#steem

For the First Time, I Might Be Losing Faith in Steem...

steem post 3.jpg

It's funny how quickly things change.

Just recently, I wrote a post celebrating 1000 posts on Steemit and/or a host of other applications sitting on top of the Steem blockchain.

But since then, I've been the victim of whale downvotes on several posts, namely coming from @ocdb.

This was an annoyance to say the least, however this isn't what shook my faith in Steem.

What shook my faith in Steem was seeing my post from yesterday, "Is Bitcoin Useless?", hidden due to "low ratings".

This was a completely legitimate post that I took the time to create, including a custom thumbnail, title and description.

All the rewards attributed to that post have been lost. The post has been hidden. What a complete waste of time and effort for myself.

I knew spammy posts could be hidden. I didn't know that legitimate posts could be hidden and rewards stripped, simply due to a few downvotes from powerful individuals.

I was originally drawn to Steem due to the censorship on YouTube. But now I find myself being a victim of censorship on Steem.

And worse yet, at least with YouTube I wouldn't lose my income from downvotes. But on this platform, those downvotes have a severe impact on my income.

So now I'm beginning to question whether Steem is a viable place for me to stay in the long run, if any possibility of making an income is dictated by a handful of powerful individuals. In that sense, it doesn't seem very different to YouTube, yet only has a fraction of the audience.

Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I'm shocked to see this when I've posted literally thousands of times on this platform. I also have money invested in this platform in the form of Steem Power. I find myself questioning why I would have money invested in a platform that silences me and inhibits my ability to have my voice heard and make an income.

I have a lot of thinking to do.

I would welcome any thoughts you might have about this in the comments section below.

Comments · 39

@briggsy(65)· 2456d
technically, if a small amount of people own the lion's share of Steem Power, and they target you in an attempt to silence you for your opinion (as long as it wasn't against terms of service or various laws), then it could be said that you were in fact censored - despite the platform being decentralized.

It can be argued that this isn't censorship, but if the majority of steem power holders decided you were to be silenced for petty reasons, then I personally would call it censorship, no different than if YouTube decided to block your video or make it invisible. The only difference lies in culpability, and there would be little recourse but to leave the platform or start over.

It doesn't seem like that's the case here, as there are many reasons to down-vote someone. Being silenced is a good reason to leave any platform, regardless of how someone is accomplishing it, but in my mind Steem has much bigger issues than whales being dicks, and those problems will likely become apparent within the next year or so.
@crypto.piotr(65)· 2464d
Dear @louisthomas

I just had a chance to read your publication and since it's already 6 days old - I was wondering what's your current view on discussed issue. Did opinions coming from others helped in any way?

Hope you will stick around, Piotr
@lordbutterfly(80)· 2464d
Hahahahaha.

One little youtuber gets downvoted and everyone loses their fucking minds.

What you do @acidyo? What you do!? ROFL!

Louis... ffs. Steem dont work like Youtube. Reward pool and whatnot. Im not going to explain it all. No time, life is short. Dont get your panties in a bunch because a stake holder decided that the rewards were better off being distributed somewhere else and not on your post.

To everyone else... How bout you try and help create creators that originated on STEEM that can represent STEEM in the outside world instead of hoping a youtuber might decide to invest time and effort in the community and go out of his way to do something.

Geezy Louizy.
@edicted(83)· 2466d
Wow, how did I miss this one? Looks like there is nothing I can say that already hasn't been said a dozen times on this thread.

Where are you going to draw the line here? If a downvote bumps you down the trending tab will you call it censorship? Clearly not; you've already said as much.

You think you've been censored because Steemit.com grayed out your post a little bit? Who do you think that affects? You've got 5185 followers. That's 5185 feeds that your post is going to appear on no matter how hard you got flagged.

Did Busy censor you? What about Steempeak, Palnet, or Steemleo? Any and every frontend is allowed to do whatever they want with the blockchain information they receive. This (Steemit.com == Steem) attitude is somewhat concerning coming from someone of your education level of the space. You should know better already.

There's probably a bad reason why you haven't figured this stuff out yet, and I imagine the answer there is that you're much more focused on creating content and siphoning rewards than you are about networking and actually being a part of this community. That's fine. I still think you have a lot of value to offer regardless.

