Intro
It's been well established that steemit.com has been censoring content, they even admit it. I think the community has more than established that we reject this behavior and most of us are moving on to Hive. I have an idea to make use of our STEEM accounts that would otherwise remain dormant and I'm looking for the community's feedback to see if this makes sense.
My Update
Obviously, I've been pretty quiet around here. There's a much bigger story behind this, but life has asked a LOT out of me for nearly two years and now my life has been turned upside down. I've been doing a variety of consulting projects and I've admittedly gotten a little lazy and have found all of my eggs in one basket as nearly all of my income comes from one client. This client runs a travel agency.
Now, with corona virus, they are literally out of business and have stopped all of my work. As I reach out to old clients and pursue new projects, I'm seeing a lot of panic and worry and I'm starting to worry that life is going to become much more difficult as I have not found any new work to replace that income.
I believed in STEEM, but had real concerns that have amazingly mostly been removed with Hive. I'm excited to get active again and see if I can find some cool projects to work on with Hive. I guess this is my farewell gift to STEEM.
Fill the chain with censored content
In the simplest sense, I propose that we start reposting everything that Steemit decides to censor. They literally list the post_ids and accounts in github so it's not too difficult to find the missing posts.
Now, I found that there is no API call to pass a post_id and get the post so finding these hasn't been simple. If anyone knows a way to get posts by post_id please let me know.
I have put together a database of 45 censored posts and I want to keep adding more as this continues. I want to get some validation from the community before I take this all the way so for now I'm picking just a handful of posts to start.
I'm going to repost these with the tag #censoredpost along with a link to the original post. For now, I'm doing this mostly manual, but if there's a lot of interest, I could write some scripts to automate the posting so everyone can repost this stuff and fill the chain.
For now, I'm going to include the data for those posts I'm reposting so anyone can jump in now.
Let's do everything we can to push back against the tyranny of censorship.
Posts to repost
Just to be clear, repost these to the STEEM blockchain, not on HIVE please.
Title: #censoredpost repost - Steemit Inc now censors posts from the UI
Original post: https://www.steempeak.com/@themarkymark/steemit-inc-now-censors-posts-from-the-ui
Tags: censoredpost, steem, censorship, justinsun, newsteemitinc, hive, palnet, neoxian
As you may have heard, there is a fork tomorrow to start a new chain called Hive. You can read all about it in the announcement post [here](https://steempeak.com/communityfork/@hiveio/announcing-the-launch-of-hive-blockchain).
If you are still using Steemit.com, this post will be censored and blocked from showing up.
# Steemit View
# Steempeak View
Many users have completely switched to using Steempeak because of concerns what Steemit Inc (aka Justin Sun) may do. This is a good example of what we feared would happen.
If you continue to use Steemit.com you may not have access to all content on the blockchain. I also noticed this morning my account was set into Korean mode and I had to fumble around to switch it back.
The list of posts blacklisted is growing. You can see the code related to this change and how they implemented the blacklist on [GitHub](https://github.com/steemit/condenser/compare/bridge-api-dev...bridge-api-dev-test).
Some of the posts that have been filtered out of the UI
```
https://steemit.com/@anyx/it-s-time-to-decentralize
https://steemit.com/@hiveio/announcing-the-launch-of-hive-blockchain
https://steemit.com/@steempeak/hive-and-url-changes
https://steemit.com/@steemitboard/steemitboard-shutdown-by-justin-sun
https://steemit.com/@roelandp/fork-you-hello-hive-my-new-home-are-you-coming-along-the-place-will-be-buzzing
https://steemit.com/@coruscate/acwmtxdz
https://steemit.com/@blocktrades/why-i-won-t-be-compromising-with-justin-sun
https://steemit.com/@andrarchy/i-support-hive
https://steemit.com/@smooth/hive-fork-announcement-smooth-and-burnpost
https://steemit.com/@taskmaster4450/hive-to-go-live-friday-sometimes-a-step-back-is-a-step-forward
```
Title: #censoredpost repost - Why I won’t be compromising with Justin Sun
Original post: https://www.steempeak.com/@blocktrades/why-i-won-t-be-compromising-with-justin-sun
Tags: censoredpost, steemit, cryptocurrency
At this point, it seems like most of the community is in agreement on one thing: they don’t want Justin Sun here. The primary disagreement seems to be how to achieve that. From what I’ve been told, even Justin himself has said he doesn’t want to be here. He just wants to get paid to leave.
So the purpose of this post is to list the reasons why I don’t think it’s a good idea to pay him to leave and why I won’t be participating in any such deal via coding support, money (among other ideas, I’ve been told via intermediaries that Justin would happily sell Steemit to me now), or even as a simple endorsement of a deal.
