REAL STEEMIT CENSORING?! Flagged Comments In Steemit Being Completely Removed Now (Not Just Hidden)?
UPDATE: problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
In the last 24 hours I have received a couple of idiotic comments from a 'nazi troll' on steemit, using this username: @pommesfrites. I am well used to receiving heavy trolling on the lamestream social networks, but so far I haven't seen any other trolling on here at all, presumably because people are not wanting to lose reputation from being flagged heavily in retaliation.
One comment was in response to my post about Sneak flagging me for talking about vaccine science and basically just said that without vaccines I would be dead. The second comment accused Russell Targ, celebrated physicist, as being a pseudo-scientist. Neither are particularly hardcore troll attempts, but trolling none the less, due to their attacking nature and total failure to offer any evidence or reasoning to backup the claims made.
I was busy today and didn't have time to return to deal with the comments, but when I did eventually load up the posts to comment, the troll comments were gone! When I refreshed t he page I saw them appear initially and then disappear. I checked the relevant pages on Steemd to see whether the comments are still visible in the Steem blockchain and they are - so it seems that Steemit now completely removes comments according to some kind of rules about abuse/flagging.
While some of us might think this is a good thing, since we generally don't like trolling - at the same time, this raises important questions - red flags, in fact (pun intended):
Given that The Tech Manager at Steemit stated that he will flag any post that contradicts mainstream narratives on Vaccines - using the justification that 'its not censorship because the posts remain visible in Steemit' - where exactly does today's observation leave us? It means that in some cases (unexplained to me at the current time), posts can be flagged and totally removed from Steemit - meaning that perhaps whoever has the most Steem Power can literally remove posts from the public eye!
Am I missing something here?
One of the removed posts is in this thread about physicist Russel Targ.
You can see the comment on steemd here:
And here is the profile on Steemd (interestingly with a Reputation score of 6.66):
Judgements and name calling will probably be with us on social networks for some time and I think the flagging function will continue to be a requested feature by some of us for removing abusive posts and comments from our threads and general experience.. However, this ability to completely remove comments is new to me and opens up a whole can of worms that I have not seen discussed!
EDIT: I just tested this in Chromium and Firefox and the same thing occurs. Here's a screen capture from Firefox (You can see the comment is initially visible and then disappears when the page has fully loaded - I checked the HTML of the page and the entire HTML element for the comment is deleted, so it is occurring in Javascript after page load completes):
What do you think?
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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You can delete your own comments if they have no replies, maybe that's what happened?
Both of the comments appear in the account's list of comments, here - would they still appear in that list if they were deleted?
Yeah, I believe they can be deleted from steemit, but you can't really delete anything from the blockchain, so it must be condenser that does it.
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
I just added a test comment and then deleted it. It was not then visible in the list of comments for my profile, however, the comments from the troll account ARE visible in that account's comments list....
This is really interesting. I'll dig a lot more into it.
They can be deleted from Steemit, but I wouldn't expect them to appear in the comments list. I will test.
Interesting since I tweet about steemit and dtube being censorship free. I'm not getting into any controversies here if I can help it, but I want other people to be able to speak their mind on those issues. I wonder who would have this type of access and what else they don't like.
In 2013, I was in fb groups for those who are vaccine injured and dealing with the US Federal Vaccine Court. This was work I was paid for by someone doing their own project. There were many very active groups at that time. I just got in for about two months - lurked, and got links and screenshots for the guy I was working for, and then got out again. It was heartbreaking and I was glad to leave.
About six months ago, I had someone in a weight loss group asking about this issue and looked up my list of groups and sent it to her. Almost all of the groups were inactive or could not be found now. This is just one of the reasons I know fb is censoring over there. I don't like to hear of it for steemit.
absolutely, yes - facebook groups are heavily controlled and censored, they are of little use for practical applications in the real world that involve creating change or even self defence against corporate criminals.
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
I'm so glad to read this. Whew! I only use fb to promote for here now - and to help my follow obesity and chronic pain sufferers when I can. I just really hate the place now but - affiliate sales come to me from there so I can't leave yet.
I logged a suggestion to improve steemit.com so that muted comments are handled more sanely. :)
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@ura-soul/suggestion-improve-rendering-of-muted-comments
Can you see the missing comments on busy.org?
