I call bullshit.
My last stand up comedy video on Steem was a perfect test case here to demonstrate that censorship is alive and well on Steem.
I clicked the link. It's not censored. You're a liar.
On top of that, most people's early creative efforts are crap which then gets called spam and gets downvoted here.
Most? That's bullshit. You're a liar.
Several big Steem power holders spend the majority of their time "killing accounts" and trying to shut up authors like me that post anything potentially disagreeable.
Several? That's bullshit and you just threw many undeserving individuals under the bus for no reason.
Downvoted Investors + Authors Eventually Sell Everything
I had a post flagged away, a long time ago. Look who's still here. So that's bullshit.
Therefore our best option to communicate how much we disagree is to power down and sell Steem to lower the value as much as possible to motivate those holding on forever to make whatever change is necessary to keep the people happy and to allow those buying in to have more influence per dollar invested.
So let me get this straight. If I don't agree with the rewards you receive for this seemingly scammy and anti-social behavior here today, you'll simply threaten my investment by encouraging others to dump and that won't stop until I meet your demands? And all this just because you're pouting about something and feel like going on a power trip?
The other option is, you'll power down and leave?
Okay. See ya!
P.S. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
You're a bit of a legend - one of the few people to get a full-power downvote from @freedom.
P.S. I can only imagine what your username would be if you signed up today instead of when you did.
Two posts got hit that day, so two full power freedom flags. I think it was because I used the f-word too many times while writing a joke about the f-word. If I remember correctly, I lost potential rewards(not money), but the situation gave me something to write about, which I did, and did it well, so I made some money that way.
The whole situation was a blessing in disguise. People say these flags are censorship but in reality, when a post gets smashed into smithereens with flags like mine did that day, it's much like a train wreck or a car crash. And what do people do when they see a car crash on the streets? They gawk. People want to know what happened, so they look. Since the posts aren't censored after being flagged, people can then conclude with, "Oh. So that's what happened there. Cool."
A blogger needs attention in order to be successful. That situation put a lot of eyes on my blog, so I carried on and made over 22k SP. Whatever! Thanks for the flags!
I didn't pout, I didn't take it personally, I didn't go attempt to retaliate. There was no need to give up and since I like to prove people wrong, I stuck around and did just that.
I'm glad you brought that up. My real life experience and what Jerry is saying here today, well, night and day difference.
As for the name, I'd probably be NoNamesLeftToUse12 by now.
You got a Freedom flag!? Wow youre sooo lucky.. :) jk
Anyways, on topic at hand. Flags have nothing to do with censorship even in a plutocratic society Steem is.
A "flag" is voicing an opinion. A negative one. Based on your own evaluation of the post, the rewards, its trending placement... etc.
What Jerry is asking for is a safe space ..
Taking away the ability of others to speak with their stake on what they want and do not want on this platform.
Taking away flags is an attack on freedom of speech in its purest form.
And the arguments he makes... Terrible. "The biggest danger for Steem"... "steem would be at 10USD if not for flags"....
No, just no. People that get the most flags are the ones that are doing something really wrong or its just drama. People have a right to have drama fights and everything that comes with it.
His credibility was thrown out the window the moment he took the irrational sensationalist approach while going as far as choosing to use his this is an emergency tone of voice commonly heard in advertisements selling chemical cleaners designed to rid the world of stains.
Jerry is asking for a pub he can go to where anti-social behavior isn't thrown out the door by a bouncer. He wants to get drunk and start grabbing women's asses without consequence. So let's think about a pub like that for a second. It wouldn't take long before people hear about these gropers, and they'd simply decide to go somewhere else more civilized. Sure, the pub fills up with more people like Jerry out looking for asses to grab, but there aren't any asses left to grab, then those ass grabbers stop going to the pub, and the place goes out of business. If they would have hired a bouncer, they'd still be in business, because there are far more good, wholesome, decent, civilized types walking the earth than there are savage ass grabbers so it's better for business to get rid of that minority and embrace the good ones.