What’s the value of Steemit Inc now?
# In my opinion, Steemit Inc has nearly zero value now
### Wait, what about the Steemit stake it holds?
While it controls a stake with a quoted value of many millions, it will never be possible to realize that value now. My best guess is that it is worth around $200K USD, and that's only if the owner considers it ethical to dump the stake that was promised for development. My estimate of its dump value being so low is because it can only be dumped slowly, which will give the market time to see what's coming.
This is also one of the big reasons why Justin is lobbying to get the powerdown rate changed to something like a day. The faster he can dump it, the more value he can get from gullible buyers who think they are getting coins cheaply, never understanding that the coins they are buying will never regain their value, because all the value is going to leave (more on this point shortly). Time is not on his side in such a dump, because the more information people have, the more they will realize that what he’s selling won’t be worth buying.
As a side note, all the above is one reason Steemit got sold to Justin to begin with, in my opinion. Ned has dealt with Steem long enough to know that he was unlikely to extract the value just by dumping it and he didn’t have a plan for how to profit by using it for development (he tried that and failed already). So instead he sold the company for less than half the value of the Steemit stake and was happy with the deal.
### Wait, what about the IP and developers?
When Justin acquired it, Steemit absolutely had some strong value, in the form of intellectual property, branding, and experienced blockchain and frontend developers. But now, all the developers he acquired are gone (they’ve all quit).
### Branding, good will?
Despite all the mistakes it has made, Steemit Inc also had some good branding and good will from its role in starting the Steem blockchain. But almost immediately, Justin began destroying that via his public statements and actions. I don’t want to rehash that, because almost everyone else has already deeply analyzed those actions (most reasonably with a few bizarre exceptions).
At this point, Steemit Inc itself has no community to support the value of a coin it controls: the only community here is the Steem community, not the Steemit community, and it mostly wants nothing to do with Justin (some are even willing to pay him to leave).
# What option does the Steem community have if it won’t compromise?
Before long, we will launch a new coin that is essentially a re-branded hardfork of Steem, airdropped on all Steemians, without airdropping to the Steemit stake. This new chain will maintain all our collected posts and our transaction info and will support all the same Dapps we’ve come to know and love.
I believe all the economic value will move to this new chain and the chain with Justin's stake will ultimately just die. He can keep his chain running for a while, trying to find uninformed people to sell it to, but it’s not going to last long with no devs, no real plan from Justin on how to keep it alive, and most of all, no community to support it.
In other words, I believe the value in your existing Steem coin account will migrate to a value in this new coin. And I believe the value (i.e. the price) of the existing chain will just drop as Justin dumps on that chain.
I see this as a big win for the community and particularly existing Steem holders, as we free ourselves from an entity that has just been dumping on us economically for a long time, without properly returning that value with enough technical development or publicity.
Another cool thing, from a marketing perspective, is we will be a literal demonstration of how a community is what gives a coin value. We should make every effort to capitalize on this in cryptocurrency media, just as we’ve done so far in our DPOS vote fight with Justin.
# Does the community have the skills to operate a blockchain?
We have more developers committing to work on this new chain than we’ve ever had before. We already have a team of 36 experienced developers, including key devs that were involved in the initial development and maintenance of Steem. And new developers are joining us daily. By contrast, from what I know, Steemit had 4 devs, and currently has none at all.
And we don’t just have devs, we have marketing people, business people, artists, and idealists. Our combined efforts can do far more than a narrow-minded, profit-driven Steemit ever dreamed possible. As many here know, the community constantly reached out to try to help Steemit, and was continually rebuffed. We plan to be be the opposite of that, with an all-inclusive, decentralized approach to development, marketing, and on-boarding.
# Does the community have the resources to launch a blockchain?
Yes, we do. It’s actually much easier for us to launch a chain, because of the many lessons we’ve had operating the Steem blockchain. And as far as financial resources go, several prominent Steem stakeholders have privately offered both computing resources and significant financial support, including my own company, BlockTrades. Even at this early stage, I’m utterly convinced we have sufficient support to launch and develop this new blockchain.
We’re also already hard at work lowering the costs of operating the servers that power the Steem ecosystem (web sites and Dapps). We’ve identified key areas where we can dramatically reduce operating costs over the costs paid by Steemit and we’ll be ready by launch to deploy these higher efficiency API nodes and services.
# But isn’t compromise always better?
One of the first things we’re taught as children and often taught again in life, is the importance of compromise. Generally speaking, compromise is often a good idea. But compromise is not always the right choice: 1) it usually fails when you can't trust the other party to keep a compromise agreement and 2) it doesn't make sense to compromise if the resulting value trade is uneven. Both of these apply in this case, I believe.
