I agree with you about Censorship.
There's no reason for it here on what is supposed to be a decentralized platform. And I would hope that other users agree about not flagging for differing opinions. However...
There is a very real problem with plagiarism and with whales that continually upvote it. This is one of the most frustrating things to see as a content creator and one of the hardest things to correct when there are not other whales strong enough to eliminate the upvote...assuming that the plagiarism is even caught before payout.
I'm hoping that this can be corrected soon, because there appears to be growing frustration with many users who do not see many of these whales actively attempting to rein in their bots or their own personal voting habits. There is growing distrust among the very people that are needed to make this platform successful. We are putting in the time and effort to make this place great, but we seem to be getting thwarted by those with the most influence. This has to be addressed if the platform is to survive. And I want to be clear:
I want it to survive and prosper.
Please - whales and other high-influence users - please set things on a better path here. There is real damage being done to the reputation of Steemit and minnows and dolphins can't fix it all. We don't need a place of censorship, but we do need a place of responsibility and accountability. Let's make that happen before it's too late.
The competition is coming.
Identifying plagiarism is HARD work, especially when you are using a mobile phone and the bots are using sophisticated algorithms to prevent auto-detection.
If there is a particular whale that is consistently abusing his power, then lets identify him and show the pattern.
I think this is constantly being pointed out in the steemitabuse-classic chat. It was just discussed today, in fact. But when one person or a few people have so much influence, it takes a lot to check it - sometimes not enough if the right people aren't even aware. But what can be done about repeated instances if the high-influence upvoters just don't care enough to correct the issues? That's a huge problem. And it's not just one whale or "orca," either.
There are some distinct patterns developing.
Agreed, its disappointing to see whales that hand out $200 upvotes to clearly plagiarized articles on a consistent basis. It just encourages more people to copy/spin/steal content when it is being rewarded on a daily basis.
Exactly. I was hoping that Dan would have taken my comment a little more seriously. This isn't some trivial matter. It affects the credibility of the entire platform. It blows my mind that they seem to have no desire to actually address it.