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Beware the Blockchain Police

It seems as if everyone is talking now about @hivewatchers and their policies in policing the HIVE blockchain from content that doesn't meet certain criteria. Some of the criteria I completely understand and appreciate, others may be a bit too strict in my opinion. Mostly, I'm concerned that there is no 'check' in power for the internet police. It could be argued that the most they can do is grey out your content, damage your reputation and deny your rewards.

That means that cancel culture is possible, even on the immutable blockchain. Especially on the blockchain.

SGS Weighs in On Hive Rules

Our beloved @dfinney, who has been managing SGS for a long time now, has some things to say about rules, blacklists, self-regulation, etc. The SGS community hasn't talked much about this, so I suppose it is good to begin the discussion. Check out her "rant" here:

https://hive.blog/hive-136819/@myprecious/unofficial-silvergoldstackers-post-but-please-read-me-anyway

Silver Gold Stackers

I'm glad to have been a part of SGS since it's formation back in the SSG (Steem Silver Gold) days. I've been leery of "policing" accounts and initiatives, I've always felt that they could grow unnoticed and seen as a benevolent feature, but then change their standards and become a personal or political tool for whomever owns the keys. It could be as simple as "you don't cite your images well enough" or "that looks like AI content". If the standard was "I don't like your post" what's to stop them?

Self-Regulating or Staying out of Trouble

I believe in self-regulating, but I also believe in decentralized regulation. Rather than one account in charge of determining post quality, the community of curators should regulate quality. Either by NOT upvoting or by downvoting. The whole idea of a decentralized blockchain is decentralized curations!

Plagiarism

This is an easy one. Nobody should CTRL-C a news article and post it for rewards. There are a few skills required to mine HIVE from content and one of them is the ability to think and to type. That's what I'm doing right now. Thinking and typing. Not copying and pasting. There are times when content can and should be cited (using the convenient copy/past feature) and as long as it's credited, sourced and is less than 50% of the post, it's not a problem.

Identity Theft

This is a big one. Early in the STEEM days, while it was all the rage and people were joining like crazy, there was a problem with impersonations. People would open STEEM accounts in the names of famous actors or celebrities and copy their twitter content to STEEM. People figured it out fairly quickly and the impersonators quickly gave up. It wasn't worth the pennies. Sadly real celebrities also didn't join HIVE or become active for the same reason. Too niche.

This is why at the foot of all my posts is a "proof-of-personage" stating who I am and that I am not a fictional character. Could having my real name on the blockchain be a problem some day? Maybe, but at least I'm being real. In a world of fakey fake, real is a very valuable proposition.

Improper sourcing

I feel this is a sticking point, while it's wrong to steal intellectual property, images and other content from other people, we live in an age where once a photo is online and public, it seems to be considered fair game. Should it be this way? No. But the reality is this is how the internet works. Because content on HIVE is monetized (to a certain extent) sourcing standards should be carefully observed.

Recycling posts

This standard makes me sad. I understand it might be considered 'lazy' reposting an old post, but if it's a quality post, the effort has already been spent. Audiences change over the years. By never reposting, your new following will never have the opportunity to support previous original content from months or years past. Yes, we could link to them, reference them, but there is no way to reward from them anymore. I don't make it a practice to recycle old posts, but I've always thought that option would be there to keep the current feed vibrant and interesting.

Using AI

When I was learning math long ago, it made my head hurt. I would do my multiplication and long-division. I would show my work. Then I discovered a tool that I didn't know existed before: a calculator. When is the last time I did any math on paper? What's the point, when I can push some buttons and get the correct answer?

I think the same will happen with AI. Right now we do our content generation on 'paper', we show our work. Now a tool is becoming available to us that means we won't have to do our "math" on paper anymore, the tool will do the work for us. Just as most people grab a calculator to do calculations, most will grab their AI to do their blog posts. Why extend mental energy writing a blog post when pushing some buttons will do the same thing only better!

Should we be rewarded on the blockchain for AI generated content? No, I don't think that's fair at all. Will many people be rewarded for AI generated content? Yes, because 90% of the content will be AI generated. For every 1 real blogger, there will be 10 AI accounts. We live in a fake world, it makes sense that fake content will eventually dominate the internet and even the blockchain. I don't like it, I think it's wrong. I don't think we should go there. I also think it's inevitable.

Just because everyone else is doing it, you shouldn't do it. Just because it becomes impossible to stop or punish, doesn't make it ok to use.

One photo minimal words posts

This is just lazy.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST EVERY DAY

Posting every day is not lazy.

There is no requirement to post every day, especially for users who are just getting started. It might be better to write 2 or 3 high-quality posts a week rather than seven sub-par posts. For the goal-setters however, it's usually in their best interest to post daily, not to exploit rewards but to establish good habits that will lead to achieving their goals. I post daily, but only do a SGS post twice a week or less. I make sure the SGS posts are legit, photos of my own property, usually getting feedback from the curators, engaging with questions so I may interact with them - I believe this is the heart of the HIVE ecosystem. ENGAGEMENT. Daily posting opens more doors for daily engagement, which is (in my opinion) what makes this blockchain worth the time.

Cutting Corners

If you are cutting corners on Hive, I hope that you will rethink your choices.

Back in the STEEM days, when the token was over $1.00, the standards of posting were borderline extreme. One one hand, there were a lot of garbage comments and vote begging "upvote me dear, I'll upvote you", I'm glad to see that has gone away. But one thing I do not miss is the post scrutinizing. I remember posting and worrying about all the perceived "shortcuts" that would be criticized.

Eventually this "corner cutting" will become normalized and go un-noticed. It's wrong now and it will be wrong later too, but once AI content generated voting rings are established, there will be no stopping them - that is unless the community gets involved and downvotes garbage like this.

But for now, we have "big owl" looking over us, ensuring we stay in line.

What Do You Think?

Should we have centralized content regulation? Who should be responsible for chasing the cheats off the platform? Should there be a "jury of peers" to judge the quality and legitimacy of content? Or do we prefer a BIG OWL watching over us?

BIG BROTHER IMAGE SOURCE
HIVEWATCHERS IMAGE SOURCE
SILVER GOLD STACKERS IMAGE SOURCE

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Benjamin Turner: God fearer. Rooted in Messiah. Husband of @lturner. Father of SIX wonderful children. The guy behind the camera. Blockchain enthusiast.

Bless the Most High!

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