Powering Down For the Greater Good. My Protest Against Authoritarianism

in blurt •  2 years ago 

So , I'm trying to find out which witnesses are behind the Coal blacklist implementation on blurt blog and why this was done in authoritarian way. For that reason I have halted my bot and will vote manually on rongibsonchannel (for the greater good too...)

If you are witness, please leave a comment YES or NO

I don't like secrets, I don't like discord

https://blurt.blog/blurtdevelopment/@ctime/r5ioxe

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T think if it is obvious plagiarism than yes a list of those who do so is fine. It would also be fine to share this list openly with anyone to best avoid them. This is the best we can do to remain decentralized and avoid banning or appearing over restrictive . This is just my opinion. The power of voting relies on the user and essentially it is they responsibility to do as they seem fit with their votes. Help bring awareness to the platform of these scammers, AGREED.

Hi Dear @ctime, how are you?
I am sharing you about my today's program. I invite you to visit my post.
Please, see my program.
Don't mind my matter and encourage me.
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God bless you!

thank you

Right decision. This is good for blurt.

Ha ha ha….. not really.

8E0274BE-B148-4439-9EEA-0762049BE7F7.jpeg

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Here is the issue. @ctime …. Please pay very close attention to what I am about to write.

There are a few people on Blurt, Hive, and Steemit that are going over to Instagram, they are finding a beautiful young model to copy their photos, photos of their face and almost naked bodies. They come to Blurt, Hive, Steemit and Create a Blog. They then proceed to post hundreds of these stolen photos as if it is them.

They are stealing this property and Identity and earning hundreds of dollars. Sometimes more than the Actual person in the photos … is this fair ?

How do you deal with these criminals when a robot automatically upvotes their stolen content ?

Is there a better way than to remove the upvote Button ? Do you delete these accounts ?

How do you deal with this ????

Please let us know what you think.

The only thing I see is the legality issue that I saw talked about. Whilst honestly I would prefer this place was completely decentralised From what I hear it is the platforms responsibility to some degree to stop things that are illegal. The platform creators could end up being legally responsible if they don’t make an effort to take away plagiarism. If that’s true then I do understand why they need to take these actions.

Is there a better way than to remove the upvote Button ?

it doesn't stop the robot from voting

How do you deal with this ????

Personally I have decided to do not upvote about 30 accounts and unvoted hundreds of posts. Anyone can do the same thing, anyone can run a bot and comment on these accounts with plagiarism warning, but when you turning off the upvote button on official interface and saying we (the witnesses) decided ... you are acting like a Hitler.
My message to witnesses (who decided) is:
This is not your fucking business what people do with their stake. Turning off upvote button for people who paid real money for their account/blurt power and want to upvote own post is like stealing from them. Stealing is a criminal act and may be penalized one day (same way as plagiarism)

it doesn't stop the robot from voting

Will you adjust your blockliist yo include the coal list? why so? why not?

  ·  2 years ago (edited)

Turning off upvote button for people who paid real money for their account/blurt power and want to upvote own post is like stealing from them.

People can turn the upvote button back on if they want to. 4 or 5 mouse clicks and then you can feel like you're not being stolen from any more.

4 or 5 mouse clicks and then you can feel like you're not being stolen from any more

It was forced on all users, why not make it optional? If someone like it and wants to turn it on then she/he will have to make "4 or 5 mouse clicks"

It is optional with the default being "on". I think more people would want it "on" than "off" so it makes sense to me for the developers to choose "on" rather than "off". Some/many will disagree and would have preferred "off" to be the default.

There'll be users who disagree with any default setting - NSFW, % payouts... it'll be right for some, not for others.

That's right, they are taking the identity of others and there is also a lot of plagiarism, they even republish the same thing from time to time.

I had no idea this was going on, probably because most of my friends from hive/steemit came here, so my view is narrow, I did not get to see the bigger picture as you do.

Are you posting naked selfies again?

Not yet, want a cock pic again bro?

Or even any arguing

People just ignore each other on here when they do not agree as there is no way to impose their will on people with downvotes, makes for a peaceful life.

I genuinely think there is a strong chance some of the guys on that other platform are from a bigger organisation thats governmental, they never have any real data or photos, most of us put all our social media up and images really happily and links to our pages and they seem to censor anything thats not in alignment with the government narrative. They probably then collect a few people who have no idea who they are to work for them.

Just like old berniesanders accounts, he had or they had over 100 accounts linked to it. https://steemd.com/@berniesanders?page=5655

Are you on discord ? Easier than this chat

Not been on there for years, would not even know my login details to be honest.

that trail goes endless.drugs capitalist.chile lol

who the hell is endless.drugs lol

They are all the charcter they called berniesanders accounts, all opened before steemit went live to the public, all pre mined.

lol I love one of the top names is masters master :P

you should check some of the downvoting whales activity on steemit lol, huge delegations even now and loads of random bot accounts linked to sending them money every day. It's like a farming operation.

