[Content Cop] Steemit Abusers and Plagiarism

Steemit is a rapidly growing and highly promising platform that enables users to earn cryptocurrency for their content, although it’s currently far from a perfect system. It’s still only in beta, so how it is now is not representative of how it will be. With the recent rapid growth, bringing the total number of users to around the one million mark, an awful lot of metaphorical driftwood and debris have come with that growth.

Many users are noticing the seemingly growing number of shitposts and down right plagiarism on Steemit, cluttering up the tags and giving the platform a bad image, not to mention making it increasingly hard to find good quality original content. These problems have been causing me to worry slightly about the future viability of Steemit, especially if Steemit aren’t going to get directly involved. I worry because as someone who holds Steem, even if it’s just a small amount right now, I need to be confident in the future of the platform. Most of the value of my account is in the Steem Power I have, which could be nothing if Steemit crashes and burns. That’s not to say that’s what is happening, but it’s nice to feel reassured about these things.

Nearly two weeks ago, I reached 1000 posts on here and talked about content quality and plagiarism. Since then, I’ve been both quietly watching a few things and actively flagging troublesome content. I was surprised to find that most of the people posting copy-and-paste jobs were polite, apologetic and just wanting some guidance. This was something I’d previously mentioned, in that Steemit Inc. need to give some clearer guidance about how everything works and how to behave on the platform. On YouTube they have the community guidelines, and something like that could be what Steemit so desperately needs. By engaging with its user base in the formation of these community guidelines to ensure free speech is preserved and encouraged, while plagiarism, hate speech and so on are removed from Steemit, it would show the world at large that Steemit is a platform to be taken seriously, and isn’t just a haven for scummy scammers and crappy people in general.

Despite one of the people I reached out to for plagiarism/scams being somewhat defensive and almost aggressive at first, the overall response was positive like I said. While this was happening however, I noticed that some of my posts were getting flagged by two/three specific accounts. This seemed odd, especially as there didn’t seem to be any issues with the users I had spoken to. After some amateur sleuthing, and a little provocation, I figured out where this was all coming from.

A month ago now, I posted about Spam, Plagiarism and Flagging on Steemit, focusing on one post where a user by the name of @camillesteemer had posted an image of the Tower of London that they had straight up stolen from a professional photographer, but were also claiming to be “under attack” from @abusereports. They had rightfully been blacklisted, and more and more anti-abuse services were flagging them. After my post, I all but forgot about that user and their crappy behaviour, but it turns out that they didn't forget about me. It was that user that is behind the on-going yet futile attack against @abusereports, myself and many, many more users. In fact, I’m sorry to break this news to you, but chances are if you’re reading a post of mine, you’re were also on their hit list of hundreds of users even if they haven’t flagged you yet. Sadly they've removed the vast majority of the list, but I'm proud to say my name is still there as a shining badge of honour for me.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen of Steemit, we are all the bad guys and the poor plagiarising scammy cry babies are the victims in all of this. This specific user and their increasing number of dummy accounts have next to no Steem Power, or even Voting Power, other than what has been delegated to them. This should be another area where Steemit Inc. step in and provide some support, as this user is clearly abusing the system in any and every way they can. The SP delegated should be stripped from them and the accounts suspended, at least pending investigation.

Steemit Inc. are sat on an eye-watering amount of Steem, which they have said they plan on redistributing to users which I have no doubt about. I wouldn’t be against them using some of it to assist worthy services, witnesses and users, even if just through delegation. There are plenty of good anti-plagiarism curation services that need a helping hand, such as the mighty @thundercurator.

More communication from those at Steemit HQ would be appreciated too, which can be highlighted by a little discussed rule of Steemit called the Dust Vote Rule or dust threshold. You can read a really good post on the topic here. Nowhere that I can see is there any mention of this from Steemit themselves, with users being the ones piecing the puzzle together. This is important information to know about, as it can affect how you decide to vote. It’s also reassuring in a way, as those who are upvoting their own crappy content with the SP delegated to them won’t be able to receive their self-stimulated earnings. Since formation, they have only posted once with a whopping two sentences. A little more than just that would be greatly appreciated guys.

This part of the post is just for you @camillesteemer / @mybestnews, stop wasting your time. The only thing you’re managing to achieve is providing some light entertainment for those you’re attempting to attack. You’ve been given plenty of chances to stop your egregious behaviour, but instead you act like a petulant child and throw a tantrum, crying and thrashing at all those who call you out. An image sent to your wallet by @ipromote sums your behaviour up well:

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In my next post, which will be a direct follow-up to this one, I’ll be discussing what we can all do to help keep Steemit spam, gammon and crap free and what I’ll be doing differently from now on. I will also be discussing another potential issue of Steemit in the form of chatbots, as well detailing the actions of @camillesteemer and their many other accounts. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much as always, you guys really are so awesome. Let me know what you think on the topic down in the comments, and I’ll see you there.

You can read more about the @thundercurator service on their user guide, and I can't recommend their service enough. I really would like to hear your thoughts about any of the points raised in this post, especially regarding post quality here on Steemit and how to better deal with it. As always, make sure to follow me for the latest Cryptocurrency, Technology, Internet and Pop Culture updates. If you're a fan of strange YouTube videos, you might want to follow me on Twitter. Thank you so much for reading this, seriously. Take it easy!

Sources:
Steemit Spinner by @skippyza (https://steemit.com/steemit/@skippyza/so-i-made-a-steemit-spinner)
Middle Finger Gif from "Vancity B*tches" by Jessica Nana (http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/8b624b96c6/vancity-b-tches)

All images and videos (that aren't my own) are used without the express authorisation of the copyright holders. They are used under what's known in British law as "Fair Dealing" or under US law as "Fair Use" exceptions. For example, exceptions relating to research and private study, criticism or review, or news reporting. For more information visit the UK Gov website or the US Gov website.