Steemit Ethics- Unintended consequences and efforts towards deescalation

Man,

Multiple ethical dramas of late. It's been odd to see how they play out. Not what I expected, and now I'm forced to grow my perspective on things. Thanks to those involved for holding the contrast.

The main one is @el-mago, but has since brought in @transisto, @gigafart, and @julianita. It involves @minnowsupport, a bunch of minnows who are a few weeks old the platform and me.

Without a small bit of irony I recently wrote a piece about the last HF and titled it unintended consequences. So, now I get to make my story about unintended consequences of my actions of which I blurred the lines of protagonist and antagonist.

I've been at running minnow support for less than 3 weeks. The channel is about to have its 2,000th person enter. I suspect that happens today or tomorrow. It brings a lot of minor issues like tech support and howtos, but now it's big enough to present some ethical dilemnas.

@el-mago was taking porn shots he didn't own and posting them. He got flagged by @cheetah and a member of MSP flagged him too. @el-mago went and flagged the minnow's active posts and resteems too. I requested multiple times that he take the flags off and said I'd flag him if he didn't. He threatened me, so I used @minnowsupport to flag his posts and some comments too.

Running through my head was-

He is abusing the system by stealing photos.
He is verbally abusive to users.
He's abusing the flagging system.
If he threatens me he'll have zero qualms going after others who are small.

Intended consequences- His posts went to zero. And his rep went to -4. Justice was served... or not.

Unintended consequences-
@julianita and @transisto came through and upvoted his latest post to $50.
@gigafart who was following downvotes on the trail lost power to downvotes he didn't support. I think he may have abandoned the trail.
Minnows weren't compensated for posts because the power was going to downvotes.
el-mago started flagging a series of minnows so I've devoted time and power to individual upvotes beyond the standard vote available to all public members.
I've written two posts giving someone a fair amount of exposure for comments and posts I don't support.

While reading the comments on his last post @transisto made a point about going into negative rep as censorship. I can say it was my intention, but also that my intention there was wrong. @transisto is right, people have a right to say things. On this platform you can't censor hatespeech and verbal abuse without also unintentionally inhibiting one's ability to either defend himself, or do something different.

It's easy to say "I may hate your opinion on healthcare, but I'll defend your right to talk about it." It's less clear when it's "I hate when you string together a derogatory and offensive string of insults, but I'll defend your right to abuse people verbally." One challenge is that on this platform I can't really segregate the two. I suppose in hindsight it would have been better to try to warmly and kindly educate rather than launch flags that could have been avoided. I'm sorry I didn't do more of that.

Also, I was writing a memethenews post and realizing I'm adding pictures that I don't own. Memes are designed to be shared and spread. Many members add a watermark now if they feel recognition of their work is important as opposed to just sharing for the lolz. Some of the underlying pics in the memes are themselves copyrighted. I suppose creative commons protects them for use in education, but when it's commercial and Steem gets involved maybe that's a violation too. I've tried to use royalty free images for most of the random posts I've done, but I can't guarantee I haven't taken someone else's work, profited from it, and in some ways that's reminiscent of what I flagging.

Then I saw a comment in his last post from him about testing the steemit drama. The whole comment seemed like it was in the spirit of deescalation. I applaud that step and followed suit. I've removed the flags I placed using minnowsupport. One post is past rewards and he lost 1 SBD. I have sent him that. I've removed the flags from @aggroed. I suggest minnows leave him be, and unflag his posts. It's possible trailers will remain, but he should have enough upvotes from the other whales to more than compensate for their unintended flags.

It's time to deescalate rather than escalate. I should have tried harder in that regard to start. I don't support the posts, the comments, the actions, but it would seem there are better approaches especially involving an account 10 days old. So, here's hoping it goes well. Welcome to the community @el-mago. I wish you well and many blessings of peace and prosperity from here on out. Make some original content. I may even support it.

Now what to do about doxxing within minnowsupport?

As you were.

@aggroed