Welcome To The Steemit That Vote Buying Hath Wrought
You know what. I'm not even going to bother to write much this time. I'm taking a page out of the @themarkymark playbook of abuse reporting, because fuck it.
Ah, yes, this is going to be good. "Movie Trailers." I'm sure we'll find no plagiarism here.
Precisely what I expected. There are pages and pages more of this. Months of plagiarism. @cheetah @steemcleaners @patrice @anyx
Thankfully, some one else has come through and flagged since I attempted to earlier (Steemit refused to accept my flags, it is running like garbage.)
@movietrailers, get the fuck off this platform you plagiarizing piece of human garbage.
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 10,000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: Google, Upton Sinclair, YT
Copyright: SmartSteem, PALNet, SPL, Steemit, DailyKOS
You obviously don't understand what plagiarism is and have the myopic view that Steem is only for long form content.
Those posts are all attributed and sharing/embedding them is encouraged by the owners. It's literally doing what the creator hopes for. The plagiarism angle is moronic.
What you actually have a problem with is short form or unoriginal content. Social networks are largely about sharing links and opinions. Steem needs to grow so people are buying it and keeping the price up and so there are people to upvote the posts. Mainstream growth is short form and link sharing.
Rewarding short form content as well as long form is better for Steem. Most of the internet are not long form authors, why would someone who's not a long form author going to sign up and vote and buy Steem if they are going to get slapped down for trying to use it like it was intended. You do know the name Steemit stems from Reddit right? A place where link sharing get's upvotes as well as long form content.
Sites like DMania and Zappl understand that not everyone is a long form author and Steem is not exclusively for them.
You are a complete and utter liar:
Do this on YT and you get a copyright strike, again, strongly implying I am correct:
Can you legally use a movie trailer in your youtube video and still have ads and make money? If so, how?
6 Answers
Amlan Tripathi
Amlan Tripathi, YT (https://www.youtube.com/still22videos) & Lead at Information Technology (2010-present)
Answered 26w ago · Author has 58 answers and 96.1k answer views
Both YES and NO!
"YES - There will be copyright strike and your channel will be warned a couple of times before your channel being taken down altogether. These kind of situation happens when you upload a complete audio visual end to end without any modification and monetization is turned on for your videos."
...
"In the case of a picture or image, you must first get permission from the owner of the image, unless the image is public domain. You should also attribute all images back to their original site (i.e. site you got the image from) and content creator/owner."
Your comparison is nonsensical and absurd. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Doubling down on lies (and/or not knowing what the fuck you are talking about):
""In the case of a picture or image, you must first get permission from the owner of the image, unless the image is public domain. You should also attribute all images back to their original site (i.e. site you got the image from) and content creator/owner."
"Having an embedded youTube video on your online article or website is exactly like having an embedded image - thus permission must also be given from the owner of the youTube video.""
Produce written permission to reproduce the content you plagiarize.
But you won't, because you can't.
Also,
Studios all enter these agreements specifically because YT demonetizes any incorrect use of these trailers and funnels ALL revenue to the uploader (rights-owner's) monetization.
This is the explicit agreement on which YT's permission, on which the embedding permission, also relies.
No studio would approve of @movietrailers end-run roundabout on monetization that is happening here. Were they aware, they would immediately C&D or revoke these permissions, assuming the $ amount was material.
The "agreement" that you are claiming protects you would be moot given the spirit of it is being directly circumvented. You are actively working to undermine this agreement.
You would be given no legal quarter, and as Kevin says on Shark Tank, you would be crushed like the cockroach you are.
Even if you had a much better argument than you do.
You have obviously never worked in media or marketing. Your ignorance of their goals is laughable. What's even funnier is that you think I even posted a video. I posted a URL .
Exactly. You've done fuck all. You've been as lazy as you could possibly be, and done, literally nothing. And you are making far more than people who actually put work into their content. You're wrong. Shut up and disappear, or don't, and keep building your blog to an estimated worth of a million or whatever. AND THEN sit back and er, ENJOY THE FUCKING VIEW OF YOUR FOUR CELL WALLS, because what you are doing is illegal, and WHEN they catch up with you, they will sue the fucking shit out of your sorry arse.
