Ostracism on Steemit: Why or Why Not?
Is it both important and necessary to identify and weed out bad actors – and should it be done through a decentralized blockchain?
We’ve all seen it happen here: cat-fishing, plagiarism, spamming, social identity-theft, vote-buying, plain old naked scamming, and plenty of other abuses.
Many times, these users go unnoticed for weeks or months, if they’re ever caught. When they are caught, they’re usually downvoted and their reputations take a hit. Often though, this damage is minimal and short-lived. The scammers, spammers, and other abusers live to fight another day...and even resume their previous abuses.
The repeated abuses from repeated abusers and the outright scams that are easily identifiable shouldn’t be something that we tolerate as a community in general. It’s almost incumbent upon us to ensure that such users receive reputations and rewards that are fitting for the sum of their behaviors. The higher the reputation and the more visibility that these people get – particularly if it’s on the most visible pages, such as trending – the worse Steem and Steemit can look to interested non-users and investors.
In my opinion, a good thing happened last night on this platform. There was what appeared to be a blatant attempt at scamming Steem/Steemit users and investors. The post in question and the parties to it were called out publicly, the primary party withdrew the content, and the potential post payout and his reputation were quickly brought to zero. A lot of potential marks were likely saved from losing a lot of money.
Except this guy, perhaps...
But I’m afraid that the swift action was partially due to the fact that the user was an “outsider.” Yes, the potential scam was pretty obvious, but what would have been the result if the post had been written by someone with a 70+ reputation who had been active since last summer? What if it was written by someone who had 2000+ followers and hosted a weekly podcast? Would the reaction have been the same?
Should it have been the same?
There are users on this platform who have been caught in several different abusive schemes and scams over the past year.
Some of them have left. Others have stayed and prospered...even after being caught in more than one abuse.
Some of them have very high reputations. Others have been dragged down to low levels. And a few have been taken down only to rise back up again, despite their continued abuses.
Some fly under the radar. Some are right in our faces.
Some will probably express some faux outrage over this very post. Others will try their best to pretend that this post doesn’t even exist.
I don’t write this because of any personal vendettas or because I want a ... gasp ... “WITCH HUNT!” I simply want to ask this community:
Do you see these things? Do you care enough to want to do something about them? Should users be ostracized for their bad behavior or not? Is this not the ideal place to make it happen?
Or – are you comfortable with such abusers making money and gaining high reputations on a platform into which you have put a lot of time and energy...and maybe even your own money? Are you comfortable with them essentially representing Steem/Steemit on the most visible pages?
We have the means here to shun obvious and known scammers, plagiarizers, etc. – and we shouldn’t be afraid to wield such power. Last night was a great example of what can be done. It’s a testament to the general integrity of the user base.
Ostracism does indeed work. We just need the willpower to employ it, even if it’s against “one of our own.” Our collective honesty regarding who we support and who we ostracize will go a long way towards achieving healthy and sustainable decentralization, especially when money is involved in this system.
Don’t allow this platform to be a sanctuary for social abusers and scammers. Let the world know that it won’t be tolerated. This is our community. We should represent it well. Build trust with the onlookers and we’ll see how quickly they become adopters and investors.
So what would you choose, given the options?
Would you ostracize? Would you ignore? Is simply withholding support enough?
You had no proof of it being a scam. As far as I am concerned it looks to me as if you don't support free speech or freedom of ideas on this platform. I did not see a single word in his post asking for money. I also watched the video of the presentation @stan did in Hollywood. I found it very interesting and was eager to learn more. I believe we should leave it up to investors to do their own homework vs policing and dictating what people post here. How do we know you don't have your own agenda and are making false claims against people? - the only way is to let the collective Steemit mind come to its own conclusion. Calling something a scam straight off the bat without even knowing the real details behind it is just childish and unprofessional in my opinion. We are all human and we all have a past behind us, some may view our past good some bad. What hard evidence do you have this guy is the con man you claim he is? - when you are successful people try to damage your reputation in all sorts of ways. The information you have could also be false. We all deserve a chance to redeem ourselves and speak our minds at free will no matter what.
We had all the makings of a scam.
There was the the promises of huge/easy money. The urgency to get in early. The hype men that appeared from nowhere. The webinar that ended up asking for a lot of money. The promise of a product with essentially no details because it didn't actually exist (admittedly). And the fact that the guy didn't even understand how the blockchain/Steemit worked.
