You got flagged #1: flag target and abuser reaction

This is yet another post in reply to the new Utopian anti abuse initiative. Give it a read if you haven't done so already.

Image made by me

Repository

https://github.com/steemit/steem

Abuse Category

Spam: Posting the same content or recyling contents after a period of time.

Plagiarism: Posting content and passing it off as original author.

Definitions taken from definitions-of-abuse channel of steemflagrewards

Summary

In this post I will show:

• how to select an abuser to flag
• what you can expect when flagging an abuser for steemflagrewards.

This post is useful if you want to support the steemflagrewards by flagging abuse

I will focus on a single abuser. The abuser is abbreviated by A. A is guilty of spam and plagiarism. I will state why I flagged posts of A, interactions with A, and the response of A.

Abuse flag target and abuser reaction

First contact: When I was browsing new on steemit I saw posts of A. A was posting the same car photo a couple of times. Sometimes a browser, app or plain human error is to blame for identical posts. These posts did not contain text:

Pixelated screenshot of A's blog

The car photo seemed like something you could find in typical car tv-show. These are standard signs for suspicious behaviour. Inspecting A's blog revealed more of these type of posts. In addition, A was just starting to try out bidbots as gathering stats on steemd revealed:

Data from steemd. Upme, Smartsteem and Emperorofnaps are bidbot services.

I wasn't sure if I already should start flagging A's posts so I went over to the steemflagrewards discord channel. The steemians over there are always very helpful so if you don't know what do ask over there. It was suggested that I contact A first so I asked A the reason for re-posting. A did not respond.

The first flag: A couple of days later A published a post titled: My own work with an image of a painting. Doing an image search revealed that the artist of the painting was a man. A's profile picture is that of a woman. Now there was sufficient reason for a flag. Before flagging it is important to check the potential harm that the abuser can do. The steemit rank of A was below my rank and A's SP was less than my SP (about 1/8th of my SP). So A was a low risk target and thus, I proceeded with flagging. (If you find an abuser for which the previous two conditions are not met then drop it in the steemflagrewards discord. There are plenty of big fish in our community.)

After flagging A's post I commented on it. I mentioned the abuse type and steemflagrewards. In doing so, I received a reward and a comment of steemflagrewards. This also confirms the validity of my flag. The comment of steemflagrewards also contains a link to the steemflagrewards discord channel. Using this link the abuser can dispute the flag if he/she wants to.

Dispute: A. joined the discord channel and claimed to be the original artist. I requested A to confirm her identity. She said she is female. Recall that the gender of the artist is male:

Proof that A is not the original artist

After some back and forth A made a threat towards one of the steemflagrewards admins:

Threat of A towards steemflagrewards admin

Aftermath: Some retaliate flags of A followed towards abuse fighters. A's VP was low so these flags were neglible. A's other post were plagiarised as well. Reducing their post value to zero became a task of steemcleaners. But abuse fighters chipped in as well. A has not been posting for over a week.

Experience: Retaliation was neglible. Steemflagrewards community was of great help. The admins handled A in a professional way in the dispute channel. 10/10 flagging experience!

Resources

SFR definitions-of-abuse
https://steemcleaners.org/abuse-guide/
http://www.steemreports.com
https://steemd.com