"and done, literally nothing."
Misuses the word literally.
"they will sue the fucking shit out of your sorry arse."
Ummm okay that's what my arse is for. You and them are welcome to all the shit from it you want.
I already pointed it out. The written permission is in plain site. The rights holder allowed for sharing when submitting their work to YouTube and I used the 'Share' button supplied by YouTube. You just refused to accept the facts and have gone on some manic google cherry picking spree.
What's hilarious is that this is exactly what those companies hope for. They want their trailers to go viral and be shared all over the internet.
You are a perfect storm of ignorance.
On a technical level you don't understand what a URL is and what was actually published to the blockchain.
On a legal level you have no clue where to begin and just jumping to anything you can google to support you without realizing it's not applicable.
On a business acumen level you have failed to understand the motives of the companies releasing these trailers and how mass marketing works.
..Judge Jerome Siandle wrote:
"Trailers have become more than advertising material for other products; they have become valuable entertainment content in their own right, as web surfers continually frequent the internet to view these on-line commodities prior to movie releases, [...] and such previews increase web site traffic and on-line 'stickiness,' which give web site owners additional time and opportunities to market their services and products."
They know you are stealing revenue (or, they don't, because you are miniscule.) They only don't take you down because you are peanuts, not because they legally can't.
Do you know what a URL is?
Do you know what a piece o0f shit is? Someone that uses others work in geed to fill their pockets, whilst hard working content creators are fucking trod on and forgotten about. Fuck you.
So in other words you have no fucking clue.
Do you even read any of the comments aimed at you? Remove yourself from the face of the earth
@lexiconical is factually wrong in some ways, but I agree with him in making visible these zero effort, zero contribution posts. It's not just lazy, it's cynical. The account does not author anything, it's just sharing other content without adding a single thing - not one single thing.
That is fair opinion and you are right nothing is added. I'm of the opinion that sharing links I like, like on Reddit is a perfectly valid use of Steem. As for the rewards, that is coming from my investment in personal stake and bid bots.
I see absolutely no harm taking place to other authors. Those bots will vote on a timer regardless and no one that isn't paying them will ever get those votes. That reward I'm gaining can only come at the expense of other bit bot buyers in the same window.
I took a risk and invested in promoting this account's content at a possible loss. It obviously worked at gaining exposure and with the down swing in price might not have even been profitable without the flags.
Sure, it's as valid as anything else. My opinion is just my opinion.
I view the kind of posting you're doing as a kind of farming. You've got a stake, for sure, and you can use it however you want. The platform facilitates thinly veiled zero effort posts such as yours as a means to harvest the crop of your stake, like Farmville but for real. Code is law though so enjoy it! I just wouldn't expect to avoid people calling you up on it.
That is actually a great balanced response. I'm surprised he was surprised people called him out on it.
You know what I think most fail to realize, is that when you operate as if you are an island you could literally be isolating yourself from social value and the protection it may offer.
For example, because I want to be specific and clear, if our friend here movietrailers was to, lets say lose access to his accounts (not that I wish anyone to lose his money) and have to start from scratch.
There would probably not be a single one of us that would want to help him. He might be OK with this, I happen to not desire such an existence, but to some people isolation is safe, it requires less emotional involvement.
No movie studio would give rights for this cynical cash grab that makes their content look like garbage.
The only reason he's not being C&D'd, REGARDLESS of whether there is legal merit, is he's not making enough with his little shit-factory here.
As I suspected there was some logical contortionism in the works behind the justification. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree, because when I first started to ponder as to the definition of Proof of Brain, copy pasting youtube videos was not one of the first things that jumped into my head.
But don't worry, carry on, it's your right to be wrong and if you have completely covered all bases as to not feel the slightest ounce of guilt for your activities you are doing just fine.
Cheers.