That's the real world right there. This place isn't much different. Jerry obviously needs to get out more.
Hahaha. By putting the bouncer at the door youre censoring their "bottom-grabbing"... And censorship is bad.
Its not only that you arent allowed to have a bouncer at the door, youre not allowed to even say something....
Thats how far this "remove flags" argument goes.
They censored my cigarettes and now I have to go outside to smoke.
Of course downvoting has a strong element of censorship to it.
By flat out hiding posts, or by demotivating contribution, to mention a few.
The second reason would not be all bad if the influence of a downvote was evenly valued to the individual. However, it is not. It's directly linked to ones SP, which mean censorship can be bought and controlled by the few.
Also, with the utilization of bots, the human factor is in many cases removed. So much of what is being downvoted is never even being considered or evaluated by anyone in the first place.
It really does not. Censorship is institutional. It requires a government or organization effort to suppress speech.
When an individual uses a flag he is using his vote to make a statement on the content in question.
Would you call any negative response to an argument, a claim, content censorship?
No. Flags are pure freedom and need to remain. Removing them takes you in the opposite direction of freedom of speech.
It would be a terrible day if they decide to remove flags. Truly would.
Atm thats the only way the community has towards fighting spam and trash content.
I must disagree. I get the impression that you choose to see the upsides (at least in your opinion) and glance over the negative.
I don't see how censorship have to be institutional. That is how we are used to portray it today, I agree, but it is not a necessity. If we are however to follow that idea, there is already "institutionalized" downvoting within steem today. Groups of individuals that have come together to make a downvote-bot for instance. There is no universally agreed moral that dictates what they today or in the future decide to downvote.
To answer your question "Would you call any negative response to an argument, a claim, content censorship?"
By no means, no. Please do not misunderstand me. I think it is an absolute crucial requirement that critical responses is allowed. However, downvoting is so much more than only that that. Downvoting have multiple functions, and I think it is important to address them individually.
(1). It has a monetary element. It affects the distribution of newly created STEEM. Having the possibility to also vote to take away shares from specific "meaningless" posts could be argued for. This function too can be misused, and who is to determine what is "meaningless" and not. Even then, the persons upvoting "meaningless" content did invest in STEEM and are contributing to the added value. Should they not be able to do with their investment as they see fit? To me this topic is not as clear cut.
(2) Downvoting is actually hiding content. To me that is textbook definition of censorship. No way around it. I can see the argument of making pornographically material and the worse less "in your face", but that is still censorship and again who draws the line of what is acceptable or not? Hiding other individuals content through flagging is not freedom of speech, as you imply. That is censorship. Free speech is when you can leave your own comment with a piece of you mind. I am very much free speech, but not "selective free speech". As of now I lean towards that this element of the downvoting is better off removed.
(3) is the element that you are mainly referring to; the possibility to express once approval or in this case disproval. This I would absolutely like to keep. However, it should be separated from the two above. Those are tools for people who want to boost the value of their own opinion over the next person (referring to SP; a low SP individual have a smaller say than a high SP individual), or to express hatred, revenge or simply censor what they do not like (that one is no. 2. - again, that one is pure censorship).
Let me end with a question back to you. Do you think the current downvote function have no negative side to it, and that it cannot and is not being misused?
You bring up good points, these are things I end up discussing quite a lot. They are valid objections in my opinion.
But they are answerable.
1 ) from a rewards point of view, this is the simplest case. until payout, there is a completely open system wide vote on the rewards to be granted to each post, as a proportion of the rewards pool, with each voter enabled to vote to strength according their stake.
Both up and down votes are permitted. No one can take away rewards, as rewards are set at payout time and delivered to the rewarded account. In the seven day window between posting and payout (apart from the last few hours) the voting is open and active.
