That evidence is absolutely damning, I really had no idea the reach extended so far. My only beef with this is concluding that any Steem platform or decentralization in general is the answer. I go round and round with my fellow Libertarians about this, merely because while the conceptual idea of decentralization is amazing, its implementation has been poor. The way Steem is set up right now, guarantees those with the most money and power a top spot on the trending pages. Money alone decides what content will be put in front of the majority of eyeballs. It's impossibly hard even to search for specific content. So the options then, are, scroll endlessly through content or just eat the first few pages of content that have been spoon fed to you, and be happy about it. There is nothing to prevent the government at large from investing into different cryptocurrencies and maintaining the stronghold that they also have on the vast network of other ways Americans consume media. It would only take a mere million bucks to drop into Steem to vastly control the content on the different Steem platforms. With the cost of just a few military tanks, the Fed could nearly fully control most decentralized platforms, and influence and tailor their content similar to how the do now with mainstream media. We want to believe that everyone has a bigger voice in a decentralized network, but that isn't true. Perhaps it is a safe alternative since the bigger voices tend to be Libertarian, anti-authoritarian, pro-peace, but it still doesn't change the reality that there is a gaping wide hole in decentralization that the creators left open for themselves really, as an opportunity for profit. I have no more voice on Steemit really than I did when I was an elected precinct committeeman. I am starting to believe that everything I know is just an illusion. My faith in decentralization and crypto crumbles the more time I spend delving deeper into it all.

Great thorough article though. Super informative!