I'm impressed that you can make such a vapid comment and still feel as though you made a point. You should count yourself as lucky the proof of brain bar isn't set too high.
Yes, the bar is low. That is why you are here.
Thanks I appreciate your candor. I also wanted to suggest that it might be smart not to use your botnet to upvote your replies, after all some of them were to supposed to be secret. It's bad for business.
Wrong again.
You lie reflexively on a regular basis.
Are you a compulsive liar?
ROFL you are claiming I'm lying about something I could only know. You're really wound up today your mind seems to be spinning all over. Did you drink too much coffee?
Ad hominem - still the leading choice when losing arguments everywhere.
(I prefer irony. Get it?)
Not every insult is an ad hominem.
Luckily, I was only talking about this one.
Fail. It was just an insult to match his.
I've reported it a few times in the past, and he was banned from @buildawhale. A few witnesses started to flagged him as well.
It has gone on for a long time, and don't understand why it has been ignored.
It's one of @contentjunkie's bots.
While I wouldn't call it "plagiarism" and it is something I was told isn't something that can be "dealt".
I am not going to allow it to be rewarded with @buildawhale services as it offers nothing of value and nothing unique and is just cashing in on someone else's work.
Not to make it more frustrating but to date, it has earned $6,686 in post rewards.
Pending Payouts
Isn't taking someone's unedited work, using it for a profit illegally (according to home jurisdiction copyright), and keeping the proceeds very dang close to the literal dictionary definition of plagiarism?
Thanks for the rewards update. Disappointing, but I assume much was bought so the real haul is lower.
No. Embedding a YouTube video is not copyright infringement (Google it) and plagiarism is not really the grievance this would fall under. It's YouTube's decision to allow broadcast of their protected material (which in turn protects the original copyright holder) on other websites.
Think of the website that embeds a video and makes money off other, unrelated ads on that website. Similar situation on Steemit.
Perhaps an argument could be made in the case where someone says, "Hey look at this multimillion dollar Hollywood film I made, I own the rights to it and this promo video" but it isn't being claimed.
This just shows how Steemit is a paradigm changing platform. Many are incensed by accounts like this (I don't personally like them myself) but the relationship between embedding copyright and Steem rewards does not exist, at least not legally.
I want to reiterate, @movietrailers is not doing anything illegal in this instance, as you claim.
You think this guy had Marvel's (Disney's) Permission?
I doubt it.
Further reading:
"Embedded YouTube Videos
The issue of copyright infringement becomes murkier when I include an embedded youTube video link, for example in a HubPages video capsule. Now, the youTube video appears on my online article, blog, or website, in contrast to the previous case, where it only appears as a link.
Am I infringing copyright laws now?
Some people argue that it is not infringing upon any copyright laws because you are only including a link - an embedded link - but still just a link. If anybody is libel, they reason, it should be youTube who is hosting the content, or the person who uploaded the content onto youTube. Since you did not do either of those things, you clearly are not doing anything wrong.
This reasoning, however, is problematic. It is problematic because now the embedded video is appearing right on your online article or website. This is similar to embedding a picture or image that belongs to someone else.
In the case of a picture or image, you must first get permission from the owner of the image, unless the image is public domain. You should also attribute all images back to their original site (i.e. site you got the image from) and content creator/owner.
Having an embedded youTube video on your online article or website is exactly like having an embedded image - thus permission must also be given from the owner of the youTube video."
https://turbofuture.com/internet/Embed-YouTube-Videos---Copyright-Infringement
Why aren't you reading the YouTube terms and conditions? That is the governing document. It is what the rights holder has agreed to as well as the end user. You are scrambling all over trying to play armchair lawyer but aren't bothering to read the most important document.
Or don't bother because if you look at what is actually published to the blockchain you'll see it's just a bare URL. I'm not even posting embed code that is done by Steemit Inc. They turn YouTube URLs into YouTube embeds on the presentation layer. It's fully in accordance with YouTube's terms.
You can feel free to call them shitposts that's your opinion. I would vehemently disagree with your opinion. To call them plagiarism is just factually wrong.
