Actually I did before I was a witness, but the knowledge I have gained has reinforced that notion. It sounds like a terrible thing, but it is so easy to avoid that should one become a member of this "exclusive club", you have likely earned it quite heartily!

source, plus my own photo-chop

Some Practical Reasons these "Blacklists" exist:

1. It warns voters that the meme or content you love and are about to upvote may be Plagiarized.
2. It keeps these abusers from using the voter-bot services and inflating their ill-gotten gains 😤
3. Used as a Character Reference, no one should really ever show up on one of these lists.

I know some of the bigger entities that keep these Blacklists, and they all have "appeals processes". This is not so much for rehabilitating abusers and plagiarists, but sometimes mistakes are made and these innocent victims have a recourse. Good Deal, because we are Human, and Humans make mistakes! Sometimes new accounts are made of people that are well known on other social media platforms and the verifying links are not always made immediately. One has the right to re-post certain materials, photographs especially, but at first glance this may appear to be a stolen picture. In Fact, some trolls have attempted to pose as a popular Instagram Model or "public figure" from Fakebook or other platform. If these trolls are exposed, "Let the Flags Fly!" If we save the content of a user from another platform from someone, and when they are contacted nd notified, just maybe they will see that this platform cares about originality and we might pick up some big draws for the Steem Blockchain and our associated front ends!

🤑

In this case, doing the right thing is best for all involved! We protect our rewards pool, the platform (from potential legal action) the content of everyone and our own peace of mind. It just takes a little extra watchfulness, I believe.

I was DM'ing with @themarkymark on Discord. I had a young user in the Minnow Boot Camp that had become listed on the Build-a-whale blacklist. From what I had seen, this user had some unverified "off platform content" from their own accounts, and maybe some missing image credits. I asked about what it takes to get off the B.A.W. blacklist and he said they can show where the claims were incorrect, but in this case he had seen all the listings of plagiarism and that some of these were true. No removal from the list. Upon further research, I have found that most or all "keepers of the list" agree, once an abuser, always an abuser, because they have nothing to lose. The account is already marked as a known offender, and they will keep using it for ill-gotten gains until the well is dry. Makes sense. I ended up agreeing that it was the best approach, in almost every case. JUST DON'T PLAGIARIZE!!!

So what things must be done to avoid getting on a blacklist? Simple!

1. ALWAYS credit your sources, for written or pictorial materials.
2. ESTABLISH your identity early on if you have material on another platform you wish to use on the Steem Blockchain, in part or in whole.
3. If you are using excerpts of other's work, credit every instance.
4. "RE-WRITING" of another's work is frowned upon, but if this is done in part, one should simply credit the original article that was your "inspiration". You should always include your own thoughts on the subject matter! BE TRANSPARENT!

I have never had a problem with any of these watch groups or blacklists, and I even re-posted my own original materials in the past and Cheetah, the feline checking Bot of SteemCleaners was never triggered. So I believe you have to be pretty blatant to trip most of the automated systems that are in place. But I have a good friend, @derangedvisions, that really has an EYE for photo plagiarism! He has alerted me a few times about boot-campers and I have dealt with them.

😲

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If you like my vision for STEEM and Steemit, please take the time to review my "Official Witness Post" and my Pre-Announcement, Seriously Considering WITNESS UNDERGROUND and my Witness Voting link is:

VOTE for UNDY/WITNESS! 😎