The Steem community is split. We have the votes to take back the super majority, but those votes are being withheld. Steem consensus is being filibustered.

To my knowledge the Korean community holds a deciding vote. They have some demands/questions.

_{https://steempeak.com/hive-101145/@sct/proxy-token-proxy-token-witness-voting-policy}

(Are you willing to shorten the SP power-down period to three to seven days from current period? )

스팀 블록체인의 다운보팅을 제거할 의향이 있는가? (Are you willing to remove down-voting policy of STEEM blockchain? )

스팀 블록체인에 스마트 컨트랙트를 도입할 의향이 있는가? (Are you willing to introduce smart contact into the STEEM block chain? )

유료 구독 모델을 도입할 의향이 있는가? (Are you willing to introduce a paid subscription model?)

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Sun's response?

Pandering and unhinged, and also deleted.

https://steemd.com/tx/546471d9d0eafc22a1291a8c92cf4f1ac00d610e

1. Are you willing to believe the sanctity of private property or do you just want to take innocent people’s hard earned money under toxic “consensus”?
2. Are you willing to shorten the SP power-down period to 3-7 days from the current period?
3. Are you willing to remove the down-voting policy of STEEM blockchain?
4. Are you willing to introduce smart contracts into the STEEM block chain?
5. Are you willing to keep a good relationship with prestigious exchanges and increase our STEEM token value or do you just want to fuck them?
6. Are you willing to protect the rights of the community members or do you just want to hurt and destroy those you disagree with? 7.Are you willing to support Steemit, Inc. in accomplishing their job to increase our token value or do you just want to stab them in the back for your own interest? 8.Are you willing to increase STEEM token value that benefits the whole community or do you only care about your own interest and don’t give a fuck about the real community?
7. Are you willing to welcome new investors in the future and include everyone into our community or do you just want to fuck those new investors, freeze their investment and kick them out?
8. Are you willing to always stick to the truth or will you just spread rumors to generate misunderstandings in the community and poison our community culture?
9. Do you like Justin Sun or you just want to fuck him? We will vote for the witnesses after reviewing witnesses' public answers to the above questions ASAP! Do you have a dream to become one of the Top20 Witnesses? This is your chance!"

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Sun is essentially bribing the Korean community to support his coup and he will reward them with permanent top 20 witness spots. It's incredible.

We need to convince the Korean community that Sun has no intention of helping them. He wants out of this deal ASAP and is looking for votes so that he doesn't have to ask the exchanges to attack us again.

Now is not the time to filibuster the chain and negotiate with someone looking to exploit us in a hostile takeover. Unfortunately, many people on chain don't feel that way. They think this is a great time to make demands.

It's not

The exchanges have the power to remove out witnesses and let Justin Sun push a hardfork immediately. @aggroed has it on good authority this hardfork is already done and waiting to be pushed through.

Exchanges have not started a powerdown.

This is honestly a huge tell. They expect Justin Sun to win so definitively that they aren't even powering down to become solvent again. This is also a huge mistake on their part. There is no reason they shouldn't have started a powerdown no matter what the situation is. I don't understand this logic. Perhaps it's just a mistake?

There's also the situation of the exchanges being lied to by Justin Sun. They are claiming they had no idea and thought they were helping retake the chain back from hackers. Their actions tell another story, but this is their official stance. They may not help Sun retake the chain, even if we're on the cusp of regaining the network. If they attack us again they will have proven themselves for the liars they are, something they are likely not willing to do considering how much press this story is getting.

Why can't we retake the network?

Many people think the actions of the witnesses (freezing Justin's accounts) is what started this whole mess.

I think about it like this:

Justin Sun was sold a dagger. He was brandishing the dagger making conflicting statements about what he was going to do with it. When the Steem community put the dagger away and said "let's talk about this", Justin Sun immediately grabbed the dagger back and cut us with it.

To take the position that we shouldn't have "stolen" the dagger in the first place and that's why we got slashed is ridiculous. The escalation went from 0 to 100, all from the Tron side.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. They see Sun as an avenue to punish many of the witnesses they've had conflict with. So many people in the community are talking about downvotes in response to this coup. Downvotes have nothing to do with this, but because users are sour from being downvoted they will not stand with the witnesses. It's pretty sad that this community would leverage a dictator to try and get what they want. They are going to be sadly disappointed if Sun "wins". He doesn't care about them. He's shown his true colors.

Conclusion

Super professional Justin Sun seems to be on his last legs. He said 'fuck' four times in a desperate attempt to appeal to the Korean community. This latest deleted message paints the picture of not a confident business man but as someone in a desperate situation grasping at straws.

I hope the community can band together against this dictator.

The top priority is to boot Sun off the network. If the Korean community was the deciding vote in this struggle I'm sure that alone would give them quite a bit of leverage and clout in the aftermath.