Add to that his history - convicted criminal (from his hedge fund scam with his company Hardcastle Hedge Fund), multiple other complaints about MLM practices and scams (such as WUKAR/Dubli) - and his overall behavior in general that is certainly nothing new, based on previous complaints and his own videos, and there is a pretty clear picture of who this guy is. Also, the fact that he teamed up with another person who is an alleged scammer adds to that picture.
No, that was in the webinar. Sign up for the webinar, they pitch you the BS story for two hours, then ask for money (via wire transfer?) in order to get in early and make huge profits.
Well, in my opinion, denying what is right in front of us is quite childish and unprofessional. When we see something so egregious, it's hard to dismiss it. And waiting for them to explain themselves while other people might be falling victim to the scam isn't an option in my book. Never mind the fact that they weren't actually explaining anything. They decided instead to attack anyone who dared to question them.
Indeed we do. And that's precisely what I and many others are doing and have done. On a blockchain that's built on trust and transparency, we shouldn't be so trusting of those who come with poor reputations and try to conceal their obvious scammy and childish behavior. I would think that those of us who have fairly good reputations in this community wouldn't be the ones under scrutiny in this case, given the circumstances.
I would like to know what exactly gave you any confidence that this was a legitimate project they were trying to sell?
Also - this post wasn't just about last night.
@ats-david , bingo this point wasn't just about last night :)
watch the back peddling now
Sounds pretty conclusive to me... Shame I missed the drama
Cg
number 3 on trending wow a shake up of the exact same line up that's been up there forever, kudos
Damn! Talk about deconstructing an arguement. Impossible to disagree with that, well played, Sir! :)
That is exactly my opinion. How many good ideas we'll lose in the future with this kind of approach? I see this like censorship on steemit. We all preaching free market and than immediately jump on first big project. When I joined steemit last year every were I saw: steemit is SCAM, Larimers are SCAM, stay away!! Later on : Voting trails are SCAM, etc.Still today are people who post here and collect rewards every day and saying: don't buy steem. Who cares! We all adults here and we can do whatever we like. It's our money and our decisions. I'm not talking about this particular project here. And even author of this post don't want to mention any names. Wonder why?
I see this as wisdom of the crowd by Steemit not falling for projects that require your money up front with the promise of delivering something later that will make you richer.
Everyone screams scam at everything nowadays, you have to know who to listen to and judge by yourself, how you can compare Steem to Mogul is beyond me.
Last time I'd checked we had around 170000 accounts. That's crowd. We can see exactly who killed this particular project. I can't compare Steem and Mogul because you didn't gave me a chance to even see Mogul. And crowd which you are talking about, sold me steem at $3 last summer. They really take good care for new steemians at that time. And steemit also promoting rewards for posting. How many people actually earn money on steemit? It would be funny to find Mogul to succeed on one of our competitors platform later on. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Steemit is great but we should be more open minded and long term focused. The real crowd will find and kill all weed, don't worry.
"The real crowd will find and kill all weed, don't worry."
Yeah, that's worked great for twitter and facebook and reddit. /s
That's why I didn't join any of those in first place.
Yes a really big crowd and even more probably reading it. Let's see do I want the platform to be known for the one that possibly skipped on a huge opportunity or the one that directly helped a really huge scam make bank and fuck over their members and readers? Hmm hard decision there.
The crowd was not the one that sold you Steem at 3$, that was the free market.
Go look it up. Last month I had curation rewards from 1500 unique authors.
If he indeed was not trying to scam anyone he would've stood his ground and defended his project. Not instantly lash out on careful users and start banning them from his "game". If this guy is in charge of that project and this is how he behaves, I don't care even if he was shitting out full blocks of bitcoins. That is unacceptable and very unprofessional. After his behavior I even tested him real quick to see how he would react and he behaved like a 8 year old boy who had just had his christmas present taken from him.
Yes, that's a user I want to trust 100-10,000 $ to.
Thank you very much for your answers. I'm sure we both on the same train here. My only concern is that this kind of behavior could scare and turn away some potential investors. I can smell the rat a mile away and this one was really stinky. My disagreement was only about how we handle this situation. But this is just a small bump on our way to success.
Real investors and people who are about to open up projects as big as in the range of this one will be more open about it, I believe. If not they'll at least stick around to convince people what is being accused is not true, not have a banter and ragequit.
We vote like we usually do and filter it out I guess. What's concerning to me is if a big part of the community already react this gullible to this type of easy to judge scams or characters, how will they act to others who aren't complete morons and know how to behave and trick readers and investors.
Guess it will be a lot more controversial with upvotes and flags when that time comes.