  ·  2 years ago (edited)

I know, I used to write about it on steemit, tracked a lot of accounts sideways like smooth, azircon, even found out where some of them live, Houston seems popular for hive/steemit farmers.

@frot and I have been saying that for years, if you check steemD you can find many accounts that were opened before steemit even launched, so yes, there is some insider stuff going on, frot thinks it is CIA based as Dan Larimers father worked for the gov in the USA. He invented (allegedly) steemit and helped with Etherium.

Lol, i am sniffing around on blurt and straight away find this crazy talk lol...

You found the right crazy mofos :-)

I agree with him here I don’t think any platform can ever be the answer it’s up to people

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/eos-drops-roughly-30-in-18-hours-after-daniel-larimer-leaves-block-one/

wow that is very very interesting about dan larmiers father I have heard ppl say some of the bigger whales there are CIA, none of the big ones ever share who they are.

I think steemit and hive are both cia controlled, and nearly all the big whale accounts are part of a social media deep state project

Smooth and the many accounts associated with it were opened a day before bernies 100 plus accounts https://steemd.com/@smooth?page=310

oh really thats interesting, well I wouldn't put it past anyone up there to make people think that something is 'decentralised' and for the people while subtley it's just another way to censor and have people live in fear. They are using the exact same methods they are using in real life. Same shit as with the doctors and nurses..... an unspoken stay quiet or you lose your job. On the platforms it's like don't speak on any none mainstream topic and we will just ensure you can never earn as much as us or do very well but we will keep drip feeding you enough that you fear being pushed off the platform completely. As soon as you let that go and just forget about the place it's much easier. I wonder if it was always the intention from the beginning to make people think they had freedom of speech to just try and get a few of the more free thinking people to also follow the system by making it seem like it's all their idea. I don't even trust bitcoin that much to be honest I am on the fence about who started that.

Yes, and yes to btc too imho...all a set up

Maybe a few coins like monero and zcash could be ok, fingers crossed

yeah thats really true, today was the first time on the whole platform I did see a few arguments and it's only cause I was looking at a few witnesses etc to see who to add. The most I saw was a tiny bit of disagreement and powering down haha. Disagreements are healthy really it's only when someone with more stake can completely silence you into submission it's such an issue.

Yep, I suppose there are arguments, I just never go looking for them.

I honestly didn't realise there were any at all till I was looking through a few witness posts lol all I see is supportive people who want a peaceful life tbh. I guess once it gets busier there will be a few more. I got someone on my YouTube the other day type 'cringe what the hell is this' went to his page and under all his videos several people had written cringe, so clearly he just auto comments on things knowing negative comments like that make people go and check the channel to see who it is. People are so crazy these days I swear they can't just focus on building something people want to go and check out or by engaging with people in a positive way, they only know how to get attention from negativity.

That was one of the reasons I left the UK, so many negative people, and oh so argumentative, especially in Birmingham as it had a mass influx of people from abroad that do not want to mix with anyone outside their own religious ideologies.
Youtube is one of my pet hates, I never comment on there now as people just want to argue on there.

Yeah I also feel I’ve not really seen any bad behaviour here at all tbh.

Nope, none at all.

@ctime powering down and leaving is never the best option
Oh yeah
You can still assist fix the present situation of end plagiarism
Two heads is better than one

I don't have voting power, but to me it looks like those well-known managerial decisions made without any study. Wouldn't it be wiser to first do a statistical study, calculate the impact of such negative accounts for the platform? For me, decision without study is an outdated management thing

I get where your coming from but were talking historical data right?

Hive and steemit are two perfect examples. They have presented such data time and time again how much gets stolen even WITH a full fledge team of abuse trackers. They steal thousands and thousands. Even the top witnesses on hive with their dv campaigns.

Go join their discords and ask around for such data. talk to the witness mark. Hes got great tools for such things. but are based on hive.

The point here is that we have seen many examples of how well money gets stolen.

take facebook forexample. litteraly makes millions and millions stealing the content from its own users and selling it to big tech, nsa, cia, etc. EVERY YEAR.

So, could we show the numbers of how much they take? sure but what does showing the numbers have anything to do with proving that theft is moraly, ethically wrong to do?

Wrong.

There has been endless discussion on this topic for months ….

For days and days people have been discussing the issue of stolen content.

Something needs to be done about people who steal photos and other works of Art and pretend they are theirs.

How do you propose to deal with such criminal activity ?