"Hai Guys, does the Remington Firearms Terms and Conditions say who I can legally shoot with my new gun?"
LOL, you are revealing yourself to be the armchair lawyer.
T&C have no force of law. To even reference them demonstrates you are clueless on US copyright law.
"You can feel free to call them shitposts that's your opinion. I would vehemently disagree with your opinion."
They are the definition of shit posts and you fucking know it, you disingenuous hack. That's an objective fact, not an opinion.
They are literally 0 effort. Dictionary definition of a shitpost.
Myself and others have already pointed out your erroneous application of the law. Your snide rejection of the facts won't change them any.
You have also failed to understand what was actually published and what is being facilitated by Steemit Inc and YouTube.
It's obvious you are out of your depth on any sort of legal or technical argument it's probably best for you to just stick to your subjective opinion of it being a shitpost and the amount of effort involved.
So how much effort exactly should one put in to receive how much back? Is it hourly? Can some people put in more effort in less time? Do you think Steem should only reward users who spend hours on long form content?
"So how much effort exactly should one put in to receive how much back? Is it hourly? Can some people put in more effort in less time? Do you think Steem should only reward users who spend hours on long form content?"
Reductio ad absurdum.
You know what you are doing, but the fact that you can defend it tells me all I need to know about the cynical abuser you are.
It's kind of a grey area, part of plagiarism is taking credit for not only just use. It also falls into another grey area of "sharing" in terms of legality.
That being said, I do not approve of this type of no-effort, automated, and repurposing other people's work for profit and is why he is blacklisted from using @buildawhale promotional services. Unfortunately, there are a lot of other bots that will be happy to promote it.
"Unfortunately, there are a lot of other bots that will be happy to promote it."
The 65 rep would appear to be proof positive of that.
This is actually worse than just posting empty posts and botting them up, because it's theft of content too.
Given the amount of organic votes most post get (next to none), I have to wonder why anyone would bother to even post anything but placeholder content at all, presuming they of course want the rewards.
"it's theft of content too."
False, permission has been fully granted by the creators. Those are Youtube embeds that the creators have full control over. If you look at what is actually being posted to the blockchain you'll see that they are literally just URLs.
Let us see your written permission for use of copyright.
"This reasoning, however, is problematic. It is problematic because now the embedded video is appearing right on your online article or website. This is similar to embedding a picture or image that belongs to someone else."
"In the case of a picture or image, you must first get permission from the owner of the image, unless the image is public domain. You should also attribute all images back to their original site (i.e. site you got the image from) and content creator/owner."
LOL there is a 'Share' button below the video providing me a link to use. It's encouraged.
Yea this is it, my view too.
The way to deal with this, in my opinion, is to make it not profitable to do. Most bid-bot rounds are now returning a negative ROI, which means to earn that $6,686 in post rewards he would have had to spend more than that buying those votes.
If that's not the case and he is making money off of the purchased votes, then we need to see how we can prevent that. In my opinion vote buying isn't the problem as much as profitable vote buying.
By the way, isn't the easiest way to make this unprofitable simply blacklisting these users and unvoting all their posts with no refund?
There's literally no downside to this (save time to implement), and upside for all legitimate parties?
I guess the bots would lose a tiny sliver of curation on abuse posts, too...
Blacklisting these users is fine, but that doesn't solve anything since there will always be someone else willing to sell their vote and the spammers can easily make new accounts faster than we can catch and blacklist all of them.
So manual blacklisting is a band-aid solution to the problem. If, on the other hand, costs of vote buying go up overall (meaning it returns a negative direct ROI), then the spamming will stop naturally since it will lose money for them as they don't gain anything from the increased visibility of their posts like "good" content does.
That has been one of my goals ever since starting the bot tracker site - to bring efficiency and transparency to the vote buying market - which prevents people from profiting off of the inefficiency. It's certainly not perfect yet, but it's come a very long way from where it was 6 months ago.
