OMG MY FREE SPEECH! WHERE IS IT? - Did you just get flagged by a whale?

in #fun6 years ago (edited)
I know it hurts, I know you don't have where to turn to anymore, I know you feel its over. Well, it is. Now that you've been flagged everything you've ever said or done is completely irrelevant. That's exactly how flags work, that was their intention. So if you are wondering if you are being censored, well that's because you are. Your posts and comments have been hidden behind a button. Yes.... its over.



What happened? I'm serious what happened. I mean, we were supposed to be participating of a platform that had no consequence for our actions. I could say what I want, do what I want and nobody had the right to disagree. That's freedom of speech, that's precisely it. The ability for me to be vocal about my ideas and the inability for others to voice their disagreement.

In other words: I'm right, you are wrong, deal with it. That's true freedom of speech. Then, all of the sudden the tyrants came with their flags and started to disagree with me and put all my comments behind a (SHOW HIDDEN) button. Showing the whole world the tyrants that they truly are.

I know what you are thinking right now, I know. Why would someone disagree with me to begin with? Of course, I have no idea. I simply disagree with their disagreement so it cancels everything out. Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Have I been sold a lie? Are the founding fathers that wrong? Is freedom of speech even real?

Here is the worse part: I had all this money I was going to make. I was going to bring in the big bucks this week, I counted it too. It was going to be like 8 SBD all together. Enough to buy a six pack of beer at the corner. But along came this evil whale and decided... "NO... NO BEER FOR YOU!" - Why? Why did the whale take my beer? How am I supposed to cope?

Then, of course I did the rational thing. I went after the whale to seek my revenge. I went right into his comment section and called him an a-hole and all kinds of names. I knew it would work, because the whale would look at my well formulated insults and coward in the corner. It just had to. After all, I have 15 SP power in my wallet, I'm not a joke.

Boy was I wrong. Whales are evil, they don't care for our rights. They feel as if they have the right to disagree and to flag me back. Why? I mean, I know I flagged the whale, I know I insulted them. But that was free speech. What the whales do is not free speech, its abuse.

I don't know if this platform has free speech after all... I feel like I can't say what I want...
Maybe I'm in the wrong place..

Yours Truly

@Meno-the-Sarcastic


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"The first rule of Flag Club is: You do not talk about Flag Club. The second rule of Flag Club is: You DO NOT TALK ABOUT FLAG CLUB! Third rule of Flag Club: Someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, flagging is over. Fourth rule: only two guys waving flags. Fifth rule: one flag at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: no upvotes, no resteems. Seventh rule: Flags will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first night at Flag Club, you have to flag!"

"The Flag Club," coming soon to a motion picture theater near you. :)

Flagged cuz you talked about Flag Club.

flagged for flagging about talking about flag club

Not flagged cuz I'm too lazy to press the button to flag.

flag lazily removed due to lack of flagging for talking about flagging as a consequence of talking about flag club.

but.... you just talked about flag club... :(

I talked about Flag Club because I am free. I cannot be contained. I cannot be silenced.

It's like I met the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey" and I evolved into a being with more testicular fortitude than Tyler Durden.

I listen to "Also Sprach Zarathustra," by Strauss, every day just for fun.

But the theme song of my whole life is RATM's "Killing in the Name of."

Every day in every way, I won't do what you tell me! Ugh!!

gold

Like a saying, “I can guarantee you freedom of speech but freedom after speech, I can't guarantee you”
It ought to be a free express path for each speech but if care is not taking it will be abused. When a purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable!

I wont sit here and say some people don't abuse flags. Of course this is true, but the statistics one can pull show that the flagging is tiny by comparison. However, the ones that cry foul, the ones that feel like they are being censored specially. Don't handle the situation in the best way.

Yes, some of them have valid complaints. but they react completely against their own best interest.

You owe me a new sarcasm detector. Mine blew up. Springs everywhere. I was on the final payment, so I voted this up to $6.66 you evil bastard.

You are inspirational my friend, what can I say? This is usually your field... hahahhah

Nothing wrong with 666

Flagging on the other hand is evil.

I would scrap it - and yes, for once I'm serious!

But along came this evil whale and decided... "NO... NO BEER FOR YOU!" - Why? Why did the whale take my beer? How am I supposed to cope? << Hahahaha this is probably the most important question of the entire post!

hahahhah yes... that's the key part of the story no doubt. An attack on one's beer is a declaration of war.

I was very tempted to flag your post as a joke, but then I realised that a) it wouldn't be seen as a joke, b) I am not a whale and c) I only flag spam and abuse, so I wouldn't flag for no valid reason.

I've been on the receiving end of a whale flag before and trust me, when you're new to the site and you make your first $1 and it gets taken away from you, it definitely hurts and it is quite demotivating. You're right about free speech and people can flag and vote whoever they choose, but it doesn't make it right.

There are definitely issues with this platform and flag abuse is one of those things that are holding Steem back from mass adoption. Could you imagine joining Instagram or Twitter for the first time and then unknowingly attracting the ire of a whale with a vendetta who can silence you by effectively making your content hidden? It would stifle user growth.

I get you, I really do... I've been flagged too... I wrote a response to someone earlier, that short convo kind of got this post started.

here are some psychological effects attached to getting flag. But they are self imposed.

People attach their sense of worth to a payout on a comment or post. Hence, if that gets attacked (im being dramatic intentionally) that means in their mind their own value, their own sense of worth has been eroded. I'll share it again, because it really sheds light on my position on the matter.

But, is this true? Of course not, If I'm so weak emotionally as to attach my sense of self worth to some magic internet money (again being ridiculous intentionally) then the issue I have is a lot deeper and I probably need some counseling. Now, this is not me saying they are stupid or that they are not valuable human beings. This is me saying they are accepting the consequence of their actions as something that degrades their self worth. That part is their choice.

@whatsup is probably right about the idea of normalizing flags. If people understood internally, that is, that you don't die, that nothing changes, that your wife doesn't leave you, that your kids don't think less of you, because one comment or two have a (SHOW HIDDEN) button on them.

Then this whole debacle, this whole catastrophe will be as relevant as spilling your drink. It sucks, but you are going to be OK.

You forgot, if they hide your comment you can make 10 more!

Oh yes... that's the move right there... spam them whales...

spam till you run out of air

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This is just a guess but I think that this post may contain some sarcasm. I've been taking some detective classes so you can't slip that stuff past me.

hahahaha look at the signature!

Well, I hope not all wales are tyrants, but it's logical when some of them become this, because it's generally not good when humans get too much Power and have to fear no consequences for anything.

I want to quote Abraham Lincoln, because in my opinion he said some important things to this theme (not to Steemit of course^^, I mean to humans who get too much Power).

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there more than a few good whales. My post was meant as sarcasm... no worries! :)

That's good to know, I've to admit I was scared by reading this post.