If there is a study then it should make decision making much easier. Discussing is different from doing a technical study. So my suggestion would be: First do a technical study and see if it's really worth approaching the subject

I look forward to reading your outline proposal for this study - how long do you think you'll need to complete it?

I can propose but I wouldn't have time to do it (my job doesn't leave me much time, and the time I have I use to study and participate in competitions).

The proposal would basically be to analyze historical data (after all, we have everything stored on the blockchain) and start with basic statistics (example: % of content with plagiarism, % of reward pool stolen, etc.).

If the volume of data is too large, they could collect samples and do a study on the samples. After the study, a report would be issued and submitted to the most important people on the platform, leaving it also public for others.

Then the discussions would begin, using the available data.

Thus, if the study is well designed, the decision can be made correctly, and we eliminate the biases and influences that some people exert (as happens in Steem/Hive)

It's ok, we can wait.

It sounds like you'll need at least a couple of weeks and then we can reconvene and discuss.

As I said, I don't have time to do the study, but at least I leave my proposal to the community

  ·  2 years ago (edited)

Hopefully somebody else will read this and have plenty of free time on their hands. And then we can repeat the emotional debate between the "fors" and "againsts" with some statistics to throw around whilst the best alternative solution that anybody can come up with is "just don't vote on it".

Although... whether the percentage of plagiarism on the platform is 2%, 15% or 50% is irrelevant to the person who's content is being stolen. Taking plagiarism and content theft to an extreme, Blurt could have a lawsuit files against them in Canada and be switched off at domain level if they're unable to do anything about it. Pleading "we're decentralised" won't cut it with the lawmakers.

In my opinion, this is far worse than having a little ⚠️ next to a few usernames. A symbol which users can turn off in just 4 clicks of the mouse.

  ·  2 years ago (edited)

To put it real blunt. Its a list where bad apples get put into. ie. Plagiarists, scammers, a abusers of the chain.

that is it.

For that reason I have halted my bot and will vote manually

Good. Now that is really contributing.

Maybe now you can check for PLGM before you vote. because when it was just your bot, I personally kept finding your name on the UV list the most on PLGM content.

I don't know what, "for the greator good" your talking about here. I certainly don't need you to be "good" for me.

I think your way off the bandwagon as to what the coal system is and are overreacting to it because your basing your experience from a different chain.

Its like getting a new gf and blaming her for the what your exes did. not fair at all.

I hope you open your mind a bit more to the situation.

Something needs to be done with these bloggers that steal photos from Instagram and post here as their own.

I personally am going through users one by one thoroughly to make sure that they do not do any abuse then add them to my following list. where I focus most of my votes.

I stay away from trending and go to "new" when in search of new users to follow. but not before being screened. And it is a lot of work.

That way when I UV my following, there is less likely a chance I will be voting up abuse.

This is just something I do.

When I do find abuse, I make sure I have concrete evidence. If it is habitual abuse, I will recommend abusive users to be added to the COAL list buy with the rvidence. Nothing I do is personal or bias about finding abuse. I support freedom of speech not freedom to theft.

I support the COAL list so long as it will be used only for abusive users. I personally will never include anyone to be added bases on my opinion, or political stance. I hate politics anyways but that doesn't mean I will go adding any of it to coal list.

I see many are throwing apples and tomatoes at the idea of having a coal list and frankly I believe they do not have a full scope of the bigger picture of abuse that is on this chain. This situation had to be confronted. Especially since we are getting alot of new users.

Gamestate is getting hundreds of users an hour as we speak and there is a huge possibility many will make new accounts here on blurt. I for one am looking forward yo this but at the same time worried how many newbs will come in and wreck this place with spam and etc.

I urge the community to really learn as much as they can about the chain to help educate new users and not be biased about it either. Let them know the ropes and all that.

We shall see.

I agree with this it has merits purely on plagerised material and nothing else.

Hi @ctime,
it is very simple:
There was no voting among the witnesses on this list, unfortunately.

https://blurt.blog/blurtdevelopment/@double-u/black-is-beautiful-a-black-list-is-not

There was plenty of discussion on this topic. How do you propose the Community deals with people that steal photos from Instagram and post here as their own ? It is pure identity theft.

I wish people who used terms like Coal Blacklist would at least explain a little bit about it in an article like this.

Listen. The idea is that people who steal photos from Instagram and pretend they took them should not receive rewards. Criminals on Hive, POB, Vybrainium, Blurt are performing Identity theft.

it happens to be life... it's a blockchain... humans are doing all kinds of nefarious things and the best you can come up with is the wrong thing righter. You want to be a policeman.

I have a BLOCK List! 😎🥓👍

What is this coal people speak of, I only buy real coal.

Coal …. Big fat Chunks of coal in your stinking stocking … that’s all you get if you steal photos from Instagram and steal someone’s Identity.

