Getting Flagged For Speaking Out Against Abuse
More than half a year ago I wrote an article exposing one of the biggest abusers since haejin and let everyone know how he is daily siphoning away value from the reward pool by 10x-ing his shitposts and those of his alt accounts. It wasn't long until this caught the attention of @steemcleaners and soon they started flagging all of his posts for spam to which I rejoyced as it was not only a personal victory but one of the entire community as from then on, he lost the power to drain our reward pool while lining his own pockets by upvoting "articles" which are of no value to anyone.
His reply to this was to delegate all of his 100k SP to a bid bot which was the only move he could do in order to keep reaping the benefits of his stake while providing nothing of value.
I'm fine with that. That's how the system currently is and there is not much we can do about it.
To me, reporting such abuse was a logical thing to do. Something I didn't think twice about before pulling the trigger and for good reason, because if we let every malicious user have his way, sooner rather than later, everyone would be 10x-ing their valueless shitposts in order to reap the maximum benefits of their stake. No value would be added in the process and the price of STEEM would plummet into the abyss without any chance of ever rebounding.
Obviously, this is not something we would want to see but people like @freepress and the likes knowingly disregard this simple fact to reap the maximum short-term benefits for themselves while devaluing our token and blockchain for everyone.
With the recent developments, some would argue that what I've done wasn't a particularly smart move, at least not for myself and my well-being on the platform because, because this malicious user has now stopped delegating to bid bots and has unleashed his wrath on my articles, flagging them with two accounts with over 200k SP, greying out all of my content and "hiding" it in plain sight.
I can't say that this does not affect me at all, but what I can say is that it does not discourage me the least bit. Most definitely not as much as he would want to. The fact of the matter is that I am still going to post on a regular basis, even if all of my articles earn me nothing and only make me lose reputation on-chain.
Nevertheless, I expect this halfwit to continue flagging my articles into oblivion for quite some time, moving forward.
Doing some investigating on him and his 100k SP alt account @boosta reveals some interesting facts.
Seems that I'm not the only one who ruffled his feathers 🤣🤣🤣
A number of influential and OG Steemians are on his flag list. Makes me wonder what exactly did they do to grind his gears so heavily.
You know what? It actually makes me happy to see him use his stake to flag us because that means more STEEM is returned to the reward pool for everyone to receive while this fucker gets less bang for his buck in the end. So, why not flag me more faggot?
I'll make sure you do so in the days to come.
I apologise to my followers moving forward because I will be posting quite a lot more than my regular one post per day just to make this sucker drain his VP by flagging me.
I'm sure that he will eat up the bait like an unsuspecting fish which doesn't have the mental capacity to conclude that worms aren't sea creatures.
As we all know, someone with less than two healthy brain cells can barely do a single computation in 24 hours. And just like that, thinking that he is the hunter, @freepress will soon become the prey.
Fun times ahead!
The other thing worth noting about his alt account is that he upvotes himself exclusively with 98% of his votes which I find to be hilarious and I'm wondering how long it will take @steemcleaners to start flagging his shitposts to make him delegate to bid bots once again.
100% original content 🤣
Showing how ill-minded this individual is.
I love how he reveals the sheer amount of his mental deterioration in the title of his post. Maybe it is worth the self-vote just for the humoristic value it gives to anyone with more than two brain cells.
Also, notice how he is talking to himself leaving a comment from his main account @freepress and replying with @boosta. Seriously considering this dude has some sort of mental issues and suggesting him to give Vrapče a call and consider moving there for a short vacation.
Oh yeah, and the voting pattern of his main account @freepress is even more ridiculous than @boosta. He actually upvotes his own "content" if it can be called content, with exactly 100% of his VP!!
Anyhow, getting flagged for speaking out against a clear case of malicious use of ones stake is exactly the reason why most Steemians do not dare to do so. For most, the consequences severely outweigh the benefits but I'm not like the majority. But I'm not like the majority. Never been, never will be.
Life is yin and yang, what goes around comes around and soon the tables will shift in my favor. That's something I'm certain in. Karma is a bitch and @freepress will learn that lesson the hard way at some part of his miserable life. I'll be glad if I get a chance to find out about it.
Just wanted to get this out there, looking forward to hearing what the community has to say.
Have a good one everyone,
cheers!
