Steem Suggestion: Improve Free Speech & Fix That Reputation Can Be Bought/Increased Using Vote Bots, But Can Be Decreased Due To Flagging By Those With Higher Rep.
Components
Reputation calculation in Steem.
Proposal
Currently, if I use a vote bot to pay for votes on my own post, my own reputation in the system will increase - since reputation is relative to the amount of votes I have received. Flagging/downvoting of posts results in the reputation of the recipient of the flag going DOWN, but ONLY if the flagger has a higher reputation than that of the person being flagged.
This means that I can literally shut down other people's accounts just by paying for votes for my own posts, getting a higher reputation and then flagging my targets repeatedly. In short, Steem fully supports the suppression of free speech by those with the most money by providing a barrier that protects those with the higher reputations, preventing them from being counter flagged by those in the community who have lower reputations and thus possibly lower wallets.
This is akin to having a free speech rule in society where only those in the higher pay grades can have free speech and where they are relied upon to police the speech of those in the lower pay grades. Pretty ugly.
At the very least we need to remove the rule that says that lower reputation users cannot effect the reputation of higher rep users when they flag them. This will ensure that we do not have an artificial elite that controls the flow of information on Steemit for their own purposes. If 90% of the community disagree with a user but his/her reputation is much higher than most users, then the voice of most of the community counts for nothing in attempting to have that user demoted.
This actually represents a potential existential threat to Steemit of the kind that the whitepaper points when it speaks about making sure that abuse does not get so bad that people leave in droves. While this has not occurred yet, it might be inevitable as the platform grows - given the tendency for wealthy vested interests to seek to control the narrative in society on life/death topics.
Another feature to tackle this could be that votes from known vote bots do not count towards increases in reputation, however, this is not ideal and does not address private sales of votes or services like @smartmarket which sells votes from users rather than votes from votebot accounts.
Benefits
An appropriate solution here will create an atmosphere of increased respect for Steem among most of the users who have lower reputations in the system, whether that be due to them having less money or simply being new to the system as compared to more experienced users who have amassed a higher reputation over time. Additionally, the increased equality and balance will effect the free flow of information, which may increase the quality of posts.
This in turn will potentially increase the value of Steem and ensure Steem's promise of being an uncensored technology is allowed to come fully to fruition.
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I'd like to suggest that flagging is not helpful due to unintended consequences of chilled speech and reduced effort going into original content. A personal mute button for each user to user is more appropriate while removing the flag option entirely.
Hi, I think you misunderstood. I did not state that 'flagging depends on reputation', I said that there is a rule in place which prevents flags from those with lower reputations from reducing the reputations of those with higher reputations. As far as I am aware that rule still exists.
Bots vote using Steem power, just like humans. If I buy a vote from a bot that is used to vote up my post, it increases my reputation just like a vote from a human would do.
Please see the steemwiki for more information: https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_causes_my_reputation_score_to_go_down
The suggestion is to remove the rule I have mentioned and that is listed in the steemwiki.
Hello @ura-soul. Let us look at it from this angle, what about a new user with 25 reputation that purchase a 100,000 worth of SP. The new user can flag someone with reputation 60 65 and reduce the reputation.
Yes. Now let's look at the current situation.
A new user with reputation 25 can purchase 10,000 worth of SP and spend 90,000 Steem equivalent worth of money on vote bots (as an example) or rent delegated SP - then vote themselves up over a short period of time to have an artificially inflated reputation up to or over 60. Then they flag users with a reputation of 60+ with their remaining power and money without having actually demonstrated that their reputation is one that shows some kind of integrity. Having money does not equal integrity. (Alternatively they can just do as you described and then wait longer to be able to upvote themselves to a high rep).
At the same time, that account can then destroy numerous other accounts with lower reputations, while only a tiny minority of accounts can take action to defend those smaller rep accounts. Not only does the defence require these accounts to know that the problem is occurring (which requires them to monitor massive numbers of accounts in a way which is impractical) it also requires them to have the intent and time to use their power to protect the smaller accounts. This rarely occurs.
By removing the artificial 'one way flagging rule', smaller accounts can better defend themselves against malicious flaggers with higher reputations.
I like your proposal. I tried to bring this issue to Steevc's attention yesterday and mentioned how whales can abuse their power and justify it by saying that flagging is part of the freedom of expression on Steemit. I do hope we can address this issue because this is damaging to the community. I can totally see why @dan has distanced himself from steemit and might decide to make an improved version of Steemit which might be more equal and fair to all users regardless of who has the most money.
Thanks, though I am FAR from being a whale here. Whales are those with the largest wallets, not reputation.
I am in the process of making a detailed exposure of the issues with flagging here, stay tuned!
Apologies that was a typo, I typed on the phone and that "you" somehow slipped in :) I have edited that out now.
I meant to say that you were a victim of power abuse and it is not fair!
aha, ok - no problem. i think most older users know about all this, but they generally try to stay out of any conflicts. I also aim to stay out of conflicts, but I do not censor myself to do that - so sometimes it will occur.
every moment is an opportunity for enlightenment and every problem is an opportunity for creativity!