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
Nice work!
yes: https://busy.org/@ura-soul/wjbkfk1l
Freedom is a right we all should have. The freedom to do or say anything we want as long as it doesn't infringe on another individuals rights. If we disagree with others we should be able to voice our opinion in a civil manor and give reason for disagreeing. Unfortunately there are folks out in the world that haven't learned how to play nicely with others.... and that is their right.
When trolls personally attack others for different views and don't attack the view it self. They show their level of intelligence is not high enough to either comprehend the subject, to be able to research the subject for themselves or their narcism is so great they think they know everyhthing. Either way this is their right.
I'm against all censorship! Bless all the trolls hearts out there! May the light of truth shine really, really brightly in their eyes!
I always go back to the saying... Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
Keep up the good work @ura-soul
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
IMHO we will experience two separate problems soon. Because of the YouTube purge, there will be an increase of morons on steemit because they are following their gurus and secondly, as steemit grows and becomes more relevant and a challenge to the system, there will be a greater need to silence the dissenters. So, basically we are going to be attacked from both sides. Personally I have stopped commenting on d.Tube, because they have a Thumbs-up and Thumbs-down button, which results in newbies downvoting you if they disagree. Many of these new dimwits are on d.tube only and not even aware that they do damage on steemit. It's not going to get better I'm afraid...
Tha's a great point about dtube comments - yes - I hadn't thought about that. In this case, the cause of the issue was me having muted the account in question and the code that handles muting not actually resulting in me knowing that the comment was muted.
The whole downvote structure is questionable IMHO. Specially on d.tube. It will result in the destruction of any opinion which is is not appreciated by the majority. Any moron can shut you up or cause damage. Would it not be better to live with trolls and spam rather than to try to get rid of them? Any law, even if it was well intended will get abused eventually...Just wondering...
I have never heard of a case where a post or comment is removed or made totally invisible on Steemit. Except this is a new feature, which I think should have been communicated to the community before even considering it. But there's something that crossed my mind, couldn't it be possible that the comment was deleted by the owner of the account?
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
Please see the thread with r0nd0n for discussion of this idea.
Oh I see, cause I was about to inform you that it is still visible for me to see. It's the muted option that cause it. But like you said, that's some bug for it to show before the page totally loads. Glad this didn't come to some censoring issues, I wouldn't have love to hear that here.
Really a good initiative taken by steemd, they should add an feature of report and when someone account exceeds certain limit of reporting his account should be deactivated
But that doesn't allow others to flag them.. To deal with people like these we need more than one flag
I still think this is something good. So now if someone uploads say porn, I can call a whales' s attention and he flags. Gbam! porn gone. purification done
It's not good for free speech and will remove one of the major selling points of Steemit.
But it is good for quality. people will think twice b4 posting
It will lower quality since those who don't want to be censored while attempting to expose truth will simply leave and you will then only have the controlled narratives that you have on existing social sites that have most of the world's population believing lies.
furthermore, if we can't see the comment, we can't decide whether or not to 'unflag' it by voting it up.
Uhmmmm. This sounds logical
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
I almost had a heart-attack reading this. But after seeing your comment that you can still see the comments from said user on Busy I'm relieved.
If it was completely gone from the blockchain ... that would be really really bad.
problem solved! I had muted the account and instead of just never showing me the comments from the muted account, the comments were being shown and then removed from the page using javascript afterwards. i would list this as a user interface bug in steemit.com
Then there's this.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@venomnymous/is-steemit-going-to-censor-free-speech
yes, though it is likely that is just PR speak designed to give an impression of conformity.
in case you didn't see already, I resolved the issue with the comments disappearing under my posts. I had muted the poster and forgot. Since Steemit has a poor way of handling muted comments currently, I was confused by what I saw.
I have logged a suggestion to improve the way Steemit renders muted comments.
Good to know. I'm still hoping you are correct about the PR speak. But keep in mind they have members on the team like @sneak, who actively censor people the only way he can currently.
I have so far only seen his actions being evidence of any kind of potential threat to free speech - so as far as I am concerned, I still think that the consensus among those involved will result in respect for free speech.. But we shall see. Ned was speaking in the present and past tense, he did not give the impression he was speaking of a future change in that quote.