People are on internet for years. Most of us are familiar with all kind of scams and the naive ones will learn on a way. It could be expensive but that's free market.
Completely agree.
Wasn't the ostracism effected by the very free speech you support? As a newcomer here I was very hesitant to call bullshit especially when there was such instant and heavily weighted support thrown to the initial posting. When I did post it was to point out multiple inconsistencies between the image he was presenting, the claims he was making, and the reality available for anyone to find through a simple google search. None of what I posted was from a third party who might be bitterly libeling an honest man, it was all just factual information gathered from his own website and the sources it led to. That information happened to present a bigger picture than the naturally cherry-picked one he was offering and frankly, that picture looked bad. I would hope that anyone else with a little time on their hands might do the same in similar circumstances regardless of who the OP is.
Even as a newcomer it's good that you did your research. I think you'll find that when it comes to matters of scams, clickbait, and deviant behavior steemit is not so different from the rest of the web.
I think I might have taken this position if his behavior and how he talked to people hadn't been so over the top. I was on the fence until he started behaving so badly over a few questions. Also, I don't appreciate the whale votes pushing a "potential scam" to the top of the trending page. That feels like an endorsement.
I agree. I was hesitant to vote on the announcement post cause it already looked fishy from the get-go. But @stan's comment made me think it could be something real. Then after watching the facebook video of his older seminar for some time I had my own opinion on this person and wouldn't touch anything he endorsed with a 10 foot pole, not to mention his very unprofessional reaction to people warning users not to put their money into it without a second thought.
I agree with @thejohalfiles that we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on prior experience and opinion, but when there are so many other factors involved and it just screams red flags, I'd rather falsely accuse someone and warn others than have members of our community lose money on a scam.
A counter-question, how would the users feel that upvoted his post and @stan's comment with a 100+ vote trail if this indeed turned out to be a scam afterwards and many lost a bunch of money on it? I know that's not something I want in the back of my head. The reason I mention the big curation trail on the comments is that it gives it a bad view to newcomers and outsiders (oh over 100 people have approved this, might as well throw money at it) and a reason why I am careful when I vote with my own trail on comments that are controversial.
As a newcomer, I appreciate your integrity with the vote trail. Thank you!
That is true, it wasn't just his own reputation on the line, it was the reputations of everyone who backed him, and it seemed like some were backing him with a lot of skepticism as well. I think if it had flopped, it would have caused a much bigger rift here.
I can only speak for myself here, but stan has been working on this project for a long time. I DO trust both dan and stan larimer, and so i naturally upvoted it when he told me about it and said that it was a big thing he has been working on.
However i will say that good people can get scammed. I will also say i dont know if this trainor guy is a scammer or not but i DO know the talk stan had given was excellent and i thought this was tied to that.
This is why i give whaleshares to people more and more. It helps others...
Help let the community decide more and more for me is a good thing imho.
Exactly @fuzzyvest. Good people can also be scammed. I watch the webinar yesterday and found so many false mix with no link. The guy was really over the top, making the all thing really sounding like a typical scam.
Thank you Fuzzy, I appreciate nobody is perfect. I also understand it wasn't proven a scam, something I am currently trying to write about.
My position isn't set in stone, but it was a "warning card" for me to question the judgment behind what will be promoted with Whaleshares. For now I am just watching to see how things go.
Key. Dont exoect perfect solutions as they rarely exist when humans are involved.
EVERYTHING and i mean everything can be abused. I am giving alot ofntrust to a community by giving them this power and WHEN someone abuses it it will indeed cost them. ;)
I really appreciate your attitude, it's nice to know that my opinion is valued by respected members of the community. I still don't know much about Stan or Dan but I do know what some of my dad's friends give me a sleazy impression and my dad doesn't seem to see it. Same goes for friends.
This right here. Up until the end I felt skeptical as hell but didn't want to go and call him a scammer even if he was because I only have my perspective to judge that on. What bothered me was the way he seemed entirely insincere, just looking to sell something, and how initial many people saw an opportunity for their own benefit an were ready to jump into bed with him. I am happy the community eventually decided to voice their opinions. It seems pretty clear that the members invested in steemit in more ways than just monetarily were not ready to jump on board with a guy like this.
Using one's stake to reduce rewards on something one disagrees with is not censorship, no matter how many people here will tell you it is. Matt Trainer could have kept going but he got personal and gave up pretty quickly.
Conversely, the real speech in danger of being confined is the speech which challenges suspicious people and suspicious proposals.
