The Freedom of Speech Revitalized by the New Age of Blockchain Technology

Pixabay.com: Licensed in the Public Domain

Hello everyone! I recently submitted this essay to the Think For Yourself College Scholarship Essay Contest. The prompt was:

When has free speech been important to you in high school?

I decided to talk about my time on Steem in the essay simply because it is through Steem that I have really learned the benefits of the freedom of speech. Without any further dilly dallying, here is my essay:

The Freedom of Speech Revitalized by the New Age of Blockchain Technology

Throughout my high school experience, I have found myself sharing thoughts and ideas through Steemit.com, a social media platform based on the Steem blockchain. Through this platform, I have learned the importance of free speech, and I have found my own voice in certain regards. Steem provides a censorship-resistant system, achieved through blockchain technology, in which the distribution of ideas is incredibly easy in comparison to traditional social media. No matter the topic, Steem was built with the libertarian ideal of free speech in mind. Its foundations were laid to encourage free speech and an open exchange of ideas, and to cement those central principles into an incorruptible system that reduces human temptation through an elaborate mathematical system of checks and balances that is fundamental to all decentralized blockchain technologies.

Pixabay.com: Licensed in the Public Domain

As a young composer, the time I have spent on the Steem blockchain has demonstrated the importance of free speech, time and time again. The blockchain removes the need for a publisher, a marketer, or any other conceivable middle man conventionally needed to reach an audience. Instead of going through the difficulty of finding one of these parties, and bargaining my way into a harmful one-sided deal, I have found myself able to easily publish my work to a community filled with many knowledgeable individuals in the field. It was through this easy publication and this community feedback that I learned a lot of the discipline that is musical composition.

One specific example of this came when I was in the process of composing my first String Quartet themed on N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations of the story of King Arthur. I posted the first movement after its completion, and one individual – who is a professionally trained organist (shout-out to @partitura)– left comments about the modulation towards G major at the end of the movement. His comments made the point that he hoped the next movement would more thoroughly demonstrate the reasoning for this modulation. I had not realized the impact that this shift towards G major had on an audience, and his comments convinced me that it was necessary to add an entire movement to the quartet simply to more convincingly expand upon the modulation from the first movement. Had I not had the unfiltered exchange of ideas provided by this platform, that movement would not exist, and the whole quartet would be a lot worse.

One of the most important aspects of my time on this platform is that I did not have to choose an exclusive topic to write about. My topics have ranged from music to philosophy. Because of the censorship-resistant aspect of Steem, pretty much every substantive topic has an interested community. Through this diversity of topics, I have learned a lot! I will specifically mention commentaries which I did on the Confucian Analects. Through this platform, I published articles commentating on all 20 books of the Confucian Analects, and, through these articles, interacted with many different individuals of different backgrounds from all around the world. Thanks to the freedom of speech that lives within the blockchain, we were free to discuss the philosophy without fear of censorship from the platform—an idea which is sadly not always the case.

Pixabay.com: Licensed in the Public Domain

For instance, I once experienced censorship on Facebook due to copyright laws, mixed with a faulty algorithm. I had made my own original performance of Bach’s 8th Invention (a piece in the public domain since before there was a public domain), and posted it to Facebook for my friends and family. Facebook’s algorithm mistook my recording for a professional Canadian pianist’s recording, and removed it as a copyright violation. In addition, many political or controversial ideas have been censored by centralized platforms merely because some figurehead does not agree with such ideas. Steem has provided an outlet where I can experience all ideas (whether I agree or not) and learn about the different perspectives that every controversial topic can have.

As a freshman, I did not understand the importance of this platform. I was in it for the money. I did not have an understanding of the luxury that such a platform naturally creates and protects. A luxury that many people, who are much more talented and intellectual than myself, have found themselves in trouble without. For instance, YouTube recently censored YouTubers who focus on cryptocurrency then uncensored the same YouTubers after realizing there had been a mistake. Such a mistake is unheard of in Steem’s censorship free environment. Now, as a senior, I have been exposed to the evil that sometimes resides in our modern organizations, corporations, and governments, and I can safely say that I am thankful for the freedom of speech that I have had—and will continue to have—thanks to the innovative ideas behind the Steem blockchain.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this everyone! I know that I do not post as regularly as I once did, and sometimes this account goes months without being incredibly active, but I am still just as passionate about Steem as I was when I joined. No matter what goes on with the tron buy, or anything else in this community, I believe that Steem has the potential to change the world, and I believe that someday it will. I hope you enjoyed this essay, and I would definitely appreciate your thoughts! Thanks again for reading this, and have a nice day! Hopefully I will see you in a little bit when I post about this week's composition!

(Note) In order to encourage meaningful feedback on the platform, I will check comment trails of users who leave superficial comments (ie "Awesome post," or "Upvoted.") and will mute any users who exhibit a pattern of leaving "spammy" comments.