It is a failing of the main Steem UI steemit.com for setting the tone on both (a) down votes as flags, and (b) encouraging users to see pending rewards as guaranteed rewards, i.e. that their rewards can only track upwards. I've written about both many times and at length before, but that's the gist and is very straight forward.
2 ) posts which have pending or final rewards of zero or less are represented in the steemit.com UI (and all the main others I think) as less visually drawn attention to, collapsed etc. All that is required to show them is a click. An additional click is then needed to show the images.
I don't deny that this has a big effect on whether people choose to read the posts. @valued-customer successfully argued against me that this is not censorship, it is. It is however very very light. There can be scales of censorship and I would not consider this to be Censorship with a capital C. That is the so-called institutional censorship, total blocking of content, deletion, book burning, prohibition from writing or publishing, even imprisonment.
What we have here is better viewed as ordering and prioritization. It is a UI decision that's similar to putting porn in a cover which obscures the cover. This is a real practice. Would you say that this porn is censored? Kind of is the best answer. It's still possible to get, the hurdle is minor. But does it put some people of viewing it at all? Undoubtedly.
Again this is down to the UI. Don't like it? Make your own. The actual blockchain doesn't do this, or any form of censorship. It's important to make that distinction. It can't be more important.
3 ) this to be is a red herring. We can't peer inside people's minds to gauge their motivation. We stick to the facts and assume nothing.
The negative side is that if someone with a lot of SP want to remove your rewards they can. The balance is that you can buy stake to counteract that yourself. If you can't afford it, you can appeal to other large stakeholders you may be able to go by social means to embarrass them or enlist some people to counter it.
That's just from a practical point of view though. Systematically this is the hard reality of Steem, decisions are upheld by stake.
Well it seems @mack-bot disagrees.
Would you say that.... lets see.. Scientology shouldnt have the right to attack those that attack it? And those that attack the practices of Scientology dont have the right to do so?
Look.. I know getting flags is tough, but if you want free speech you need to have a system in place that allows for those that object to something to have an effect on that, just like in real life..
The reward pool isnt a given. The rewards arent your money, or my "money"... We all share the reward pool and we should all have the right based on our stake, individual or grouped to say where those rewards should go to.
This is as simple as it gets.
The flag system is a must.
Its a shame most people dont use it fully.
And no... i dont think the system can be misused. Absolutely not. Vendettas or anything in that regard arent misuses of the system. Not at all.
Not liking someone and flagging him/her is a shitty thing to do, but we should have that right..
If that goes too far there are corrective measures.
This is a social media website and if you for example came after me (not that i think you would) for dunno, disagreements that would lead to a reaction and a normalization would occur eventually.
What you did to anger the @mack-bot i have no idea, but i hardly believe that the situation cannot be resolved fairly easily.
If you were hollier then holly, then the community would eventually stand up for you out of personal benefit of having such a person and Mackbot would backdown, out of self interest.
No... Flags are a must. Has nothing to do with censorship. But has everything to do with free speech.
What you consider "trash" is another man's treasure.
It's on the blockchain ... your web interface is likely Steemit.com??
They have an algorithm that chooses to hide posts.
There are other interfaces to the steem blockchain. Would you prefer that there be one that Does Not hide flagged posts?
How would you like to see it go down as far as hiding or not hiding posts?
That is a valid point I was not aware of. It doesn’t change my concern about how this work in practice, but it does redirect the question of what to potentially change, from blockchain to the various UIs. Thanks for pointing that out.
My current stance would be yes, to not hide any comments or posts. Any filtering should be on the user end, like we have with NSFW. That would leave you with those who do not correctly label their content, either knowingly or by mistake. The latter would correct themselves by simply notifying them. The other group would be those who post with an intent of disrupting, shocking and offending. To block that a stronger tool is required. So far, I cannot see any such tool that also gives the power to infringe on peoples’ freedom of expression. Any individual could argue that they would accept the trad-off. For my part free speech must be absolute. Any compromises are a slippery slope, like we experience so many placed in the world today.