This is the way the "collective Steemit mind" comes to its conclusions, if such a thing can be said.
"the only way is to let the collective Steemit mind come to its own conclusion."
@ats-david's post here = $791
@matttrainer's post = $0
The wisdom of the stake-weighted Steem crowd has spoken
Should have been more clear brother. - come to conclusion through words, not down-votes and sweeping the conversation up under the rug.
What? Really?
Upvoted for the interesting topic and what I suspect will be an interesting conversation.
I have mixed feelings on this, and I have caught myself making conflicting decisions. I don't go on about the issues of stake often. Yet, it feels different for me to downvote and have a small impact. Then it seems when I watch those with very high steem power downvote. I don't like scammy people, but I subscribe to the ideals of buyer beware.
On a personal note, I feel like I have learned a lot in the past 10 months or so, yet, I appreciate the feedback from those who have more experience than I do. I don't appreciate being "protected" by scam flaggers.
Nearly every time I have spoken out against a group or account, what bothers me is false pumping up by those with the largest's stakes "ganging up or down" on posts. My view on this is still being refined, which is why I look forward to the conversation.
As a community we also need to teach the concept of "Buyer Beware" and not just try to "Flag Protect" the community. I don't want to teach people "learned helplessness" because others are trying to protect them. It has become top of my list to define my views on this.
I think it has less to do with trying to protect others than it is an expression of, "I'm not going to accept this as a stakeholder myself." Yes, by bringing attention to an issue through commenting and flagging the post, other users might be influenced by that, but it's mostly an exercise for the individual flagging. It's ultimately up to each user to determine whether or not they will support or not support a given project, regardless of how others have voted. As @scaredycatguide said below in another comment - it's all about due diligence.
Regarding last night's post, I flagged it because I saw it as a blatant attempt to scam people and I felt that it would do damage to the reputation of this platform if it continued and if people were duped into giving them money. That damage has a direct effect on me as a stakeholder. So, I voted my economic interests just as much as my moral ones.
I don't intend to protect any individual person from themselves. If they want to buy into a scam, then that's on them. But if I can identify it and feel that it does harm to my own investments, I will express my concerns and vote accordingly, as we all should, no matter the size of our wallets.
You made the best argument I have heard to my position. I like it. I think the only part that bothers me is the UI graying it out. Thank you taking the time to "Argue" and help me refine my view.
Interesting that you should choose to make a post about morality and "bad actors" when you are one of the biggest trolls on the platform.
I don't want people to think it's okay to say "I choose to answer what questions I want and ignore the ones that would obviously prove I am not a scammer." It isn't about protecting anything but our own investment to most of us. The whales supporting this horse shit also ignored the extremely easy to answer question I brought up multiple times and instead upvote comments to save their reputation and promote an agenda. Let's see maybe after upvoting all of these "neutral" comments and putting their reputation on the line for this guy they can ignore me again. "Why not put the money in a smart contract or multi-sig with a trusted third party agreed upon by the community?" I will be amazed if I don't get ignored again.
Agreed, the behavior of the OP and those who were vocally supporting it (including how they ignored your question and others) is what inspired me to make any comments and eventually flag the post.
Very well said. I agree with you on this.
Agreed .
This post is an eye-opener.
Thanks
Well said, David. If this platform is going to reach it's potential we will have to use the power we have to say no to scams and corruption. The power lies in our upvotes and flags and last night we saw that working in a beautiful way in my opinion.
This is an example of Capitalism working! We don't need a government getting involved, we can simply weed these people out and expose them. They will always lose in the end. I am just happy they were caught out before any people lost money. I big thanks is owed to a select few, who stopped it in it's tracks!
Upvoted as always! I feel ostracized everytime I look at my blog page to check my payouts. I work my butt off to write good material and look at the Trending page so I can marvel at people making hundreds for garbage... maybe I can find some good cat pics!!!
It will happen man. Most the people making that much were known before steemit even existed. So they got a huge headstart that only first movers get.
Thanks... I appreciate the support. I just keep working really hard but don't seem to be getting anywhere!
I think that the whole Mogul things was an example of a good use of downvotes. I do think that part of being a good steemian lies in ensuring that steem is a good environment, and part of that is reducing the visibility of scammers.
While "Buyer beware" makes sense, not everybody has the time, or the background to do a full investigation. Also, people who can spot scams will be put off Steem if they see scams on the trending page, so we do well to remove them when we can.
@dwinblood mentioned third party "investigators" to look into things like this, since you're right, not everyone has the time. I think that's a great idea.
