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The ability to speak freely, not earn freely

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@tarazkp
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4 min read

Out of the woods? Maybe not quite yet, but it is nice to see that the Steem feed price has moved up from the adjusted 20 cents to 21 cents due to the price movement. Only another 40x to go to hit an All Time high!

Again, my small Steem sell was just a touch too high above the spike before the pullback. I even mentally set it first, and then lowered it slightly to try and trick it into being "on point", but no. I think someone is watching my trades...

Cryptonoia: the belief of crypto traders that their buy and sell points are being observed and avoided just to fuck with them.

I got a comment today with a hypothetical regarding downvoting (something they don't seem to like) that asked something like, Would I be okay if the Chinese Censorship Brigade bought a lot of Steem, increased their REP to 82 and then obliterated my account until it was -11 and hidden away.

Firstly, the number mentioned was 2 million Steem, but that wouldn't be enough to increase their Reputation significantly fast enough and that would be noticed. They would be better off buying a high rep account instead. I am sure Kingscrown would sell his and move onto one of his many alts. Secondly, that amount while significant, would still take an eternity to lower my rep to the auto grey point.

But anyway, let's say they buy 20 million instead.

Yeah, I would be okay with that. Firstly, it would create a nice bump in price and decrease liquid supply by 20%. I would even keep posting and make sure that they used as much VP as I could force them into using just for the fun of it. I would be very interested to see how the community would react and if the tools of decentralization are robust enough to counter.

But more than that, I would like to see how price would cope and if SMTs came into play in the way that they could and provide an uncageable decentralized animal. The thing is, that if an account was able to affect the decentralization so heavily, Steem loses its value. But to do so, that "Chinese account" would have to be able to corrupt all consensus witnesses. The moment that happens, the blockchain gets copied and a new blockchain with new witnesses springs into life, or the old ones that were forced out of Steem.

But, this and a million other things aside....

This isn't censorship!!!

 

The blockchain would keep recording my posts and comments as long as I have the possibility to post and comment. To censor me from Steem they would have to stop me from posting and commenting, which would mean forking me out in a centralized manner, and the project is dead anyway.

Steem is censorship resistant and as I said in replies, there are many front ends that do not even grey downvoted to oblivion posts and, anyone can make another. People seem to commonly call downvoting censorship when what they actually are doing is piggybacking another aspect of the blockchain onto their "claim". Earnings.

While anyone can essentially say whatever they want on the Steem blockchain, meaning they have freedom of speech - Freedom of Speech doesn't come with the addition of freedom to earn on what is said. Pull your head out of your arses, if you think that your freedom to speak also includes your earnings.

If for example, you choose not to speak what you want because it will cost you votes or your stupid reputation, that is on you and perhaps you should reflect on how strong and how much you believe your own convictions. If your freedom is affected by your need to earn - you are not free.

Then there is the other thing. What the fuck do I say that is so important that censorship even matters to me? I do not believe that anything I say here is so important that it truly matters if I got censored or not - how full of themselves are people these days - Perhaps there are lots of people who think they are Jesus reincarnated or something.

Don't get me wrong here, people can and are being censored on the centralized platforms like Twitter and YouTube, because they do not for whatever reason forward the agenda of the platform. People need to remember something. Ready???

All of these platforms are opt-in and your account is not owned by you. Ever.

 

You are choosing to agree to their terms and conditions and, they can kick you the fuck out of their house while under their digital roof whenever the fuck they want to. You are censored on their platform - not in your walking life.

And then there is Steem

 

Steem is an opt-in platform too and on Steem I own my account, which means it is very difficult for anyone to take away my ability to speak here, even if many could take away my ability to earn here. Censorship resistance is not overly important to me personally, but I love that this is available to anyone who opts themselves into Steem, which is why I keep opting myself in. Once here, people's words are protected by dozens of witnesses spread around the world, and tens of thousands of accounts that have stake in the future of the platform.

Essentially, if one is worried about being censored,

Steem is currently the only place to be online.

 

I would rather have my account obliterated here through a highly convoluted, complicated and very expensive process than -

have it deleted at the click of a button anywhere else.

 

But, that is just me.

and this is Steem

 

So, you can speak for yourself.

Taraz [ a Steem original ]

Posted via Steemleo