I put way more time into my blog posts than you do and you make a lot more rewards. It's not a fairness or censorship issue. I've picked fights with unjust flag-thirsty whales and had every single post I wrote in the last 7 days zeroed out (over $100 lost and well over 10 hours of work). Didn't complain about it either. I think everyone has a least one post where they overreact about flagging. Mine was like two years ago when I first got here. I'll give you this one.
@coininstant(69)· 2468d
Yeah this happened to me quit using bid bots!
@thehulk07(55)· 2468d
That's crap...decentalization goes straight out the window with those kinds of tactics., Especially taking your money earned. Steem hs been going downhill for quite some time but this kind of stuff is icing on the cake
@movingman(71)· 2468d
I wonder how you only just now have had the first thought of loosing faith in steem 😂

I regret that I didnt just stick to btc, anyone shillin any other coin or token, has thier phat stack of btc there safe - so anything else, like steem for example is just some fun.
@arcange(79)· 2469d
Congratulations @louisthomas! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
- Comments - Ranked 1 with 141 comments
@steevc(80)· 2469d
As others have said it's not censorship. You do far better than the average Steemian. Given the current Steem price is hard for most people to even make a few dollars a week. In any case it looks like the post was put back into profit.

What we need is to have far more people using Steem and investing in it to boost their vote. Then the big accounts will have less influence. For now various groups are acting to adjust some rewards. That may settle down in time.

BTW I've had all my posts for a week wiped out by a rogue whale, but others helped me out. Steem is the wild west and bad shit will happen. On the plus side you have more freedom than other platforms.
@geekzilla(38)· 2469d
Crap downvoted you accidentally I dont think there is a problem of censorship for those not aware if a post is not viewed by lets say twenty people over set time it will be hidden. I think this also applies to old post but can be retaken or unhidden also. So i think that your post did not earn much attention. Just to be clear people may not be aware if thats the case for steemit social but i may also be wrong. Sorry again for accidentally downvoting but yes bubbles do burst.
@martie7(62)· 2469d

I was originally drawn to Steem due to the censorship on YouTube. But now I find myself being a victim of censorship on Steem.

Welcome to the severe real world!
@smooth(74)· 2469d
I downvoted that other post because I thought it was overrewarded (though I'm pretty sure my vote didn't put it below zero).

I'm even more sure that this whiny post is overrewarded, so I'm downvoting this one too.

No one is entitled to rewards on Steem

Anyone can post. You posts are not censored or removed. However, earning rewards happens at the end of the voting period based on a consensus of stakeholder voters. In my case I'm judging whether, in my subjective view, the posts are adding value to Steem as clearly evidenced in one of the following ways: a) attracting and retaining new users to Steem (for example influencers who not only have a large following, but who are also demonstrably promoting Steem and bringing their audience to Steem); b) attracting and retaining new investors in the STEEM (or even SBD) token; c) development of new apps/games/services etc. (or contributing to the development of the core Steem blockchain itself) which make Steem more useful and will serve to support (a) or (b); d) improving the immediate fundamental economics of Steem (e.g. by burning STEEM and therefore reducing inflation); e) generally small rewards (with some potential of occasional viral "lottery effect" which serve to directly attract new users, serve as a token of appreciation/respect/tip exchanged among users (usually comment votes), and distribute Steem to new users.

Routine blog/vlog posts which give one's opinion of the day on various topics which are a dime a dozen on the internet are not contributing high value to Steem in my opinion. I'm perfectly okay with seeing them get moderate earnings in the range of a few dollars (which is vastly more than they would get anywhere else), but if more than that, I consider them overrewarded, especially if the high rewards are consistently repeated (milking). Again, this is all my subjective opinion, and while other stakeholders opinions may differ, they are all entitled to their opinions, and upvoting/downvoting accordingly.

One last time: You don't "earn rewards" due to earlier votes and then have later downvotes "take them away", that's not how it works. Again, rewards are only earned at the end of voting, when the blockchain assesses to the overall consensus of stakeholder voters.
@salman9ja(28)· 2469d
Never lose hope

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@kingscrown(82)· 2470d
im gangbanged by ocdb and curangel all time despite being her over 3 years, having 30000 follwoers and loads of readers.

people delegated to ocdb to upvote good posts and pay them back curation rewards yet the bot and its owner abuse the power upvotign circle of friends and themselves while attacking others one by one.
@pliskin(42)· 2470d
Well bro, it is a shame indeed, but one has to read and apply all the rules and/or regulations given by a place, such as this.

