Man,
Multiple ethical dramas of late. It's been odd to see how they play out. Not what I expected, and now I'm forced to grow my perspective on things. Thanks to those involved for holding the contrast.
The main one is @el-mago, but has since brought in @transisto, @gigafart, and @julianita. It involves @minnowsupport, a bunch of minnows who are a few weeks old the platform and me.
Without a small bit of irony I recently wrote a piece about the last HF and titled it unintended consequences. So, now I get to make my story about unintended consequences of my actions of which I blurred the lines of protagonist and antagonist.
I've been at running minnow support for less than 3 weeks. The channel is about to have its 2,000th person enter. I suspect that happens today or tomorrow. It brings a lot of minor issues like tech support and howtos, but now it's big enough to present some ethical dilemnas.
@el-mago was taking porn shots he didn't own and posting them. He got flagged by @cheetah and a member of MSP flagged him too. @el-mago went and flagged the minnow's active posts and resteems too. I requested multiple times that he take the flags off and said I'd flag him if he didn't. He threatened me, so I used @minnowsupport to flag his posts and some comments too.
Running through my head was-
He is abusing the system by stealing photos.
He is verbally abusive to users.
He's abusing the flagging system.
If he threatens me he'll have zero qualms going after others who are small.
Intended consequences- His posts went to zero. And his rep went to -4. Justice was served... or not.
Unintended consequences-
@julianita and @transisto came through and upvoted his latest post to $50.
@gigafart who was following downvotes on the trail lost power to downvotes he didn't support. I think he may have abandoned the trail.
Minnows weren't compensated for posts because the power was going to downvotes.
el-mago started flagging a series of minnows so I've devoted time and power to individual upvotes beyond the standard vote available to all public members.
I've written two posts giving someone a fair amount of exposure for comments and posts I don't support.
While reading the comments on his last post @transisto made a point about going into negative rep as censorship. I can say it was my intention, but also that my intention there was wrong. @transisto is right, people have a right to say things. On this platform you can't censor hatespeech and verbal abuse without also unintentionally inhibiting one's ability to either defend himself, or do something different.
It's easy to say "I may hate your opinion on healthcare, but I'll defend your right to talk about it." It's less clear when it's "I hate when you string together a derogatory and offensive string of insults, but I'll defend your right to abuse people verbally." One challenge is that on this platform I can't really segregate the two. I suppose in hindsight it would have been better to try to warmly and kindly educate rather than launch flags that could have been avoided. I'm sorry I didn't do more of that.
Also, I was writing a memethenews post and realizing I'm adding pictures that I don't own. Memes are designed to be shared and spread. Many members add a watermark now if they feel recognition of their work is important as opposed to just sharing for the lolz. Some of the underlying pics in the memes are themselves copyrighted. I suppose creative commons protects them for use in education, but when it's commercial and Steem gets involved maybe that's a violation too. I've tried to use royalty free images for most of the random posts I've done, but I can't guarantee I haven't taken someone else's work, profited from it, and in some ways that's reminiscent of what I flagging.
Then I saw a comment in his last post from him about testing the steemit drama. The whole comment seemed like it was in the spirit of deescalation. I applaud that step and followed suit. I've removed the flags I placed using minnowsupport. One post is past rewards and he lost 1 SBD. I have sent him that. I've removed the flags from @aggroed. I suggest minnows leave him be, and unflag his posts. It's possible trailers will remain, but he should have enough upvotes from the other whales to more than compensate for their unintended flags.
It's time to deescalate rather than escalate. I should have tried harder in that regard to start. I don't support the posts, the comments, the actions, but it would seem there are better approaches especially involving an account 10 days old. So, here's hoping it goes well. Welcome to the community @el-mago. I wish you well and many blessings of peace and prosperity from here on out. Make some original content. I may even support it.
Now what to do about doxxing within minnowsupport?
As you were.