Also, I personally feel that refunds should be given for users who are blacklisted. Taking their money without providing the service they are paying for is stealing plain and simple and that is not something that I do. Even if they have stolen content or done any number of other bad things, I still don't feel that gives me the right to stoop to their level and steal from them. Obviously each bot owner can make his or her own decision about how to handle that situation.
This is why I said manually blacklist and DO NOT REFUND. Not just manually black list.
"I still don't feel that gives me the right to stoop to their level and steal from them."
Equivocation. You would not be stealing. It would be in your T&C.
You'll never stop this without refusing refunds.
Then again, that would cut into profits, wouldn't it?
Call it what you will but i will not take people's money when I knowingly will not provide them a service.
Actually quite the opposite - instead of keeping their money I'm giving it back to them.
"Actually quite the opposite - instead of keeping their money I'm giving it back to them."
Deliberate misinterpretation of my argument?
Yes, and we both know that you think if you stopped refunding abusers, you would scare off money from the likes of these movie trailer posts and your bot would be less profitable per SP.
Just like the few (2?) that actually use a blacklist - SS and BAW - which make less than the rest.
You are uniquely positioned to already know the previous fact.
Let me set something straight here. There are quite a few more bots than the two you have listed that use a blacklist, some of them are quite extensive. These bots have a myriad of different tools and options at their disposal to combat spam on the platform - for example:
Where do you think all of those tools and options came from? I have spent many, many hours of my scarce available time building all of these things and many more and they are all open source and freely available for anyone to use.
On top of that I have built many other features which reduce the profitability of the bots in return for a better user experience, all of which I implement first and foremost on my own bot.
I have blacklisted @movietrailers and will continue to blacklist any accounts that are obviously engaging in plagiarism. I happen to disagree with you and some other bot owners on this one point about whether or not to refund bids from blacklisted users. I disagree with it on principle, not because i feel it will reduce the earnings to my bot (which I honestly don't think it will really have much of an effect on anyway).
We are both going after the same goals here. I literally have a significant portion of my family's savings invested in Steem and very much would like for the platform to succeed and grow. We may disagree on how best to accomplish that, but that's ok - that's life.
I think you are a great writer and I enjoy the content you post, but I expected you to be more open minded to the fact that other people can have different opinions than you on some of these topics. I take offense to the fact that you are accusing me of promoting spam and plagiarism on the platform because I am only after profits when there is significant evidence to the contrary.
If you're interested in having a constructive and respectful conversation about the topics at hand I am always open to that, otherwise the conversation ends here.
@yabapmatt always remember there is responsibility that service providers must consider...Its a self-fulfilling prophecy to expect participants to act in the best interest of the platform, taking that into account, don't expect the movie trailers to stop and your business to flourish at the expense of public eyes who would as @lexiconical alluded to would say "this is nonsense", why make the effort when I can find a random trailer, post it and make use of your service...two or three times, I let pass by but four and five it becomes a norm until it becomes a circus show...My hope is that you won't be the cheerleader of the circus show but you would take the necessary steps to address the situation
Please read my above comment and in the future I would suggest you not jump in to these conversations unless you really know what you're talking about.
I agree, and wondered myself if this account was negative ROI.
The unfortunate fact is all other customers are caught in the middle.
PS - The title implied more blame on voting bots than I intended, but it sounded catchy. I wanted to argue that before all stake was sold, people would flag but no, the same economic incentive would have just been there to self-vote.
This is slightly different from what would have happened without voting bots, but probably not materially.
Most windows for a long time have been positive ROI (in many windows as much as 100% ROI), it's only recent weeks negative ROI is becoming common.
Just a friendly question... I may be naive for asking this, but its OK.. I would still like to hear your opinion on the subject.
Since the app you developed (steembottracker) is pretty much the standard today. How feasible would it be for it to have a shared blacklist? I'm no dev, which is why I ask... Maybe if the website itself would not allow bids to be "from" and "towards" certain blacklisted users.