A good idea, but who watches the watchers?
We'd just have to trust in their impartiality.
What if my definition of a good environment is different than yours. I honor freedom even above fiscal security. Not freedom for the scammer exactly, freedom for the person considering what the investment opportunities are. I would have never put a cent in this, but I want to make my own choice, not have others decide for me.
You are entering some really murky philosophical statement with that. I think that even the choices we think of as our own are often determined by our environment, and the people that surround us.
The fact is that the amount of opportunities that enter your awareness are always limited by something, and in this case you can think of the process as applying a filter to the opportunities that you are exposed to, thus reducing the cognitive load needed to evaluate them, and freeing up your resources for other things.
I am pretty sure I can be murky at times. :) I didn't ask anyone to "Free my cognitive load" though. Does that mean anything, isn't one presenting themselves as more qualified or some type of protector to me required to ask if I want their help? I want their opinion, but not their help - unless I ask.
I am not trying to be argumentative, I find hearing the argument for this interesting.
He said this was his life's work.
If I put my life's work into a legitimate business and was about ready to launch it, I wouldn't let naysayers keep me from going through with my project.
However, if I were running a scam, and got called out and ostracized by the community I was trying to scam...I would've done exactly what Matt did.
In my assessment of this situation, his actions speak louder than any words.
Billy Mayes here for Mogul, we're going to party like it's $1999. But wait there's more!
you mean smiley nice people aren't always so? NOOOO @contentjunkie nooooooo
hahaha good meme xD oxi clean xD
What about people that have a negative rep because of subjective reasons. or just one butthurt whale that decides your the target for the week?
That is definitely a problem. One we haven't really solved yet.
This, a thousand times this. Steemit took a huge hit in terms of a positive reputation for free speech just about two weeks ago when a whale voted an SGT Report out of viewership - I don't have the specifics in memory at the moment, but SGT reported on it to his YouTube followers and I have to say --- it did not look good for Steemit. Especially since SGT has been praising Steemit as an alternative to other social media platforms in light of their censorship tactics and this guy has a HUGE following because he is smart and has access to and can reach practically everyone in the alt-media/crypto sphere. People could still view the Steemit-buried report on Youtube, but on Steemit it was no longer even possible to view. Needless to say, that is highly counterproductive for Steemit.
If whales disagree with something because it does not align with their subjective views and they can neither prove nor disprove arguments for or against a statement in a factual manner then proceed to eliminate it from conversation or viewership on Steemit nevertheless, that is authoritarian censorship, plain and simple. What happened to "I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it?" That is the gold standard of free speech, not "If I don't like what you say, I will kill your message."
Of course there will be bumps and hiccups along the way, but it appears there should be some sort of explicit community contract that whales agree to abide by when they reach that stage and perhaps an appeals process of some sort where petitions are posed to the user base as a whole.
This has happened in cycles for almost a year. It is one of the biggest remaining problems with steemit, though we haven't really come up with a fix for it, though we do have ideas we've all discussed, but those ideas don't really matter unless steemit inc. decides to experiment and try some of the ideas out. I do know steemit inc. is working on quite a few things for the future, but I don't know how likely they are to do something about this.
The argument of course will be that it wasn't censored since it is still on the blockchain. That too me is equivalent to saying "it wasn't censored you can file a Freedom of Information Act request". What are the odds someone is going to be viewing the blockchain in a way to monitor for such posts. Then there is the funding side of things. If a person cannot earn when some people appreciate their work because a powerful person(s) down votes it then that could be a form of financial censorship. They'll argue then "if they are here only for the money they don't need to be". Which arguing that someone doesn't view Steemit the same way you think they should is kind of silly too if we plan on having a lot of people here. We'll end up with many people, using it for many reasons, and we don't need people deciding who and who cannot benefit from and enjoy steemit. That is negative PR as you said.
These things go in cycles. I've been very vocal about this in the past. I've also warned of exactly what you describe, them doing this to someone with a large following and causing negative PR outside of steemit.
Balanced and reasonable response, thanks for the feedback. Now following.
Due Diligence is the key phrase for all of this. Whether high rep or low rep, newbie or veteran. All projects should be vetted and then acted on upon accordingly.
No single individual will catch everything alone. That is why we are a community.
Not every person will agree on whether something is good or bad. That is why we have the choice to do what we want with our votes.
In the end, we hope the overall reaction is the prudent and correct one. Not just mass hysteria. No matter who it is.
Steem on!