I was surprised that minnowsupport was used for flagging. It just caught me off guard. Maybe the flags were warranted, but I don't think I can leave that for automation. I know you understand.
Thanks for posting your thoughts on this event. It's really not a big deal for me, but thanks for the mention anyway! xD
Good post, Thanks for all this info
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This comment has received a 0.09 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
Having our thoughts and opinions challenged can give us new perspectives if we are open to it. It sounds like you are open to the challenge and willing to change if it is found that your in the wrong. I like to see people who are capable of this type of personal growth. Hopefully everything will work out with you guys and we can continue to support each other here.
It is my understanding that as long as you give proper attribution to the source content then it is OK to post (I could be wrong). Memes fall under creative commons for creating spoofs or satires...or something like that...
This is where I think @steemcleaners is doing the community a disservice.
It must be understood. Plagiarism is using intellectual property without the consent of the owner/creator. This includes text, photos, music, etc. Anything created that is not a tangible object is the very short definition of intellectual property (IP).
When a person browses the Internet and decides to use a photo/image that they personally did not produce they are opening themselves up to the risk of a lawsuit for theft of IP.
Linking back to that source just provides the owner of the IP the pathway back to the thief.
Memes are risky business, too. Yes derivative art has a place but if it can be proven that a blogger stole the art and decreased it's value ... yadda yadda.
That said, in today's world there are a many many sites where artists give their work up for derivative art and for use in illustrative support for blogging, etc. There is no reason to go looking for hassles.
I'm calling @steemcleeners out on this because they do perpetuate this myth that linking back to the source means the blogger is free and clear. Nothing could be further from the truth.
unfortunately steemcleaners and this site overall tends to confuse censorship with abuse and have no mechanism of helping people or deterring people from downvoting flagrantly or posting plagiarized content [esp sine sources like this tumblr that stole this content for me is an accepted source around here>< ]
as we all saw downvoting said account to oblivion..does nothing to vote power. this is a huge problem of steemit. i am also VERY anxious about the ok on plagarism and abuse. that is going to fuck steemit in future when this platform really starts to take off. It seems to go against steemits entire platform values to allow abuse and plagiarism on a site that claims to value original content creators.
no ones woried yet...but all it would take is enough posts making enough $ off plagiarized work and you have a lovely lawsuit against the site itself! Forget the individual creators a lawyer would go after the whole site for plagiarism especially since theres $ to be made. This place isnt like fb or twitter you can't share other people shit and claim "fair use" cause you 1. aren't adding to it and 2. are making $ off of it.
I am just waiting for one of the big porn studios to catch wind of steemit and come for us....>>
so ya i really hope steemit figures out a way to deal with this [maybe make it a rule that all work needs to original or at least be more than just copy pasting and sourcing?]
or i feel like we'll go the way of the silk road...a lack of regulation give a lawyer or a government tons of room to demonize and find a way to shut it down.
I understand the legality of it. You are right that it is theft of intellectual property. It's just that it is usually not worth the cost of prosecution. Unless you have a lawyer who is working for free. In most cases...the only time there is usually a law suit is if it makes a large enough profit to merit the time and cost of taking it to court OR if it is deemed harmful to the brand/person/company. Such as slander or negative publicity that can be proven to hurt company images or bottom lines.
So the thinking from my viewpoint only! If someone were to steel my work then at least offer my contribution as the author so that if people like it they will be able to look me up. In this way any profit will be seen as my payment to you for marketing :P
I know that is not the thinking of all creators and artists. I am NOT saying it is "morally" right or "ethically" right. But everyone has a differing view on morality and ethics.
In Conclusion I would say "DON'T STEEL"!!!!!
There are plenty of freebies out there now days that can be monetized with a simple creative commons attribution.
Overall, I agree.
In actuality, there's getting to be some real nastiness wherein lawyers are finding ways to be profitable. Go figure.
And technically there's a greater risk of reputation damage to the blogger.