Granted this won't fix all the problems, you've made some excellent points here outside of blacklist implementations and we also know there is always a bad actor who will find the new loophole to exploit. But maybe, just maybe it will help enough.
I'm also considering doing some public shaming myself, meaning that if a bot is preferred by scammers and spammers because the operator simply does not care, then everyone should know this and make up their mind. Maybe that would not work either and I'm showing more naivety. But hey... one can brainstorm publicly I guess.
Why am I not surprised.... Isn't this some sort of universal law by now? @contentjunkie is the same guy calling out @grumpycat for what he believed was "abuse".
I don't know if you remember this hard hitting self rightgeous rant of journalism.
I guess from now on, every time I see someone get all self righteous I'm going to assume automatically their are abusing the system themselves.
Here what's probably going to happen:
Long story short, it's OK to be an unethical human being because I have enough money to be one. I get the message perfectly clear, just don't expect me to feel an ounce of respect for you.
I keep that image, ironically created by CJ, close at hand:
Us the flag button
This is the most intelligent response I've read.
I kinda feel this is somehow a bit of an uphill batlle. As long the system rewards this kind of behavior it will happen. It's useless to tell the lame to run.
The design calls for collective flagging of this sort of abuse, but I doubt the design foresaw a situation where almost all SP is delegated/sold for profit.
Who takes the financial hit personally to flag for the collective good?
bern
Unfortunately the law is 'the blockchain allows it'. Bidbots incentivise shit, so that is what is served, screw actual content producers and organic rewards systems.
Oh, you thought this place was different to all the lobby group, cronyist, corrupt political systems? ... so did I...
This could be stopped in 5 seconds if the bot operators (other than MarkyMark and therealwolf) had the balls to even implement a blacklist and unvote without refunds.
Instead, they cry that they can do nothing while making 40+% APR for constructing toll roads.
I may lack the words to be as blunt as you can be Lexi, but I think you win the internet for the next 10 minutes.
The blockchain allows it. Freedom! Profit first.
No matter how they tweak it, it was never going to lead anywhere good. The most incredible thing are all the people involved who once spoke of the future, self-governance and integrity. Integrity is only observable in action, not words and we are seeing the way they govern themselves, which is much like any other official government in this world.
@tarazkp as much as I know your intentions come from a very good place in your heart... one thing we can't fail to consider is the fact that even though bid-bots are kind of new. Not so much vote-buying , it just used to be closed groups and arrangements done in private conversations.
So if we effectively eliminate bid-bots we just move the practice right back into the shadows. I happen to believe it makes more sense to properly tag posts that are "promoted" as promoted.
The circles still exist anyway, it is not like they have disappeared. There are massive amounts spread through vote trading and the like. The bidbots haven't replaced that, they have added on top of it.
That is a fair statement... I won't even attempt to refute it. I just wanted to point out that making something illegal (granted I'm being dramatic here) has never stopped criminals (more drama, I apologize) from acting like thugs.
If psychology and thousands of years of history have taught us something is that to effectively change behaviors we have to create an incentive based system that makes it more profitable (I'm not only referring to money) to be a good actor than not.
We can't argue for equality of outcome of course, we simply can attempt to level the playing field as much as possible.
So here are some truths that as much as I don't like them, I have to accept.
We can't believe in "freedom" while arguing for control, we can't claim voluntarism while establishing norms of behavior for the people who participate. We could change the "ism" that let's say dominates the Ethos of the platform, and to some "anarchism" has failed here once again but if we change the "ism" we might just find ourselves switching a radiator leak for a busted transmission.
so, make them unprofitable. Part of the problem is that many of those who have power over decisions on the blockchain also run/delegate to bidbots. Why would they even attempt to kill such a cash cow? Check some of the numbers from @paulag 's latest posts as she has tried to answer some of the questions I have had.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Just came back from reading it.. thank you for pointing it out.. it does confirm some suspicions I had... trickle up fudgeconomics..
well, the suspicions were raised by at least myself 8 months ago when rando started. there is a lot of nonsense going on and people are much too smart to not realise the game they have been playing for many months now. All of those people who wouldn't join talking about the circlejerk, scam at Steemit... this is proving them right.
