So, why is there a group on Steemit flagging down anti-vaccine content?
Hello Steemit, I've been getting active on the platform over the last week and a half, and I've really been enjoying the interaction I've gotten on most of my posts! I've been covering a variety of topics, from geoengineering to Trump, from 9/11 to Facebook arguments, and people seem to be interested, and willing to really talk about, most everything I've shared.
This morning when I hopped on, I scrolled through my recent posts, to see if any of them had had any major changes, and I found this:
Now, this post had been one of my highest earning so far, and had brought in a lot of great conversation from folks about vaccines, VAXXED, and Dr. Wakefield himself... and for some reason a group of accounts (I almost said people, but in situations like this I've found it's usually just 1 person with multiple accounts) decided to flag away all my earnings.
As you can see @engagement, @thecyclist, @nextgencrypto, @iflagtrash, @randomthoughts, @yougotflagged, @danknugs, and @steemservices have all flagged my post, to the point that they eliminated all potential rewards (previously over $50)... As I scrolled down into the comments, I found this:
I went to this account's profile, and clicked on their "flagging report" for today, only to find this at the very top of it (followed by a post exposing pedophile rings):
This flagging guild seems to be going after some autoposted/spammy content, but many times their reasons are things like: "____ is a douche", "disagree on rewards", "personal"... all the while spamming the platform with their daily post which is mostly copy & pasted with the only written part being links to the posts they downvoted, and how much $ they removed. That seems worth $100+ per post right?
I was under the impression that Steemit was a platform dedicated in large part to being a censorship-free environment, but this is leading me to question that understanding. If someone(s) can simply remove all the rewards from, and effectively hide content they disagree with. I'm not here to collect a bunch of money, but it is certainly nice to be rewarded for your work, to have people see the value of your content. The idea that one person can "disagree with rewards" and eliminate all the value that others see in my work is strange, when there is nothing offensive, no plagiaristm, etc.
I am an investigative journalist and liberty activist; a Lead Investigative Reporter for ActivistPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com & The Houston Free Thinkers. I have also co-authored three books: The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1 and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2
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They're not earnings until payout. Before that they are pending which means we all vote on whether or not the post should be rewarded - that includes down votes.
It's not censorship. Please can still view the content.
Except as it gets flagged lower, it gets hidden, and then won't be seen by most people.
I think the down vote and flag should separated slightly personally, I've argued for this before. I think you should be able to down vote to disagree and affect the payout without affecting the visibility. Flagging then would be downvoting and reducing visibility.
But still, what we have today is not censorship. Reducing visibility is not the same as hiding. The post is still there but grayed out. I repeat, Steemit.com does not hide content.
Couldn't agree more. When youtube censors someone, the content is completely removed and is inaccessible. Same goes for any number of other sites. On steemit, at the absolute most, you would have to click something one other time to make it 100% visible. I don't believe having to click one extra time is censorship.
It would be great if everyone would get this, and especially put it into a historical content of what censorship really is. Spread that wisdom around the chain!
Of you can save the URL.
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Steem is censorship resistant since even when your post get in the negative it can always be seen.
I don't know enough about vaccine to consider countering Bernie's vote, So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
That's just how Steem work!
Downvoting has nothing to do with censorship. Downvotes and Upvotes represent the bipartite tool set to actualise Steemit´s core logic:
Stake-weighted allocation of rewards.
Every single post is subjected to the 7 day spanning process of reward allocation. Also anti-vaccination content can´t escape this.
I highly recommend reading Schattenjaeger´s last post on this topic.
This is really disgusting, and not at all in the spirit of the platform I joined a year and a half ago. Making up lies about a post in order to flag it. Sorry to hear about this. I’m afraid I cannot do much, but I’ll do what I can to get in the fight here. I post content about vaccine injury as well, so this hits home.
It's not just 1 account. There is a swarm of them. I remember there being about 55 toxic whales accouts mass flagging purely on disagreements or at times even just to hurt the other guy. One of them are asking to become a witness. One account has -19 reputation. I even saw @sgtreport getting flagged just because some guy thinks a post get too much rewards. @sgtreport is a great content creator that is fighting the good fight just like @dbroze. Value is a subjective thing. Disagreement on rewards can only be used on abuse cases like voting bots on shallow content etc. If flags are being used because of the post payout is too high, then that reason is in direct opposition to Austrian Economics. Basically it's just commie rambling. If the same logic was extended to the real world, we'd have to jail the homeless and physically deformed because they are eyesore. The accusation can be considered true. But in no way it's criminal or else we should be flagging every post and comment that talks positively about BitConnect. BitConnect is a ponzi. But not all posts that support it are worthy of flags. Even stupid arguments are sometimes written with passion and care and human work goes into them. It's not a matter of Upvote or flag. There is a 3rd option: Do nothing. We won't evolve as a community unless we understand this fact.
It is the one person (Bernie) that runs all those 50 other accounts. The flags will all come in at the exact same time. If a flag comes in at a different time, than it would be a separate person.
Wow! 50 accounts? Amazing to learn this. Am currently constructing a post to 'celebrate' the moment I turn 71... in a few days. Seeing what is going on now I don't feel so great about Steemit as I once did. Sorry that he is on your back too.
Sending you a hug. You're handling this with dignity. xo Unfortunately it's looking like it's something anyone posting about vaccines is going to get if their post gets too well paid. Keep on posting, the truth needs a voice.
Yeah this is not cool.... Let's see if we can cause some shit and get some changes done that prevent this sort of manipulation....
That isn't a group. It is one whale with multiple accounts.
He is best know as berniesanders.
He has done the same to me and it stinks!