If I see someone going around randomly lifting photos, I'm automatically assuming they also lift text. I also assume they aren't spending a great deal of time being original.
And, companies are getting tired of doing dmca paperwork. I saw one that was willing to shut me down without research if they got a complaint. I kept moving. Some protections actually create the opportunity for abuse.
So it's not really just about lawsuits. It's also about preserving reputation and protecting one's own IP from takedown.
Woot
Let me help you with this ...
If we see a parent beating a child with a bat, it's really clear that it's time to step in. No one would hesitate.
Yet, we hesitate to stop a parent who is calling their child stupid, belittling every little move.
We are all guilty of turning away when we see a parent verbally assault a child. Even though we know the parent isn't right, we cowardly pretend the child will recover.
Yet, this kind of abuse is scientifically proven to being just as damaging to the brain development as a baseball bat.
We do not have the right to assault.
While I used the example of a child, I know of several times when I was assaulted verbally as an adult by another adult and it changed the direction of my day, my month, and even my life.
We simply do not have the right of assault.
Takes some manning-up, @aggroed, to write this post. The sentence that stuck out most to me was:
I have fallen foul for merely criticising and reporting someone who is a serial downvoter, because that account disagrees with someone elses' political views.
Even an innocent bystander, one of my dear followers who had nothing to do with my comment was downvoted by that person and one of his surrogates. Even my reporting to Steemit-Abuse on Stem.chat was deleted. Shameful!
I wish we could all grow up and be honest to ourselves and others, just as you have done here.
Chapeau! 🎩
Wow. You have brought up a really interesting issue. How do we promote free speech without promoting verbal abuse? The route you both have taken to deescalate is a good one and should be noted for others who will most certainly find themselves in similar situations.
The answer?
'Every Right entails a Responsibility - to eschew the latter is to forsake the former.'
In other words - persons who persistently disregard the responsibilities entailed in exercising free speech can expect to have the related rights curtailed. Such is logical justice.
Well said.
disagree. feels like censorship...
I strive toward consistency in as many things as feasibly possible - and when it comes to the workings of society (or human behavior) I consider such to be of greatest importance.
In the same way that one would expect one's gun-carry license rights to be revoked for failing to live up to the responsibilities...
In the same way that one would expect one's driving license rights to be revoked for grossly failing to live up to the responsibilities...
I would expect that the same apply to the right to freedom of speech. Everybody starts off with a right so fundamental... but abuse it enough and fail to live up to the entailed responsibilities... and it should not surprise one to find those rights curtailed.
As indicated above, some rights are easier revoked than others by virtue of how inalienable they are to humanity. Also, a curtailment is not the same as removal.
In the context of steemit this could take several forms, including:
The third is the most limiting category. If approval by a member of sufficient privilege isn't a sufficient filter then I'd prefer seeing this tightened to approval by a maximum of 3 members than see curtailment of a user's ability to post or comment.
I went in and looked at the blog-in-question, which I should have done first. To expand on my original comment, plagiarism is not what free speech protects. One of the great things about the Steemers I have come across is the sourcing of material. If someone uses material that is not theirs, they post the source. For this reason, Steem seems to be more about expanding and less on regurgitating. Maybe I'm wrong or have a small view of the site being a user of minnow proportions. When money is in the mix, it's a sticky situation. He does make a good point in his latest post about power users having the ability to abuse the system, it is something this community will be facing more and more as we go forward and users buy Steem and Steem Power to gain an advanced foothold. Hopefully, it will never become an issue. I know that this little fish is off to read up on Steem and Steem Power. Educate!!
Again, thanks for the post.
This post made my day. I like to hear that big power learn and correct his own mistake. I won't say if @el-mago is right or wrong as I didn't follow the event but I certainly support the way you acted throughout the whole course of this event. You have the gut to admit you were wrong and compensate your previous actions. You have my respect! Hat off to you!
he's literally just some dick posting other people's content with no sources. i have no idea how you guys air benefit of doubt to the abuser. we SHOULD be banning the shit out of him. dissolve his funds and redistribute.