"trickle up fudgeconomics.."
Gross, and funny.
I disagree. @movietrailers didn't claim that they had created, produced or have any affiliation with any of these movies. The people behind these movies will be delighted to hear that their trailer has been shared on a social media platform that they've probably never even heard of.
Having these sort of posts becoming even moderatly popular on steemit is good news for the site as a whole. It will attract more users and more users means more people using steem and more people posting content. Banning these kinds of posts will have a terribly negative effect on the platform and alienate users that are more accustomed to twitter or facebook.
Steemit is a great place for long form, original content posts but I'm definitely up for having reposted movie trailers in my feed. They just got a new follower if I'm honest.
On the other hand, if you produce long form, original in depth posts and use your steem to promote it, I'm sure that if people find value in it, then it will remain profitable.
"The people behind these movies will be delighted to hear that their trailer has been shared on a social media platform that they've probably never even heard of."
No. Wrong.
"In the case of a picture or image, you must first get permission from the owner of the image, unless the image is public domain. You should also attribute all images back to their original site (i.e. site you got the image from) and content creator/owner."
"Having an embedded youTube video on your online article or website is exactly like having an embedded image - thus permission must also be given from the owner of the youTube video."
"Having these sort of posts becoming even moderatly popular on steemit is good news for the site as a whole. It will attract more users and more users means more people using steem and more people posting content. "
No, and no. Stealing content without copyright that can be found much more easily at YT wil not bring people here.
"I'm definitely up for having reposted movie trailers in my feed."
I think you'd find Facebook more your speed.
This Deanbrown comment is a case study in the name of science, Lexi. Account gets created, first thing it does is follow you.... WOW.. i had no idea you were on the front cover of forbes or something, people are joining Steem just for you! (I'm a little jealous)
I suspect you have been ruffling some feathers with your recent posts a little too much and thus new sock puppets are needed to engage without repercussion.
From where I stand, if you are too afraid to express and opinion enough to create a new account just to do so. You don't deserve the privilege of being acknowledged.
Let's query the blockchain for payed out posts created after March 1st with an author payout above 10$ and a maximum body length of 150 chars: 828 posts from 228 unique authors. Your example is part of the data set. Not all of those posts are of the kind you showed here. Some are legit and some are at least commonly tolerated, but a good fraction is just boosting garbage!
How to address this issue? Even with the SP to flag them, how to keep an overview in the flood of posts and votes? I absolutely admire steemcleaners work and others maintaining blacklists, but new accounts are created faster than blacklists can be updated...
Remove the bidbots. Shit like this will struggle to ever get a reward unless they already have stake... not going to happen is it?
Wow what madness to receive so many good votes for just placing something that is not his.
When I started in Steemit, they wanted to give me a flag for having drawn a picture and not having put the source from where I was inspired and instead of telling me, so as not to do it, they just wanted to give me the flag, whereas this guy really does bad and nobody does nothing.
They are not interested in flagging anything that is a real problem.
The idea is to cultivate things that represent a problem to the platform while directing peoples attention to this kind of thing.
https://steemit.com/bots/@abusereports/last-minute-upvote-list-2018-03-27
While on the surface this looks reasonable, we should realize the abuse that is being highlighted here pales in comparison to the real abuser behind the curtain
I have to agree that there is "public abuse" and "private abuse", and most of those in the know don't want the latter looked at.
I feel I am a bit too small to say anything here..but when i looked at the comments i couldn't resist..
The problem lies with human Greed. We are so greedy that we don't care how much our content is originally worth most of us just want quick money.
Limited use of Bidbots is not cheating. i feel their should be a limit of how much bidbots can upvote in terms of SBD. It is the unlimited upvoting power of BidBots that is attracting greedy content creators.
Limits are probably too late. At least we could get a blacklist going.
when you have few users you can create a blacklist... as the platform grows it will become tough to maintain such a list..