Sadly, while what they have done arguably brings no value to the steem ecosystem, it isn't exactly prohibited as well. It is after all their own stake on the blockchain and it is up to their own prerogative how to use it.
That being said, it is also entirely the right of the community to respond however they like in the face of such ethically questionable practices.
We applaud you for speaking out against the misuse of Steem power.
That's the core issue. Not prohibiting 10x self-voting and milking the system to the max is the single biggest mistake dan has done in developing this chain of blocks, imho.
It can't be prohibited, people will always find a way through alt accounts.
Now when I think about it yeah, probably not but it can be countered that's for sure.
People like @hobo.media think that no flags would make this place better, and when repeatedly pressed concerning the very easy to envision consequences of no flags: a prisoner dilemma that leads to everyone voting for themselves, they avoid offering their opinion like the plague, all the while they have absolutely no problem with lying saying that things that are hidden like images are actually removed by flagging and using the most ludicrous rationale to insist on flagging being censorship: that the intent is what makes something censorship, not the result and that because censorship is suppression and suppression is inhibiting and inhibiting is discouraging than anything that is intended to discourage others is censorship. Such people are seemingly clueless as to what actual censorship is, and surprisingly they went as far as lying that YouTube doesn't even censor, that they only make stuff hard to find. How about them apples? Literally these people are claiming that the world's biggest censor, which has to date removed probably tens of thousands of channels and maybe even more, the total extent which we will never know, and has by any measures censored more people than all the world's censors in the known history of the world combined many times over, doesn't even censor, talk about delusional wackos.
I'm glad people flag abuse and am patiently awaiting when I can delegate the free downvotes to groups that are ready to take out the trash, yeah someone assholes will always make things interesting by selling their flags and some douchebags will try to piss in people's cereal by lapping those flags up and unloading them for spite or anger (or out of pure idealistic hypocrisy?, aka @hobo.media flagging me) but i believe that people who care about this place and who are considerate, thoughtful and sensible outweigh the asshats 20 to 1, I am not of the opinion that humans are by nature flawed to be assholes.
Not only would it create the prisoner's dilemma but all other malicious activity would be multiplied to an extent that it would plague the entire blockchain sending ripples throughout the system resulting in a shitstorm of unimaginable proportions.
hf21 will bring about some interesting times indeed. Will flag selling outweigh "honest" curation of abusive content is anyone's guess but it will be an epic battle to combat abuse while countering newly created abuse ie buying flags to retaliate.
Yet the cost Vs rewards (being a dick is rewarding to jerks) will surely play into it and I think that those cheap flags could be bought up by the same groups that sacrifice to police the network now.
Lol
LMFAO
100% this!
There is an 'l' left out?
Flaggot?
Nah, fags are fags.
RIP @skeptic, who I think is the one behind the "flaggot".
Homophobic slurs are not the classiest moves, imo.
Yeah, I miss that guy.
I don't think most who use the word fag have any fear of gay people or hate them, it just means that they have about the lowest regard as an individual for whoever they label as such. In the totem pole of insults, fag is the lowest of the low.
Hmm,...
Yeah,, If you really want to insult somebody, call them 'drumpf" ultimate degradation.
Personally I prefer rich and entitled, but that may just be me.
Yep, I was always hoping he would come back.
Me, too.
@guiltyparties @patrice please look into the accounts retaliating against this user.
@freepress, @boosta these two seem to be farming at least
The DV is pretty big and it hurts a bit... However I am glad to see stakeholders using upvotes and downvotes to express themselves.
I accept my DVs and hope it is the beginning of a new era!
There was no need to make a big dramatic post about it.
!dramatoken
What, and where will I get such a perfect chance at interjecting some much needed ridicule of certain people?
Muhahaha
The goal was not to create a dramatic piece but rather let everyone know the developments of a long-lasting relationship with the aforementioned abuser and his continual abuse of our shared resource and the retaliation that's underway in an attempt to silence all future whistleblowers.
Nice
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"The art of steaking" lol
Pure gold! Gave me such a good laugh, I was seriously contemplating giving it an upvote :D
Heyyyyyyyyy mithril is kind of cool lol
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Mithril?
Lol yeah you've used their logo there eheh
Nah. That's haejin's profile image
But i think it is also the mithril logo llloll
I can see the resemblance but I don't think it's the actual mithril logo
Thanks for this information.