@aggroed
Being this much honesty and supportive is not easy thing.
You will be remembered by many people after some years on steemit. I was really moved.
Coming to el-mago. Everyone has "right to speak" what he feels. Be it either good or bad. People appreciate them if they liked.
I agree with you @aggroed flagging could be something more negative,we can call it...almost censorship with @transisto.
This is my opinion
But how the system can support a real content creator for all his efforts where the plagiarized content performing well?
There is no meaning to this platform if it encourages this content stealing. There is no way to stop this stealing other than what we had left. (may also use @steemcleaners help)
Again i making clear my views...
So in my opinion, if you flagged him for personal abuse to any user. I feel it is justice what you did.
I am open to you aggroed, do i need to cleanse any of my thoughts and opinion? I am listening...
I'm not the moral expert. I'm documenting my experience.
I appreciate what you did
Great vision and excellent presentation. We love and appreciate your work! Be blessed
@aggroed thanks for sharing this, because this 'hate speech vs free speech' is certainly something that I have been wrestling with too! I am tiny little minnow, but I can relate to this on an everyday basis... It's so difficult to know where to draw the line, when to react swiftly - or just let it go, and how to most effectively push back. Thank you for all that you do with minnowsupport (I just joined last night thanks to suggestion by @gmuxx), I will be following you for thoughtful posts like this. :)
glad to have you here. Thanks for your thoughts.
i don't know that it's so much about hate speech vs free speech, as it is simple plagiarism. his reactions are poor for sure, but painting him as a misogynist isn't quite it. he's rude to everybody, not just women. he's been downvoting my #Gridcoin posts in retaliation. just a shit kid altogether... :D
Bravo.
It takes a Man's Man to step outside their "Box" and see the Big picture...
You are a Steward of the community and your Light Shines Bright!!
Thanks!
Well put @aggroed !
Tough spot you are in... there is a fine line between freedom of speech and trolling and being offensive. I like how you managed the situation, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Nothing personal... just for the sake of this community.
Hope things calm down and deescalate :D
great post, perhaps it is better to forgive then it is to take negative action. perhaps next time something like this happens just uplift the individual under attack instead of crushing the aggressor.
I should listen to those words. :/
As to the doxxing I think it is not in alignment with a supportive action and should be frowned upon for sure, perhaps a punitive measure such as bot access denied for a week or something could be put in place.
Invasions of privacy are not okay and definitely not supportive of the community. And so the user at fault should not get support from the community they are diminishing. imo.
Much love <3
Well said. Lets hope that @el-mago will listen to reason:) You always were sympathetic guy and evaluation of thyself is not strange to you - and that i applaud sir. Concentrate on spreading the positivity! that should be the main goal of @minnowsupport anyway
This is why I respect you. You're always looking to improve the situations you're in... And when you screw up, not only do you own it - you fix it.
It takes some courage to do that, and I applaud you.
As far as the images, when i search Google or Bing i filter for photos listed under creative commons free to share and use commercially. It takes away a lot of the results, but i feel comfortable using those without worrying I'm stealing someone's ability to make a living or anything of that sort.
good advice. paxabay has a lot of images too.
I'm glad you brought this up. As with any platform, the bigger something gets, the more trolls and negative people it attracts. I feel like Steemit is getting to the level where it's no longer always positive and starting to attract some negative people (you always have the good with the bad). With that said, I'm glad we're attacking this issue head-on so people can see that Steemit is a positive place to interact and free speech is ok, just don't abuse it. I feel like with everyone sticking together, like you did with minnow support, then we can make Steemit a better place for us, and many more to come.
I don't see a problem flagging plagiarism, or this kind of nonsense:
https://steemit.com/curation/@lexiconical/exposing-advertiser-circle-jerks-in-trending-reward-pool-rape-and-bookingteam-com
What?