I will increase my vote for your article,
and asked a few others if they might do the same.
I'm so sorry that he had to be such a "dedicated asshole" -- as he calls himself (not my words)
but please stick around as we do have a good community here.
I figured it was just one person, and I believe I remember @kennyskitchen, @dollarvigilante, and others mentioning berniesanders at some point.
Thank you so much for your support, and for reaching out. I've had a great time so far on the platform, connecting with the community, probably part of the reason I was so taken aback by this morning's development.
I looked at his report, and see that he flagged another great Youtuber, SGTReport, for talking about Pedogate.
It is so sad that he chooses to flag the people that are trying to help children the most.
On my post that he flagged, he also flagged invisible a comment from a new user, who was simply talking about how her badly injured child. I didn't mind as much losing some of my rewards, but it was simply ATROCIOUS to flag her comment about a very sick child into invisibility.
I guess that this issue really upsets some people.
But the TRUTH is coming out more and more. I don't think that these things will be hidden that much longer.
Keep up the good fight!
Totally agreed. We shouldn't let these commie tactics that emulate the functions of religious dogmatism push us down. I think everyone who are posting here face the risk of getting mass flagged. But injustice shouldn't be allowed to thrive. I've seen similar repeated behavior from the same whale who is also running randowhale and he was fighting other upvote bots and their creators. This whale has been mass flagging any form of intellectual debate against him. The only way to counter this is to gather up enough voting power on our side. I'm a tiny minnow account who has been observing all these events for about a month and I remember your account having done great service to this platform and fought well against CPS. So even as a minnow I understand that I must not sit in the sidelines anymore. This is war. We shouldn't look away from that fact. The good has always faced the threats. Understand how this platform work and fight the good fight accordingly. Best of luck!
Thank-you for staying positive throughout this ordeal.
I don't know how yet, but I have a strong feeling that this will all resolve itself for the better. Steemit is a great place, and we must not give up so easily.
Often the message gets attacked the most, RIGHT before everything is revealed as truth to the masses.
exactly!
Yep, I saw that too. That is sad & possibly somewhat telling.
If you look at it from a psych standpoint, people get cognitive dissonance when their beliefs & actions don't match up. If you've already taken an action, and then new knowledge challenges the belief you hold about that action, one has to either accept that what they did is something they no longer feel is right, one has to change their belief to match the actions, or one has to live with cognitive dissonance (an extremely uncomfortable state, which generally leads to heavily self-medicating).
So the easiest answer is to include a belief that all those who say the thing you did was not right, must be crazy, immoral, conspiracy theorists, or some other identifier that makes them easy to dismiss.
Right. So we must all just keep posting these truths,
and spreading them to as many people as possible who have ears to hear.
Even though that one account is powerful, it is still just one individual in a big, big world where lots of people are on the side of truth.
You can try, but you ain't gonna get very far. I promise!
Keep doing what you’re doing Bernie. We are free to use our votes how we please up or down. I voted for your witness account.
Bernie stands up for the people and I suggest you don’t fuck with him. He has many eyes in many corners of the steemit world. HahhahahahahahAHAHAHAHHA
I doubt that @dollarvigilante would ever flag that kind of content, or flag at all to be honest.
He is very much aware of what's going on in the world.
No, he meant that dollarvigilante had made people aware of the type of things bernie was up to.
Ah, thanks for the explanation.
There are always bad actors in a big crowd.
@canadian-coconut: it's a shame that one person would do such a thing. To me it smells like a shill, but it could just be someone who enjoys to hurt others? I don't know, it beats me. I mean not agreeing with something is one thing. You can either get into a discussion with the other about it or just not read it at all, but using their powers like that just doesn't seem right to me.
I suggest you look into the swarm of related accounts. The whale revels in hurting others. I've observed his behavior for about a month from sidelines unable to do anything. It's a real power hungry communist like behavior. Also check my other comments on this post.
@vimukthi I realized this now too. After it was mentioned to me that it's a whale with multiple accounts who is doing this, I started some digging. I noticed some strange behaviour of all of those accounts.
I've been talking about this for the last few hours on steemit. You are welcome to check them out:https://steemit.com/@vimukthi/comments
are you on steemit chat @vimukthi?
No, I'm not. I just spend time on steemit in between anime, movies and little bit of trading and self-education via internet.
Great work!
How fascinating! UPvoted!
I see your other content is not flagged. This guy obviously have something against anti-vaccine movement. Funnily enough I just asked anti-vaccionation friend to join Steemit and write about many bad experiences after receiving vaccine she collected from various people over the years.
Ya, it does appear that he mostly has a problem with vaccine awareness (and posts exposing pedophiles)
Does he ever comment why anti-vax people are wrong or he just flag?
He only said we were f**ing morons. No discourse there.
I've seen you on YouTube before and remember liking your stuff.
This is exactly why I find ancap philosophy to be lacking. When money attracts money and money is power, the power still remains in the hands that get to it first and leads to the same kind of abuse as it does when there's is a state. I haven't seen that much of this kind of semi-censorship myself because I don't hit such charged topics in a very head on way but I've been trying to get across that whales having such massive weight is eventually going to cause the community to implode, even if the site succeeds as a business and cryptocurrency.
There are still great people here though so I hope you stick around. And if you happen to be ancap, hope you don't downvote my posts ;-) . We can have respectful conversations about it like I do with @kafkanarchy84 from time to time. Glad you run into @canadian-coconut , my go-to for anything anti-vaxx , super helpful.
I'm not signed up at YouTube so hopefully we can share ideas here X-D
Really appreciate having my previous 100% upvote wiped out again.