Who stole someone's identity on here? And photo? Never been on instagram, so no idea who is even on there.

@sonea-nakamaru is one account doing same

So people are using other people's identity on here? How very strange.

Hey ctime, YES, I recommended the activation of the COAL list. It was not an authoritarian decision, no one forced me to do it.

It's a stopgap measure to deal with the current situation. In the long run, we will surely find a better solution.

People who don't want it, can deactivate it in the settings. The spam in the #deutsch tag has stopped, by the way.

As long as there is accountability from those placing folks on the list, a much more palatable solution than raising fees which targets those of lesser means who are innocent. Basically turning into a tax on the poor as the means to try stopping it. Best to target the actual bad actors, so I appreciate this direction.

At some point however, harsher means will need be taken with repeat offenders as I'm not sure that still allowing known content thieves to post here is sufficient if and when an actual owner of the property may file a cease and desist communication.

Often the steps an owner will take is to

  • Send a Cease and Desist motion to the person who stole it. In the case of Blurt this will be impossible for most as they can't post here without an account.

  • More likely look for a way to contact the Blurt foundation to file a DMCA take down notice. This also could prove difficult, and the foundation may wish to add a contact form for such complaints to stop those with a valid complaint from needing to make the next step of contacting law authorities. Making an owner resort to that as their first step could likely be cause for greater chance of judgement against the platform if a court finds theft did take place.

  • Contact the law and push for legal scrutiny of both the thief and platform refusing to aid in the take down. Best in my opinion no avoid this step and be more proactive.

Obviously the person accused could be innocent, as false claims are made quite often. So a thorough examination should be made when suspicions or accusations are made, allowing the accused a fair opportunity to dispute allegations.

Me too. People who steal photos from Instagram should receive no rewards. Period.

Im Against a COAL system as a lot Witnesses are...

Your against a list that will prevent users from voting up plagairist content. You eant PLGM to continue at the rate it was? Do you like it when original content gets overlooked for theft of a content?

Its just a list that puts a little warning ⚠️ over the users name to warn people that an abusive user is a plagiarist, scammer, abuser. Sonthey take more precaution in voting.

It can be toggled off and on in settings.

im against the way of getting itz in, also the wrong way to choose Guards , dont get me wrong the IDEA of COAL is nice, but ONE User is needed to drop a other user on this BLACKLIST and then ... someone got marked only for having another point of view, and its all happened already... i saw where it leads to to implement this BLACKLISTS whenever we call it COAL here... but you will see...

im against the way of getting itz in,

Advancements should atleast be talked about as a whole I agree. tekraze has agreed to backdown a bit in regards to this.

I am glad your not against the coal list too.

the wrong way to choose Guards

ideas on how that should be done are more than welcomed.

Im not a witness yet. I do have plans to get it going. I still dont have the funds to do so. I live in a poverty stricken country and am doing my best to get it going. we shall see lol.

So then you should maybe Support your Witnesses. And there is always nothing bad in to get a bit Stronger :) There are a bunch of Witrnesses which would love to get Votes so they can move on !

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Tbh there wasn't a lot of in-depth discussion about this, I was not involved in this at all. Definitely a NO from me.

There was tons and tons and tons of discussion about this on Blurt.

I noticed the bot stopped. Your upvote is one of the most appreciated here, especially getting beginners started. I hope all is well. I am just about getting super bullish about Blurt. Hope no politics shitty :(

Peace

IMO if your relying on bot votes to make it here your doing it wrong. your goal should be more inclined towards organic growth. not robotic growth.

  ·  2 years ago (edited)

Hi.
I was also surprised that the COAL was suddenly activated, although the majority was actually against it. There was a discussion the other day about what we can do against the Vote Trading Services and bang the COAL was there.

What was discussed dead in between I have not in view, because I find English very exhausting and always just skim.

I was against blacklists from the beginning, which can be populated by so-called guardians arbitrarily. Because who has so much time to look every day, who has landed in the meantime all on the list and possibly wrongly.

I can assure that we from @opfergnome, @blurtlive and @gamer0815 are clearly behind a NO!

PS:
And now even a Vote Trading Service is being waved through again. I'm a little sick right now!

https://blurt.blog/blurt/@tomoyan/blurt-coal-list-added

As you can read here (sorry german)
https://blurt.blog/blurtdevelopment/@nerdtopiade/r2eihf
and here
https://blurt.blog/blurtgerman/@nerdtopiade/r2cghf (german 2)
I am in the Most cases against Blacklists like coal . So i would Say NO.
I am 1 of 3 people that operates the witness @opfergnome .

BLURT!T

I don't like secrets, I don't like discord

HERE HERE!