I don't get it. What is it got anything to do with censorship or free speech at all, one can flag for the sole (and simple) reason of disagreement of rewards, imho it's completely justified for some one to flag shitty content (case in point). If someone loses "visibility" and rep over that, and feel "censored" , it's just a natural consequence of posting shit and winning rewards for the said shit that several other users don't necessarily deem fair.
Edit : self upvote for visibility
Just two days ago someone stole one of my videos directly from youtube and posted it as his own, i asked him about it and got no response.
Ive been seeing a LOT of people posting things that obviously arent theirs
Evene worse is the amount of flagging going on, people are flagging things because THEY find them offensive, not even because it involves something illegal or isnt allowed on the website
flagging and self upvoting seem to be the hot topics at the moment on here
I recall you were also involved in the discussion on @dwinblood's post on self votes, and I found your comments thoughtful. I've a post related to that discussion I'd like you to criticize, if you've time. I can link it if you like, but don't wanna just spam it.
let me know if you are up to sharpening my point.
Thanks!
so @el-mago's post shitting all over my "whore" gf is still doing fine, and that @julianita character has begun systematically downvoting our posts as well. @o0pepper0o is about ready to quit steemit. this is fucked. :D
@sean-king had upvoted one of @o0pepper0o's comments, and with @julianita's downvote... it went from $60 to $14. woot.
I'm new to steemit even though I've been more in following steemit before joining.
The community seems really nice in general and people have the right of having their own opinions and people are dealing with them very well, as long as it's not about hurting anybody.
Creating original content is the point here. Creating and finding original content and not stealing other peoples work. It's bad alone, but attacking people for any reason will only bring everybody down from the level we should be on.
Thanks for your honesty and integrity. It's refreshing.
Resteeming
It annoys me that an individual can't accept the right to free speech AND self-filter abuse. Why do some people feel the need to take their freedoms to the nth degree? Just because it's legal to be horrible to other people doesn't mean one should think it's ok to live life on that line.
I think you tried to do the right thing for the good of the community. It's unfortunate that rights seem to overpower what's right.
I don't think this was your lesson to learn. I think you were doing the right thing, perhaps just not in the best way.
It's a tough balancing act. Not excusing anyone but at that time, you did what you felt was right. It doesn't always align with the bigger picture but it's hard to think when you're in between a rock and a hard place. Heck I'm not going to deny I'm still conflicted. But there's something to be said about being able to admit where you were lacking and that deserves a thumbs up. That aside, here's to hoping for a better steemit. May we all learn to co-exist harmoniously!
Being new to this site, I have already foreseen this ''problem'' before joining, if I can even call it that. Steemit, being a social media such as Facebook or Reddit of sorts, has tons of categories into which posts are posted daily. Some topics are more delicate than others in regards of ownership of content. I will take motocross for example, news about scoreboards to be more precise. Photos posted there, will not be owned by the poster, at least for the most part. But excluding them will make the post mundane, dry if you will. They add value. The problem is of course in the user's post being flagged for using something that doesn't belong to him, which in turn causes him harm. I think this should be avoided in topics where the pictures themselves only add ''style'' and visuals to a post, but are not the main point of the post itself. It's a big grey area, especially in NSFW. Majority of the content posted there is not owned by the poster, and the people visiting there realise this. It becomes a problem when money is involved, as people can become jealous and flag this content. But, on the other hand, unlike the motocross scoreboards which take effort from the poster's perspective, these NSFW posts take very little work to put into them besides posting a few pictures which you do not own. As I said, it's a big grey area, and I'll be keeping an eye out to see how steemit solves this.
But, regarding your actions, they were noble, and in my opinion, correct. You fixed the ''damage'' that was done, and went above and beyond in that aspect. My hat's off to you sir, have a good day :)
Interesting and complex topic!