I think it is important we do not condone injustice! If that means getting confrontational, I am in ;)
"every moment is an opportunity for enlightenment and every problem is an opportunity for creativity!" - so true!
I so agree with this idea! I have zero idea how such changes get implemented, but yes to this!
Agree wholeheartedly. IMHO Steem has a way to go in terms of game design. And Steem system is a game of sorts, just like almost any other social system involving humans and their interactions.
In my experience, when bad things start happening in a game and people start behaving badly, it is not the fault of the players but of the game rules which not only allow them to do so but encourages them.
The solution to a board game playtest which is going south is not to police the testers and berate them that they are playing badly. They are playing exactly as they should, according to the rules of the game you made. It is you who should change the rules because changing the players is impossible.
I'm quite new here and I don't really have a full grasp of Steem game rules yet but even I can see that not everything is going perfectly. (Not saying it's bad, it's great! But there are obvious exploits and grey areas...) Maybe the team should get some psychologists and professional game designers on board to help them tweak the system?
The Steem system is designed to have as few rules as possible, which is good in many ways, but there are a few limitations that many people see as unfair. All systems need adapting and evolving from time to time.
Hmm, I did some more research into flagging (told you I'm as green as they come :) ) and I must say I'm horrified by the flagging mechanic. It has to go, or at least it must be made completely cosmetic otherwise it will ultimately destroy the platform.
Anyone with a cursory knowledge of game theory will tell you that.
In the form it is now, it is akin to trying to police anarchy by giving everyone knives.
The best possible outcome (and there are a many worse) is that everyone will end up excessively polite and self-censoring for fear of flagging penalties - in other words piles of bland uninteresting content designed not to "offend" anyone. And we know how easily "offended" everyone is these days. Steemit will end up a site for posting pictures of cute kittens and vacuous inspirational blogs.
Of course, you can appeal to some kind of self-imposed ethics, but this works for very small communities only. As steem grows, the problem will exacerbate.
Right now I'm in fear of someone flagging me for even criticizing this flagging system, because some people love their power... and the power to shut up and punish those you do not agree with is especially sweet and corrupting.
No, giving everyone knives and no law enforcement is not conductive to free speech and freedom of expression. Giving out knives whose size is based on wealth is even worse. There are good reasons why most big social networks do not feature downvotes (or if they do they are recorded separately and have no practical impact.)
Flags can stay (maybe) but they must have no impact on either reputation or rewards otherwise things are not going to end up well. I have a feeling those who designed the system missed reading Lord of the Flies in their high school.
I am new to this platform, I got flagged once but I think that was my own mistake, on the very beginning I didn't knew that googling gives you a flag, and when I got flagged, He mentioned the reason for the same, I think this flagging thing has benifits as well as cons, when I googled for that comment I got flagged and my reputation was fucked up, but on the other side if some whale is doing the same, who is able to stop him? Not fishes like us. I think flagging has pros and cons as well
I'm not sure what you mean by:
Using google does not result in a flag.
Maybe you mean that you copied text from another website and wrote it as a comment in Steemit?
Yes I googled his title and then copied the text from some where and pasted it on his blog, what I got for that was a flag, its the benifit of flagging
It's best not to copy large pieces of text from other sites. If you do do that then you should make it clear that you have taken the text from another site by using a > symbol before the text - which will change the way the text is shown and it will appear as a quote instead of normal text. for example:
then you can provide the source underneath it by linking to the page you took the text from.
many people here copy text from other websites and act as if they wrote it themselves, trying to get votes and money for other people's work.
I agree, greed is the thing what makes them do so
This is a really great post!
You made some really informative points. It does seem as the platform grows it's only a matter of time before reputation is abused and begins to silence the many through one because of artifical propping up.
How can this be resolved?🤔
Reputation has to become separate in a way.
How would we begin to implement that?
Algorithms against bot upvotes?
That seems like a good idea.
But is that possible and if it is... Is it easy to implement or hard?🤔
So many more questions but your concerns are really valid!!!
Is there a way to contact the developers about this?🤔🤔🤔😐😏
This is completly new thing to me that a person with low RP cannot flag to a person with high RP this thing needs to be changed.
And one request for all those who post spammy comments and get downvoted please try to give valuable comment.
And i don't know anything about the bots trying to read this out.
A user with lower reputation can flag a user with higher reputation, but the reputation value of the user with higher reputation will not be reduced.
Is there a way, nobody can use bots
Great contribution, it more like the minnows are living at the mercy of the so called whales the system here is similar to the life situation we are all passing through, can there ever be equality and equity on earth, I pray it not an ideology in verbosity .
It is very hard for new Steemians to gain any bigger influence here without spending real money.
Yes, people can post good articles, slowly gain followers and steem power, but they will never gain bigger influence than someone with very deep pockets.
There is nothing wrong with some people having more money than others. Some people work harder and smarter and deserve to get paid.
However not all people have good intentions and if someone rich decides to buy hunderds of thousands of steem power with bad intentions, there isn't much what other people can do about it.
The point of this post is to resolve the issue whereby those with higher reputation are artificially shielded from being effected by those with lower reputation.