Behind Steemit #9 - Whales and Upvote power, is this what we want? (send by an user)
In this project we will not accuse anyone, we will only show the information that goes unnoticed by the common user, and even, for the whales.
Report nº9
This report was send by an anonymous user about an information that he wants to share with the community hoping that it's name remains hidden.
Users involved: @msgivings, @mrron
These accounts were created and right away reached the trending page from the first day, because of the voting power and great influence of whales. Their votes, reestem and kind of popular-mystic created the popularity of those accounts, which were sock puppets. The only reason they are not active today is because that whoever ran those accounts screwed up and directly (without double-checking) copypasted some paragrahps, which resulted in over one hundred flags.
Now, think about it for a while... what if this were happening right now with a great quantity of sock puppet accounts, all owned by the same person who happen to be a whale-whales? Wouldn't that be a problem? Isn't that a lot of different from proxy votes? In that single (and unique) case, we are talking about both author (or suck puppet) and curation rewards (almost 90%) going to the same person and, the only reason they're getting all those big and great rewards, is because the accounts owners are whales and can vote for them out right away.
Multiple accounts, multiple sock-puppets, multiple votes, multiple rewards - all being influenced, voted, reestemed and paid out from the limited daily pool.
ONLY in the first 3 minutes of posting, @msgiving's very first post received not one or two... but three whale votes. After 20 minutes, it received another two. It escalated from there and repeated on each of them follow up publications.
If you watch carefully at the main whale votes on their posts, there is a voting correlation around 99,3% - over the course of all 16 posts. I'd say that's a logical and pretty obvious sign that their popularity and payouts were whale-driven. Either that, or they just had some amaaaaazing luck. But don'trust me - see the votes for yourself:
After only three minutes, silver and silversteem upvoted it
After another 20 minutes or so, another three whales did
Again, this was it's very first post and his subsequent posts received the same direct trending attention, only that ... faster. Here's the link for his first one:
https://steemd.com/travel/@mrron/why-should-you-visit-pakistan
So, we have these 2 accounts that got some really early whale upvotes and got really big amounts of money over all of their posts. When they were challenged on their sources and realism, they just cashed out and left.
They have not appeared since then. It may not be anything or maybe it is a serious problem in the system that needs a review and a deep exploration. I think it is necessary to know the stability and credibility of the platform, right?
- This is just the tip of the iceberg, we have tons of information that we will we posting eventually. Hope you guys can support us to make a more clean and transparent community.
LET'S UNVEIL THE TRUTH
Bar divider by @scrooger
Very interesting insights. The community needs this kind of reflection to create the best possible user experience and to ensure the platform endures.
Very interesting in deed... I was actually wondering about a few people leaving their super short comments my way, with very account names and typical comments trying to boast how great a person I would be. I still gave a 1% upvote for their kind words, but it surely made me ponder, and I still do. Your article just brought it up to the surface again.
Thanks for the information again, I remember a really good one you did a few weeks back that still makes me wonder... Namaste :)
I've seen ad few offenders. Just scroll down my down votes, you'll see a trend there too. Doesn't take rocket science. Its disconcerting, not because of the down votes, but what one gets to notice. I want Steemit to last and this isn't good for anyone except those benefiting.
I am facinated by the motivation. What does a person gain from doing this? Are they getting votes which translates into more money aftere all is cashed out or what? It seems like a very tedious way to bring in a few bucks and it will only hurt the overall integrity of the concept . As it stands I trust the steemit communtity for their upvotes and comments etc. but that will lose value if these whales are using their weight to scrape more of the thing they already have enough of. What a cheapskate way to make money! Essentiallly they are stealing from anyone who upvotes that isnt themself. Lame moves! Thanks for exposing this scammy behavior.
Congratulations @behindsteemit, this post is the forth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Newbie account holder (accounts that hold between 0.01 and 0.1 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by newbie account holders during this period was 2301 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $758.14. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.
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Look at this (even though maybe unrelated) - openly admitting and still being upvoted with the high reputation (62)
https://steemit.com/scammybehavior/@goldenarms/hey-i-m-zeartul
while @markboss for his service, which isn't so bad if you look at it like some extra newsfeed, is down to 25. Interesting approach.