As I browse the new and trending posts I have seen an increase in the number of disturbing conspiracy theory posts. The majority deal with vaccines and global warming but there are plenty of others. I thought about linking to some of the crazier ones but perhaps we are better-off if they don't get the views or attention the authors crave.
I'm hoping this trend doesn't continue but I also know that it is a tough thing to combat. The idea of Steemit filling up with anti-vaxxers and climate-change deniers who continuously feed off/upvote/resteem each other is unnerving to say the least. I'm well aware of their right to post and let their voice be heard but am I alone here? Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone else concerned?
I think the flat earthers are funny, crazy people trying to fall off the world.....
Saw a saying of theirs the other day "we have members all over the globe" they do know a globe is round right?
I think that is just the worlds largest troll movement =P
there's always been a lot of conspiracy theorists here (-:
Or ARE THEY.
Maybe the Steemian way of solving a problem like this would be to create a bot account to flag such posts. There are accounts whose only purpose is to upvote things, right? (e.g. originalworks).
Certainly an option
It would be nice to have some group / bot that would check sites like https://www.snopes.com/ and then mark posts that are spreading false information. Are there bots here that automatically flag things? What if the post could be marked as fiction, satire or "for entertainment purposes only"
"Has anyone else noticed this?"
Yes.
"Anyone else concerned?"
A lot of people are. But me? Not even a little.
Dude. I came to this platform knowing about this.... Don't worry.
You gotta have faith that the vast majority of people see these freaks as just as crazy as you do. The best defence against insane theories like this stuff is to let people see their ideas.
As to 'combating' this phenomenon: don't.
"The idea of Steemit filling up with anti-vaxxers and climate-change deniers who continuously feed off/upvote/resteem each other is unnerving to say the least."
Think of it this way: are you really complaining that a bunch of antisocial wierdos with insane theories are quarantining themselves away from society? That sounds like a problem that's solving itself.
Perhaps you are right...maybe I shouldn't freak out. They are just so tenacious and I hate to see their filth monetized 😭.
On the plus side it's pretty damned funny. A lot of their followers are just laughing at them. I know that's why I follow Alex Jones!
Yes Jones is always good for a laugh
I am afraid of what happened on twitter http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-found-more-russian-bots-trump-interacted-with-many-2018-1 with more than 50,000 bots spreading disinformation run by a government. Is there a system in place on steemit that would detect this sort of rebroadcasting?
But Steemit is different than Twitter.
One one thing that would slow them down is that it takes a lot of time to build up enough Steem to actually post lots of comments or posts.
People are more active here and I think they would find a way to counter the bots.
I'm not sure I agree. I think the risk of censorship far outweighs the risk posed by these... 'people'. Hell, I might even go so far as to say the purpose of this censorship isn't to crack down on them, it's to crack down on US.
That's going to be the effect either way. I recommend checking out Jimmy Dore or Kyle Kalinsky's videos on this phenomenon. A queer tendency is these measures tend to end up targeting the far left (RE: anyone left of Hitler) more than their intended targets...
Oh wait a second... I made a mistake here... You're concerned about the bots, not twitter??!
No. Nonononono. Dude. No. That's fake news.
There's been a concentrated siege on new media by the oligarchs to put up barriers in new media to prevent people from seeing the obvious.
"50,000 bots spreading disinformation run by a government."
Simply put:
Don't worry about this, it's literally 'fake news' as the right says. Hillary and Peter Douche are behind these measures, that should say enough.
I cannot stress enough how this is not a problem, and the 'solution' is literally worse than the problem could ever be, I beg you to reconsider.
It would me nice to figure out a way to refute the false conspiracies with links to factual references. But that is not always productive. So many people are playing the "but what about" game. (whataboutism).
I am afraid that it will become like twitter where well funded state actors are running huge bot and sock puppet networks to flood the information space with half truths.
Is there a way on Steemit to shut down bots that appear to be human that are spreading disinformation and upvoting their bot networks?
"Is there a way on Steemit to shut down bots that appear to be human that are spreading disinformation and upvoting their bot networks?"
You know that's literally, LITERALLY, against the express purpose of Steemit, right? You've come to the wrong place, if you want such a thing, even a little.
THe point of steemit is to be immune to any such action; it's written into its building blocks. No, it's absolutely impossible, and if it were: it'd be the ultimate corruption of the platform:
"Steem is a decentralized network that is operated by witnesses in jurisdictions around the world. All user
actions are publicly recorded on the blockchain, and can be publicly verified. This means that there is no
single entity that can censor content that is valued by STEEM holders.
Individual websites such as steemit.com may censor content on their particular site, but content published
on the blockchain is inherently broadcast traffic and mirrors all around the world may continue to make it
available.
Freedom of speech is the foundation of all other liberties and any infringement upon freedom of speech
undermines the only peaceful means of reaching consensus: discussion. Without free discussion voters
cannot be fully informed, and uninformed voters are a greater threat to society than losing the right to
vote. Censorship is a means of stealing votes through limiting public discourse. Steem is committed to
enabling free speech and building a free society."
https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't want you here, but if you're so afraid of these 'bots' and 'conspiracy theory wierdos' I'm afraid you're not going to have a good time here, as this is the entire purpose of the platform: to prevent anyone from having control over anyone else. I'm not going to say it done'st go over the top, honestly i think it does! But that's something I can live with, and God willing: I think it'll work.
You are right I was wrong. Steemit is different than Twitter and Facebook. I am still new here and still learning how this ecosystem works. I should learn more before I speak.
I noticed that bots here have effectively been "shutdown" because of the inherent nature of Steemit. I am speaking of spam bots. People individually call them out. That speaks to the decentralized nature of the system.
I really like that no one can hide their messaging on Twitter and Facebook people with money "advertisers" can send messaging that is not public. They can target individuals with tailored ads. On Steemit all is open.
Also steemit is decentralized. Right now twitter and facebook hide the information that would bring sunlight into their systems. They delete and censor for various powers in the world and then the public does not really know what is going on.
The other social media platforms like to sort information by how popular it is or how much ad revenue it brings in.
If there is a problem with bot spam I think the system and the people here can figure out how to take care of it. The spam bot activity I have found here seems to get starved off bandwidth wise or the witnesses find a way to slow them down.
Twitter makes it too easy to spin up bots and have them spewing 1000s of messages. it is much harder here.
" I should learn more before I speak."
Please! It's no problem, you had perfectly reasonable concerns, don't sweat it!
I joined around the same time as you, so I'm still learning too! ;)
Every growing platform is going to grow host to conspiracy theory types who are likely hoping they can dwell there without their ideas challanged/ their content deleted.
As for Anti- Vaxxers and deniers of climate change, while they are conspiracy theories at their core, they have too much public support by certain trustworthy names that it's almost "mainstream" even if most people don't really believe it.
Sad but true