Really well written!
Nice content, thanks for sharing. 100% upvoted from @chanthasam
Interesting post, thanks for sharing this news @aggroed
So much drama so much politics .. Feels like I am back in Highschool ... Thanks for letting us know all of this ... I know It might hurt that a creation of yours like minnowsupport is facing problems like these ..
Love is all that is needed to improve ourselves and this great community, forgiveness and tolerance is also expedient. Thanks for sharing your steemit experiences with us @aggroed, we care and wish all of us well here.
I have appreciated the support in this entire issue, but I would never want to drain the resources available to the minnows without need. That includes you @aggroed. Do not drain yourself for my sake.
If @el-mago wants to work something out, I am all for it.
Zero reason we can't just remove the flags and return to our sides of the network for now.
I have removed any I had placed, and if any remain, let me know. Not that my tiny SP would really have much effect on a post.
Interesting review Thanks for sharing
Pretty honest assessment. I can appreciate learning things too late to change them, but being able to proceed therefrom informed by what we have learned.
Thanks for sharing that educational perspective on this hullabaloo from which we can all learn.
I'm really glad to see that this is settling down. It's a testament to your merit as a leader here that you were able to reexamine your actions and see where you might have altered course for better overall results.
I personally think that you were entirely justified in the actions you took, but it isn't always best in the end to cling to being right. Your post here demonstrates that being right is less important to you than promoting a quality platform with peaceful interactions and that's commendable.
It might also serve as an object lesson to us minnows. The couple of times I've seen plagiarism I just noted in the comments that unsourced unoriginal images can get the post flagged. Seems safer than actually flagging.
As for abusive language and trolling... I feel like that will likely weed itself out if no attention is paid. Trolls feed on reaction so I generally choose not to give it to them. I'd far rather ignore than see this be a place of censorship, though it is my understanding that the flags you placed were in response to revenge flagging rather than offensive speech.
As always, great post and thank you for your support of the small fries.
Thanks
Interesting , insightful post as always. Thanks for sharing.
Could it fall under fair use?
Still would need to reference the source of the pictures though.
You are a true leader, just like Optimist Prime. Accepting the fact that you made some mistakes in handling the issue and better things could have been done to resolve it, makes you stand out of the crowd. You earned my salute for this.
I thought of something to respond to this with as I was reading, but the damned thing fell out of my brain.
However, I would like to submit that implicitly, through the social contract of being paid for posting here, that all steem content is implicitly thereby public domain, even linked to media objects. This is not to say that attribution can be neglected, in fact it makes it more important. It's really not that much extra effort when you took the other user's material and simply mention their name, at minimum, if not citing the post where it was first placed into the blockchain.
Nice summary of your perspective on this.
I think it gets complicated when you are using SP delegated from others, or their investment, or doing something in their name. But if we could take that out of it I think you were right to flag them. @transito and co were right to speak up for their perspective on the chain too and used their stake to send a message to you too. And @el-mago was good to deescalate. All appropriate actions within the system, and negotiated socially.
One point:
This is fair use, not CC.
I just got censored by @steemcleaners for this post.
https://steemit.com/oldchowder/@angusg/relax-it-s-only-fxxxing-money
The point of the post was about me being on Steemit not for the money but for the interactions. So it was about Steemit. No big deal, changed the tags it's just I was a little surprised by the censorship.
i have no idea how you find yourself apologizing to a content stealer, when that post was clearly a dig at steemit's inability to moderate him properly. it was NOT in the spirit of de-escalation. this is cuckoldry. this is EXACTLY what you don't want on the site. and you cave to him? after he was abusive to my gf like 5 times a day this week? cool beans.
Your are responsible for your own reputation being in the gutter because you chose to be abusive toward others instead of owning up to your mistakes and reforming.
You are the unprofessional power-tripping abusive scammer as evidenced by everything you have done thus far on this platform.
To quote,