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By censoring the API (application programming interface). For more information, read Report about Steemit's detoriation by @lapingvino.

I still don't understand why you'd ever need to use the Steem API when you're running a node and have all the information right there on your own server.

I'm thinking this as well, but I don't know enough about API's to comment much lol

I'm not sure. At the API level, I think.