There are other ways to counter the effect offensive texts and memes. Why do we raise our children? To prepare them for the world, and the inevitable dangers and offences that lingers there.
My censorship concern related to the downvoting is put to rest by your new info. Any UI, like Steemit, is free to do whatever they see fit as far as I’m concerned. The free marked will handle any disagreements on that end.
Whether downvoting is a blessing from above, should be modified or is better of “voted out”, is something I still ponder.
Maybe we can just start a new tab called Flagged and it works opposite of trending the most flagged post goes to the top. Users can see it and upvote if they feel it is worth payout.
Simple fix to fix the entire issue without removing the most useful feature on the platform.
K @warjar so I work on @steempeak ... we have filter out (hide) NSFW as an option in settings and we can easily put in Hide low voted comments or low reputation users. I think that's a fair request.
I want to hide them personally because there's so much to go through as it is and i'd love to not have to sort out the spam but I think I'm actually with you giving people the decision to hide what they want making it their own decision.
So... the question for you (and others)
Should a user be able to hide what they are exposed to only? Or should they have more control on their own blog post as well? I'm not saying total control... but should they have some sort of say at least?
Your saying well
You're not.
Well, well, well.
😎
Hey @nonameslefttouse, I'm following you and yesterday i read your blog related to art and creativity that was one of the best blog of that day. and I hope you will be enjoying your passion. But I think your creativity is unique and everyone should appreciate your art.. I m waiting for your next blog..
love & support @nonameslefttouse
Don't miss to follow and upvote on my blog @devkapoor423
Democracy has always been a number game around the world ! I reckon social media too is now no different. Ive come across quite a few posts highlighting censorship as one issue & one that makes a couple of them leave the platform! I'm quite new here to comment as I do not have a first hand experience however freedom of expression should not be trivial - just a thought !
Democracy does not exist. It's plutocracy.
Lool Yes I agree - 100% its a frustrating fact but it nice to see people realizing this & putting in baby steps to get out of the damn !
It's low because it wanted me to buy. And I did
I hope @Haejin and others go so I can watch people cry as value tanks and small users go to platforms like ONO
Yes, it would be great to see the abusive and whiner types leave this place and take their attitude problems to the competition. I'm looking forward to it. This place will be a lot better without them and their entitlement issues. Steemit would be left with more hard working individuals who appreciate the platform and all it has to offer and that would attract more people like that who care about their investments, and this place will eventually thrive. Success attracts more success so if we can get rid of the some of the trash here, I'm looking forward to it.
lol that idea makes me laugh. Oh no the people making the system bad are going to move their behavior to the competition, what will we do. I wonder if they will send them back.
I've been in management and other various leadership roles for quite a few years. Since many have to work to earn around here, they're not much different than employees. When disgruntled employees start throwing hissy fits and threatening to leave the establishment to go work for a competitor, the best thing to do is hold the door open for them. They won't ever change, because that's just how they are under any circumstance, so they'll take their negative attitudes with them, and that's good for business because you get rid of problems and give them to the competition.
Jerry did the same thing here in his post today. Good riddance! I'll hold the door open for him, no problem. He said he wants to leave, not us. He gave everyone here an ultimatum, but in reality, he gave himself that ultimatum. Now he can either stay true to his word, or stick around and be known as an even bigger bullshitter for making empty threats. He just keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper and he'll have to make some serious changes to be ever to climb out of it. Again, he made that choice. Not us.
That has to be the glue that holds the corruption together.
I know this is controversial, but I believe this is further evidence of the need for decriminalization of cannabis.
Hi there. I'm a busy guy. If you have something say, say it. These little pointless one liners you're leaving under my comments don't make much sense, unfortunately, so I don't really know what you're talking about and can't respond until things are clear.
@nonameslefttouse i have an opinion about this typical fluctuations about upvoting https://steemit.com/steemit/@nitindafda/my-opinion-about-steemit
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