Minnowbooster - the new censorship tool on steemit?
Love em or hate em voting bots are part of our community. I've been selling my votes to minnowbooster and have done a post about my experience right HERE.
Today my wife tried to boost one of my posts and was refunded with a message indicating that I have been blacklisted!
Wow! What could I have possibly done to get blacklisted by a community that I support?
Well I'll tell you what I can.
The message indicated that I could appeal on the minnowbooster discord channel so off I go to see what we can do.
Not much apparently.
I was advised that I have been "flagged as a plagiarist".
Really?
Question: Have you taken a look at my Blog?
Answer: "sorry this plagiarisms reason is copied over from 3rd parties, who don't reveal their sources to us."
So, just like youtube deletes channels, minnowbooster blacklist users AND supporters just because someone somewhere said they did something. No investigation, no evidence....sounds like a government organization to me.
Look, if I did something wrong fine (although I can't for the life of me think of what, as anything from outside of my head includes sources and links), but at least have the decency to show some evidence of the crime committed.
Even their ToS indicate they will warn you.
Look at my wallet....no warnings.
Well I am sure it won't hurt them but I stopped selling minnowbooster my vote because they have handled this like a corporation - sorry, I don't know and can't help you, have a nice day.
I don't expect a resolution -- you can go to discord yourself and see the "appeal" conversation.
Thanks all, just wanted to share my disappointment of the community with the community.
Boo minnowbooster....
Image SOURCE
This is absolutely absurd! Everything you post is original content. And to not even be able to appeal their judgement? I've lost a great deal of respect for minnowbooster.
If I hear back I'll be sure to do a follow up, but I am not holding my breath. Sadly it's like civil forfeiture.....we take your money - you can do nothing about it. It's a little sad to see on this platform but we'll keep moving forward!
As always, thanks for your support Brother.
Hmm, this bothers me greatly. I started selling my SP to them a couple of weeks ago and have been happy with my returns, but this worries me. I have wondered for some time now why you can rarely buy an upvote for more than 6 or 7 cents. I know they pay better than others out there, but it still seems like there is so many funds going to them and so little coming out. Now with this happening, I am going to have to rethink my own investment into them.
There is a part of me that thinks all of this bot stuff is just making the bot owners rich. By the time you convert the earnings from dollar to Steem, it costs you money every single time. The only way it does you any good is if your post happens to catch a whales eye who likes your post and give you a good upvote. But that happens so rarely that 99.9% of the people buying upvotes are losing money.
I hate hearing this and wish you did not have to go through this. But I think you for talking about so we can all make informed decisions.
I agree, the bot owners are making out from this. My initial hope was to help new steemians make a penny or two to help keep them motivated and grow the platform. I stopped my vote selling and will just use my voting power to support those who support me.
These vote sellers are operating profitable businesses. It's not got much to do with the community and I don't feed them. I think they are harming Steemit by promoting content that may not deserve it. I have no idea why you would get blacklisted.
Lesson learned I suppose. I have slowly been coming around to your way of thinking about this part of the platform, this was the nail in the coffin so to speak.
Thanks Steve.
What a load of BS. You are a totally original and valuable content creator. I hope they realize their mistake!
Thanks Lyndsay. I'm not sure they will view it as a mistake. I'll just keep using my voting power to support my followers. Thanks for all your support, it's appreciated 🙂
Wow, so they just take the word of third party sources and take that as truth?? That shreds their credibility, in my opinion.
I was a little shocked to find this out as well. I did stop selling them my vote for what it's worth.
Greed and corruption will always show up when an entity is trying to profit from the labors of another's sweat. You are good people and have a great number of folks in your corner!
Thanks for your kind words and support, you are appreciated 🙂
As are you :)
It's not a service I've used, but it's one I'll make sure to avoid.
As you know, I've taken issues with a couple of users here on Steemit, but bugger me, they've blacklisted you for plagiarism?! To give such a crappy excuse for why they can't go into detail... pathetic.
We need a community-operated booster service.
They sent an apology and removed me from their blacklist today. I tested to see if it was working and it was. I'm still a little concerned that a service here on steemit is blacklisting people based and third party information.
As always, thanks for your support Brother!
I wonder if they'd have done that if you hadn't written this post? It is very concerning, but I'm glad things have been sorted. Hopefully they'll question their third-party provider a bit more.
I guess we'll never know but I am glad this is sorted out as well, thanks Brother!
Go brother @brimax, what bad reading this really, I can not believe how they did that and accuse you of flage, if your publications are always neat and with good content. I can be a witness and testify, since I've been following you and observing your publications, like I admire your blog, you're not a flage and it really bothers me that you allan made that and accuse you of something so bad. I do not understand why they would have done that to you, I think it is an injustice because you are an honest man and that in each of your publications they show important and educational information. So that you are going to place sources and links to your publications if you are the one who creates them and they are 100% original from you, besides that the videos are recorded by yourself, I really do not understand why they accused you of that. Just like you feel disappointed that they did that to you, I hope it does not happen again. Greetings brother, everything will be fine.
Thanks for your unwavering support Brother, you are truly appreciated 🙂
I will no longer post to Steemit because I disagree with it's path. I have never had an issue, so this is not the reason.
I just dealt with @cheetah on someone else's post and flagged it. It was then upvoted promptly by @seraph to keep it in the positive.
We users have no control and the coders, which have stolen Steemit from us can steal our voice further, by creating bots that silence our voices.
Screw Steemit, it has now proven to be a failed experiment.
I guess with experiments come the unforeseen. I'll keep plugging along in hopes that some unknown third party doesn't come along and tell the world I didn't write my own songs or make own homestead videos causing the minnowbooster gulags to shut me down!
You've been here long to know it's not only the bots, but the reason the bots are popular. Steemit is a Centralized Oligarchy, which is proven a failure in the real world.
Great decision is taken sir. Best of luck. 👍 & thank you for sharing the news about minnowbooster.
Thanks
Hello friend, I'm sorry about what happens to you, like you're a plagiarist, my God, if your videos are original and the content too, I've had doubts about the bot and look what happened to you, I'm very sorry about all this, and I'm telling you that you still have my friendship and my supportWhat will be behind all this?
It doesn't make sense, but in the end it doesn't really matter at all.