Why Bots, Plagiarism, Spam, copyright infringement, & shitposts are killing the Steemit platform

It is truly sad to see how human nature is destroying the vast potential of the steemit platform. I came here with the wave of youtubers fleeing from youtube’s new policies. Many of my friends, some who have pretty large youtube channels others who were published authors, came saw and left in the first 2 months. They were disgusted with the behaviour on this platform and the blatant abuse of power. They pretty much came to see the place as the huge pyramid scheme that it is where the rich get richer feeding off the bottom dwellers of the pond and could not care less about the toxic environment the platform has become. Yes there are also wonderful things on this platform such as several groups of incredibly talented and creative people, writers , Musicians and visual artists who create amazing content. Who build safe havens for people of their respective crafts , fun contests and radio shows. There are people doing charity work and who start initiatives to help their real life communities. These kind of people are why I am still here because they show me what this platform could be and I am still hoping we can turn this ship around. But I was lucky when I started here there was a guy called @moneyinfant who made a daily report of writing contests on the platform. This is how I was introduced to the larger writing community here. Without him i would have been lost because the sheer amount of plagiarised and or bad content made it super hard to find anything worthwhile in the general steemit feed.

As I said I was lucky because @moneyinfant stopped making those posts so new steemians do not have that doorway into the better wonderful part of steemit anymore. They are left to roam around in the swamp and many leave after a few weeks disheartened and thinking that the dreck in the trending section is all that steemit is. I have been here 152 days and it was not until two weeks ago that I found an amazing group of musicians on the platform and it happened by total coincidence. Once again I was lucky and it only happened because one of the people in my poetry family pointed me in that direction for a project I am working on. Most people do not want to wait to get lucky, most people do not want to spend hours creating amazing content just to see it make 3 cents and turn around just to see a plagiarised or three sentence piece with 5 grammatical error make $300. That kind of thing demoralises and it has cost Steemit dearly. The wave of huge youtubers that came could have sent us to the moon had we as a community curbed our greed and cared enough. But we didi not and look where we are now.

We have people posting the work of major artists as their own on @dsound and or @dtube and/or under the original tag, and making money off of it. This and some of the technical problems of the interface have made many people turn away from it. Which is sad as the potential of these interfaces really could be world changing. Steemit is ailing but it is not failing yet but there are things that need to change and practises that need to stop if we do not want to see it die and become the myspace in comparison to emerging platforms like ono who have promised not to allow bots and ban repeat plagiarisers.

We are a decentralised self monitoring platform which in theory is the dream scenario. The problem with our model is however two things. One- for self monitoring to work one needs enough people on the platform to care about it to stop people from abusing it and sadly we don’t. most people with clout either profit from the bleeding it dry by using their power to upvote themselves to millionaires, profit from offering bidbot services or they just don’t give a damn because they already made their money. Amongst us on the ground there are not enough who care either the trending page is flooded by people with shit posts and stolen content, upvoted by bidbots and/or investors all wanting a piece of the pie no matter how ugly it is turning the platform and how irrelevant. Anyone on the outside looking into us has no way of knowing that there is more to this platform then the megatons of garbage they get to see at first glance. And if we look at the new post section you might find one good post every 100 if you are lucky and why because many people who post them are either greedy or desperate. The greedy lie, cheat and steal content -just because and the desperate do the same because they are so poor that every penny they make here means a meal on the table for their family. The problem is the greedy don’t care and the desperate fail to understand that they are poisoning the well that feeds them long term.