I know everything will work out in the end.
@hennessy(58)· 2470d
thats why steemit platform will die..because the down voters.
@ddn688(67)· 2470d
It's really painful. Sorry
@vandeberg(66)· 2470d
Have you heard about the changes coming soon to Steemit via communities? @roadscape made a great presentation on the second day of Steemfest. You can watch it here. The TLDR is that communities will no longer hide posts to due "low ratings". Instead their visibility will be moderated by the communities you choose to be a part of.
@marki99(62)· 2470d
What annoys me is that your whole belief of steem depends simply on whether you earn or not. Do you know about SMTs, communities, the scalability, the proposal system? Does all that go out the window simply because a whale is bullying you? Bad situation for you but doesn't mean the system as a whole is broken or not worth believing in.

You make it seem more unfair than it really is. You were uploading 1 minute videos answering an easy question and getting top rewards on the platform for a while. I can't speak for @ocdb but I would guess that they thought you got too much for 1 min videos.

That said, I think downvoting you that much is unfair, but your reaction isn't good as well. Instead of trying to understand why and talk about it you straight up throw a tantrum threatening to leave steem.

I'm never happy to see content creators leave steem, but if you think we need you that much, well, just leave. Steem will be successful with or without you.

As for suggestions, I think bundling up one minute videos into a longer one will help you get rid of those downvotes, or maybe keeping some of the steem you make. Most importantly, grow up.
@nithishfloopz(51)· 2470d
Yeah it happened to me as well. But since I am a small person. I didn't mind it. There must be some change to this over influence @louisthomas Great that you spoke about this man
@lesmann(74)· 2470d
Funny, I was watching this "lately" myself and wondering... And there are a few if them out there, they post nothing - and only exsist to "Downvoter"! It's a "crying shame". In the long run, if not addressed - on top of a few other things, will be the downfall of "Steem".

Posted using Partiko Android
@drakos(70)· 2470d
OCDB are going a sloppy job. Their delegation should be revoked.
@czechglobalhosts(80)· 2470d
I feel you! Those people are doing way more harm then good. Don't loose the faith though. Good luck!
@abdex9(66)· 2470d
I was shocked to see @ocdb downvote you -$44.

I think something is wrong somewhere. They can't call that a disagreement on reward downvote or plagiarism or spam Cus the video is topnotch😐. Maybe they didn't watch the video at all and the topic sold them out.

I'm glad that others with huge SP are now aware of this abuse and got your back. Don't lose faith on steemit bro. This is one of those obstacles we face here. Almost everyone have had their fair share of downvotes either malicious or legit.

Keep on doing your thing. Have a wonderful week ahead

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@nickyhavey(74)· 2470d
Can see your Bitcoin video quite clearly on Partiko, what's the fuss about?

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@okean123(66)· 2470d

I knew spammy posts could be hidden. I didn't know that legitimate posts could be hidden

What a stupid statement.

You're not being censored, everyone can still see your posts. On frontends different from Steemit it's not even hidden under a button.

You're not entitled to any rewards just because you post to Steem.

Edit: I disagree with those huge downvotes on your particular post, but I'm tired of people whining about getting downvotes, so I might expressed myself a little harshly.
@agrostis(57)· 2470d
It's absolutely shameful of what they have done in down voting your post for "Is Bitcoin Useless?"

Using steemworld.org, I can see that it was what appears to be an organised group giving you a 'down vote bomb' ( as someone has termed it.

WHAT I FIND THE MOST ANNOYING IS THAT NOT ONE OF THEM LEFT A COMMENT TO SAY WHY!!!

Surely if they deem that something is wrong, they should give at least SEVERAL WARNINGS.

Now there appears to be censorship on STEEMIT - not what the blockchain was designed for.

Who do you complain to - Steemit Board?

I for one find your posts thought provoking and engaging.
@mehta(77)· 2470d
You are not only loosing faith in steem, there are lots of other steemians also.

You raised a correct question that why anyone/you invest in steem? That is the real question that everyone should think before investing in any place.

Lets hope for new HF solve this investment issue and steem find it new ways, otherwise no hope. You can see this in steem price movement.
@theycallmedan(80)· 2470d
Let em downvote I got your back. I am at steemfest just seeing this crap for the first time. Don’t worry Louis I appreciate what you do for steem and the content you make is top notch. You content won’t be collapsed again.
@javirid(56)· 2470d
If you leave Steem, I won't be missing you. I will still follow you on LBRY and tip you there when I think a video is worthy -as I have already done a few times-. I would miss the way you pronounce "cheers" at the end of your videos; something like /che-ers/, it sounds funny to my ears xDD

I agree on the downvotes problem. Then I realize that if I sell, I will do it on a loss, so I keep appearing over here.
@themarkymark(81)· 2470d
I am a big advocate of downvotes to prevent abuse and spam (and reward disagreement) but @pharesim and @ocdb downvotes have become incompetent.

