.
exactly... thanks for sharing! I'm also currently not sure how this problem can be resolved or at the very least mitigated. But at least we can bring this to the attention of more steemians
Dude was just copy/pasting crap from the internet for rewards, but he will never admit to that.
👆 this guy is part of steem criminal group that is stealing your money !
Having a seizure? Feeling the need to type twice? Steem Peak shows all comments, buddy.
I understand it's too hard for you to grasp blockchain in general.
nope , just making sure your dirty little business is exposed
Lol okay.
You are too cute.
👆 this guy is criminal !
Wow you stopped sucking the steemgestapo dick long enough to reply, color me impressed! Take your bullshit stories and try it on someone who hasn't looked into your scam already. If this was about copy/paste you flaggots wouldn't downvote everything on my account. Also all you flaggots wouldn't be circlejerking every one of your comments, but alas you do, you are and here we are.
Oh you know. It's always easy to conveniently skip the part where you were looking for attention.
Throw a punch, receive one back. It's just that simple.
All flags from me without a SFR mention mean they are personal, which is 100% allowed.
Love the spins on your alternative facts, though.
"Throw a punch", hahaha, you are such a flaggot!
I wasn't looking for attention but now I am drawing all attention to you and your crew of abusers.
TheFlaggotMark said he didn't flag personal (which I proved was a lie), I figured you did the same since you seem to follow him around like a lost puppy. Nice to know you have a modicum of original thought rattling around in there!
👆 this guy is part of steem criminal group that is stealing your money !
As long as their activity is sanctioned like bad cops using civil forfeiture to rob the people they are said to be protecting, this will be a problem. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of groups that circlejerk upvotes here, rightfully so when you have large bullies throwing their weight around like they do. This is the only group that I know that does this and downvote people they disagree with, that is why my attention is focused on this particular group of flaggots.
As far as a solution, I have been trying to bring it to the attention of everyone who interacts with these piles of human excrement. Comments are basically free on this Blockchain so I comment on every deceptive/ outright bullshit post of theirs I see with @themarkymark seeming to be the head-shithead. Every time they downvote my post to "click to see" but it still exists for the people who were also wronged or maybe just curious as to what is going on. A second form of resistance I have attempted with minor effect is adding the people I see wronged by the flaggots and then upvoting and commenting on their posts so as to develop an anti-flaggot federation of sorts.
I'm not really sure how much energy I am putting into this going forward though. Steem makes it excessively easy to create multiple accounts, I have another baby on the way, BTC is booming and I have a few other neglected projects and things I wanted to accomplish before I become brown algae for the next few months.
Good luck @tobetada, keep fighting the good fight and don't let a small group of flaggots get you down!
nobody here gives a rat's ass what is posted , they are just thieves , that is how they siphon steem from users and put it in their own pocket .
But somehow the only ones that "understand them" are others on the take just like them!