The only way out of this is to make radical changes to how we operate here on the platform but also to what is allowed.

shitposts

Are annoying and a waste of space but truthfully only become nails in the steemit platform coffin if they are pushed by greedy whales or bidbots drowning out worthy content . this is when they become toxic and demoralising

Bidbots

Are one of the major problem here and need to be banned because they not only push unworthy content into the foreground, but because they also turn this place in a masturbation centre where people post stuff but never read any of the content offered by the community. Amazing content is lost under a sea of filth and those content creators of worth flee the platform in droves frustrated and disgusted. Yeah allowing this stuff brings the investors money but it also turns the platform into ta soulless dead space is this really the goal @ned? (and yes I am very aware that he will most likely never read this and if he does most likely does not give a damn what I or anyone thinks, as he has his pay-check -but one still has to try )

Plagiarism

Needs to be more aggressively fought. whales should give lager delegations to groups like @steemcleaners so they can down vote such content more efficiently or the interface providers should have a veto capacity where clearly plagiarised content is excluded from payout.

Spam

the user should have a veto button for comments. Is it really fair that spammers should profit from their content or people who insult them ?Free speech is paramount but it is one thing to have the freedom to say what one thinks and another to demand the right to profit from it in someones front yard. If the community is worried that they are losing their power to disapprove of content they need to think . They still can downvote the post itself and they can comment they just don’t get to tell someone that their mother is a baboon and rake in the mullah for it.

copyright infringement

Is a huge issue here on Steemit. It ranges from down right plagiarism to the use of copyrighted content without distribution rights. this is in most cases illegal, even though it is not enforced in most cases, and can be a huge deterrent for any major investor to the platform. We either need to crack down harder on this as a community or introduce a 2 tier system. Basically a share option that is non commercial and does not make money and one that does where you cannot abuse copyright laws.
Yes you can use snippets and pieces of works of others for commentary and or satire but even that if brought to court can get hairy (although it is generally legal). But if you are posting a youtube video with lyrics and non of it is your original content then you are breaking the law by posting it on a commercial site, even if you decline payout. Now in most cases people do not care and you will get away with it but legal it is not and that makes it go against the TOS of the Steemit interface and that of many of the others as well. And if the real content creator does chose to go after you, you can find yourself in a world of hurt.

This gets worse if you use someones work and make money claiming it is yours. The content creator can sue you for the earnings but also for damage of their brand if they can make case that the way you posted it ( or where ) reflected badly on them and their product/creation). This gets potentially worse if you use the image of someone to defame them and or ridicule them. while most people do not prosecute if they do and win it is a felony in the U.S.A while there are more complicated laws concerning public figures the normal citizen has a lot of protection if they are willing to go through the very long process of getting justice. But even a public figure can go after you if you cross the line between satire, being mean and defamation. Example if I post a photoshopped image of trump in a nappy and write man child on it it is not the nicest thing to do but it is legal (unless he can prove deep emotional harm but that usually never sticks ). Now if i post a picture of trump and write this guy eats puppies and rapes children I am in deep shit he can sue me out of the wazoo and i could face serious jail time. but what bout his charity scam you might say; well technically I can post a meme saying that Tumps charity is a scam, however should he take me to court i have to prove without a shadow of a doubt my claim is right or I am in as deep a shit as if i had made it up.

Because this stuff is seldom enforced many people do not know all this, or they frankly do not care. What they do not understand is that not knowing or caring or lack of enforcement still does not make what they are doing legal and what is worse is that they do not understand that a serious investor or backer will not touch Steemit with a ten foot pole until it becomes more respectable as it is a disaster waiting to happen. Example let us pretend someone would be posting pieces the harry potter books with altered names for months and few or no one would have noticed. But now JK Rowling did and would choose to sue. This is a block chain you cant really delete content the whole platform would be in jeopardy. No one wants to put money in something they do not see as safe or at least remotely safe. So all of you playing these games you are not only hurting yourself but potentially digging a hole for the whole platform.

In the end I am hopeing that we can clean out the riff raff and make this platform shine, but i also do not delude myself into thinking that it is the most likely outcome. Still I am very thankful to Steemit for the people I have met here and forged collaborations and friendships with. In the end I am still here let us see where the chips fall ...

_{(Image credit Dave Renike and a portrait of the fair jubilee made by myself turned into this here universal truth meme)}

Artists & Musicians wanted for the One Project
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_{art courtesy of @PegasusPhysics}

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