They now have immense power (6-7M SP) with their delegated sp. It’s beyond reward disagreement and abuse fighting, It is them inconsistently deciding who is allowed to earn and how much and using scorch earth tactics to enact their whims.
@moon32walker(72)· 2470d
Wait a minute, don't you know how Steem works? It is a proof of brain system with free 2.5 free downvotes per day for every account. Free downvotes are required for abuse fighting and over rewarded low effort posts. It's just a system calibrating itself for more equal playing ground for all participants.

It's just a passing thing. You're not been censored, everyone can still see your post here and on Youtube. It is better to get used to downvotes instead of going berserk before truly understanding how daily Steem reward pool works, everyone has been downvoted here before, join the club.

Also if you ever want to leave, someone else will take your place. Blockchain has no feelings.
@mikenevitt(62)· 2470d
Well Louis my thoughts are it is wrong, basically if someone has a lot more money than you they can cause you to possibly lose money. Cheers mike

Bloody hell I’ve just had a look it disgusting you need to speak to this person
@nealmcspadden(74)· 2470d
It isn't censorship. It is a few people being assholes.

Steem-blogging lacks property rights and the freedom of (dis)association. You don't have the ability to disengage with people. And that's why steem-blogging cannot work. When 5 mentally unstable people can ruin the experience for thousands of other users, it's just going to fail.

The silver lining is that tribes (and hopefully communities) do have property rights. If someone is being a jackass on palnet or steemleo or any of the other tribes, they can just be muted by the community leaders. So while steem-blogging can't work, tribes and communities at least have the possibility of working.
@e-r-k-a-n(66)· 2470d
Dovnvotes is the new Upvote..New Steem ist killing steem
@bitcoinman(78)· 2470d
Not a fan of this latest update, got to be a better way around it and the good news is that this all can change , and I think it should whales need to be kept it check somehow too

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@markkujantunen(77)· 2470d
I think you're overreacting this time. You're not being censored on Steem. Nothing short of a hardfork can censor anything from the Steem blockchain. You haven't even been censored from steemit.com. You post is still visible on that particular front end when the viewer clicks on the button that says "Show" on it. The Steem blockchain retains everything. Even all the posts made by the criminal group that had stolen papers on 9/11 that extorted BTC from the victims are still on chain. None of the blogging front ends show anything posted by that account but with the right tools anyone can still access those posts.

All the other front ends including SteemPeak show that post of yours completely normally.

What you got was a one-time downvote bomb the basis of which was disagreement on rewards. You have been earning extraordinarily well on Steem. Even in this horrible bear market when the price of STEEM is at what I hope proves to be the rock bottom, your posts have consistently earned tens of dollars worth of STEEM. The money you have invested is dwarfed by the money you have earned here. Your Steem Power has remained at about 5000 for over a year despite your massive earnings. Steem has been a place to earn for you, not something to invest money in. It seems to me based on your posts that you don't put much stock in anything but Bitcoin and Ethereum. Altcoins are a minor part of your portfolio. Disagreement over rewards has been considered a valid reason for downvoting since day one. What you experienced was a downvoting bomb based on that reason. Perhaps @ocdb curators feel that such a short video wasn't worth the high rewards it was getting.

You are not being censored or victimized. And I'm betting that even if you earned 10% of what you have earned so far per post, it would still make perfect sense for you to make Steem posts out of your YouTube videos. You're not making any content exclusively for Steem, which means that no longer cross-posting your YouTube videos to Steem would mean not picking up some loose change available to you.

That said, I don't think that particular post should've been targeted with such huge downvotes. Some of the pending rewards should've been removed but not all of them and that post certainly didn't deserve to be downvoted that hard.

I'm really hoping you will continue. I don't think anyone intends to stop you from earning here. Besides, what else is there out there better than Steem in terms of earning from content? Scarcely anything even remotely as good. Sure you can earn on YouTube or Instagram if you have a massive following but for anyone not massively popular, they money on mainstream platforms is pitiful.
@msena(60)· 2470d
Downvote is now an evil idea. Your previous article was very important and totally an unique video. But I don't know why steem give us a downvote option..some whale totally absuse the system. Steem should be friendly...if they continue do it then nobody invest here. We love steem as we never left from here but something should be changed to take steem at it's real place.

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@uyobong(78)· 2470d
Really feeling for you especially when I follow your blog for Crypto investment related posts. However, downvotes can be reversed. You can chat with them on discord.

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Comments · 39

You raised a correct question that why anyone/you invest in steem? That is the real question that everyone should think before investing in any place.