In a recent post, Jerry Banfield, Down-Voting & Freedom of Speech, I specifically discussed the recent Whale Meltdown regarding Banfield, arguably Steemit's "most visible" member, and the issue of down-voting as a means of censorship in general. 

I received numerous excellent comments. One of them was from @fionasfavourites (incidentally, an excellent writer). In her comment, she described a recent spate of auto-downvoting abuse to which she, and many others, had fallen prey. 

I've had all my recent posts downvoted by the current crop of downvoting bots that have overrun steemit in the last few days. One of these had been written as a tribute to a young woman killed in a car accident a few days earlier. Another was a food picture and the third, which has had more than one downvote, was about our cats, one of which has recently had to be sent to cat heaven. 

She subsequently sent me a hyperlink to an article by @guiltyparties (a Witness) respecting the incident. Having read through the comments section of that post, I decided to create a post about an idea I believe would end down-voting abuse, in whatever form, immediately. 

In the aforementioned article about Banfield, I argued that down-voting should be used to police "Offensive Behaviors" but never "Offensive Speech." I invite you to read the article to understand my rationale (and be sure to read the comments section as well ... there's some excellent, and very well-written, commentary).

Anarchy & Cryptocurrencies

One of the problems with the world of cryptocurrencies is that they were, for the most part, created by people who call them, "anarchists." Anarchist derives from the word "anarchy," which is a synonym for "chaos." It's hard to sell people on the idea that chaos is a good thing, so the words FREEDOM & LIBERTY are trotted out to reframe the debate. It's the oldest rhetorical trick in the book, invented by the ancient Athenians.

But, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," as Shakespeare reminds us. Calling a dog a cat changes nothing of its essential nature. Chaos is chaos. Steemit has a lot of problems that stem from the fact that there are very few Rules of Conduct. I am a political and philosophical Centrist. What that means is that I don't care about ideology, in fact, I'm highly suspicious of it. I am a card-carrying member of the Church of Whatever Works. I don't care about the pedigree of an idea (Right, Left or Center). What I care about is whether it makes sense, and whether it actually solves the problem at hand.

Steemit and Down-Voting Abuse

Steemit is a blockchain whose very raison d'etre is the Monetization of Content. And so, when content starts getting demonetized for any reason other than "Offensive Behaviors," we've got a problem. Specifically, when it's used to punish "Offensive Speech," we enter into the realm of Speech Suppression and thereby create the justification for a competing cryptocurrency-backed blockchain.

The problem, of course, is that what constitutes, "Offensive Behavior," is subjective. Abusively, anything could be called, "Offensive Behavior," just as many activists now call anything they disagree with, "Hate Speech." So, how do we solve this seemingly intractable problem? I would submit, the same way it's been solved for over a thousand years in the real world ... a jury of your peers.

Let A Jury Decide

Let's say that @trumpsmyhero creates a post supporting Trump. @theresistence doesn't bloody well like it. And, in his world, anyone who supports Trump must be punished ... because any such support, in and of itself, is immoral. @theresistence believes in de-platforming Trump supporters, silencing them so that their ideas, ideals and insights cannot be heard, and doesn't give a hoot if this constitutes Speech Suppression. 

And so, @theresistence downvotes @trumpsmyhero's post.

There was nothing in @trumpsmyhero's post that would constitute "Offensive Behavior." It wasn't spam, a scam and there was no bid-bot abuse. It did not physically threaten anyone and did not untruthfully disparage anyone's reputation. And so, @trumpsmyhero feels that the downvote was abusive and decides to hit the newly-created Appeal Button.

The Appellate Process

An Appeals Request is randomly sent to three Steemians ("Jurists") with reputation scores above 35 (they're not complete newbies). To ensure there will be no retaliation from either @trumpsmyhero or @theresistence, the identity of such Steemians is kept anonymous (see the Note below). Further, the names of the two disputants are blanked out so as not to unduly influence the Jurists.  

The three Jurists review the post and the rationale for the down-vote, as articulated in the Down-Vote Justification Form below:

The Jurists will have two choices about how to proceed:

1. Support the Down-Vote, in which case the down-vote stands ... but the down-vote gets doubled. The reason for the doubling is that the poster wasted 3 Steemians time with a spurious Appeal when he/she knew that he/she was guilty. This is necessary as, without it, every down-vote will be Appealed. 

2. Overturn the Down-Vote, in which case the down-vote is erased from the author's post ... and is instead applied to the down-voter's account, adversely effecting the next post, or posts, that the down-voter makes, until the full amount of the down-vote has been used up. This is to punish the down-voter for down-voting a post with no motivation other than censorship ... Speech Suppression. 

Note: As everything that occurs on the blockchain is publicly accessible, this would have to be built into a non-publicly-accessible side-chain, or, off the blockchain entirely (like Discord), so as to ensure anonymity of the Jurists and prevent retaliation. 

Preserving The Argument

The argument in favor of down-voting posts is that it is the only tool of coercion available to enforce compliance with community standards. And, I agree ... with respect to "Offensive Behaviors." 

If one spends a few hours watching the Steemit-promotional videos that run on YouTube and Facebook, one of the selling points for the blockchain, that everybody touts, is the absence of censorship. "Unlike YouTube, you won't be demonetized because a group of advertisers doesn't like your content." 

That's baloney, and we all know it.

Unless it's the result of "Offensive Behaviors," down-voting is demonetization and demonetization is censorship. A rose is a rose.

Pandora's Box

At present, the subject-matter concentration of Steemit posts don't even faintly resemble the subject-matter concentrations of the other major social media platforms. Cryptocurrency- and photo-related posts are, for example, dramatically over-represented and politics- and celebrity-related posts are dramatically under-represented.

As Steemit grows, this will change. 

As it does, the number of posts dealing with controversial subjects will undoubtedly increase by orders of magnitude. If Speech Suppression is a growing problem now, just wait. What happens when the Social Justice Warriors decide to silence conservatives and when conservatives decide to band together and retaliate? What happens when each side recruits a few whales? Or brings in a few from the outside?

Pandemonium. 

There's a reason Pandora's Box ... had a lid. 

Quill.

This is an extremely important issue, effecting the very essence of the blockchain. 

So please ... ReSteem this Post. 

We need to hear what everyone thinks. 

And that includes you. You know the drill, Comment away ... but No Down-Voting!!!

*****

AND 

Stay tuned for upcoming Articles in this Series about Steemit's Systemic Problems ...

and my ideas on how to fix them.