Making any kind of deal with Justin at this point would just be a case of handing over dollars that we can use for development to a guy who can still go after Ned for financial restitution as well. Any payment to Justin represents both an economic loss to us and a potential financial win for him (since if we pay him off to leave, he can even potentially profit off a legal recovery from Ned too). From both an economic and moral perspective, it makes no sense to compromise with Justin.
# What about exchange listings?
Some of our community depends on the ability to translate their Steem into fiat money. They will not be forgotten in this move. To protect them, we will need to get exchange listings. We’ve been in promising talks with some exchanges already, without disclosing too many details to them, and I’m sure we will be able to obtain plenty of listings as we show that our chain is the true community chain. But no matter, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we have one exchange listing within days after launch.
# We win by fighting, not by compromising
The ongoing fight with Justin has been and will continue to be a huge publicity win for us. We are getting more publicity now than we have had in a long time.
Steem has long been ignored by most of the crypto-space as a failed project of Dan Larimer. We are now being giving the opportunity to show that the community we have is so much more than that, and that we can emerge under the umbrella of a new coin, as a dominant player in decentralized blockchain development. Our strength is the personal contacts we have with each other. We are not just strange looking addresses on a blockchain, we share more than just number transactions, we share ideas, beliefs, and fellowship with each other.
# More to come
Now, one thing I haven’t done here is lay out all the details of what we will do with our new, revitalized chain. There’s a lot of ideas for that, and some obvious first steps. But the long term plan is one we will need to build together. The important thing now is to align on what we value and how we want to approach the future. Not everyone on Steem may stick with us, and we have to accept that. But we should reach out where we can, if only to save them from losing money investing in a Justin-run chain (that is mostly why I’m writing this post now, even though I haven’t had a chance to express all of my own ideas or the ideas of others for future work).
Title: #censoredpost repost - It's Time to Decentralize
Original post: https://www.steempeak.com/@anyx/it-s-time-to-decentralize
Tags: censoredpost, hive, community
A lot has happened in the last few weeks. I personally just got off a 24 hour plane ride, dropping into a quarantined city. It is a stressful time for many of us.
These last few weeks on Steem have been historic. You may not have agreed with the temporary availability limit of the utility of the Steemit Inc dev fund. But you should certainly understand now, that that decision was enacted in attempt to stop the exact situation that immediately followed -- autocratic centralized control over the system.
A lot has happened since. As others have already explained, and most of you all have witnessed it first hand, I won't dive into those details. What matters now is how we proceed.
## The Community Matters
A long time ago in Steem, we had a very contentious hardfork: HF 17. I had posted [my thoughts on it here](https://steempeak.com/witness-category/@anyx/my-opinion-on-the-upcoming-v17-hardfork), and ended the note with my opinions on the political situation. With Steemit Inc. employees (@ned) swaying governance -- even lightly -- the ability to oppose the hard fork was difficult. After suggesting we consider the ramifications of that hard fork, I was voted out of my witness position by @ned, which [I wrote about here](https://steempeak.com/witness-category/@anyx/i-made-the-mistake-of-voicing-my-concerns-about-the-upcoming-hardfork).
During this era, the community rallied against the use of Steemit Inc. stake to influence governance on Steem. The community convinced Steemit employees to avoid voting on governance. However, the Steemit Inc. stake as well as the dev fund, still had the power to control the chain whenever they wished. In Canadian corporate law, [we have a notion of *de facto* and *de jure* control considerations](https://gowlingwlg.com/en/insights-resources/articles/2016/the-federal-court-of-appeal-clarifies-the-de-facto/), which means that their ability to unilaterally control the system -- regardless of their applied use of that control or not -- implies that they are in fact the sole controlling entity and owner of that system.
Despite our community voice, we have continued down the path of de-facto Steemit Inc. control. Over the past few years, we all pretended to be a decentralized system, and @ned let us play in the sandbox, so long as we stayed within the boundaries.
Under new hands, this control Steemit had was applied again -- and this time in total force. The community response was able to garner enough support together to oppose *total* centralized control and enter a stalemate, showing a clear sign: the community we have here is the true value of this system.
## The Importance of Decentralization
When we think about decentralization, many often think of "no single point of failure". Recently, @jesta [made excellent commentary here](https://twitter.com/Jesta187/status/1236402928849686530) in regards to our current situation, as well as the decentralization of a DPOS system. One quote I really like is the following; *"should a token holder controlling enough stake in a DPOS system be allowed to eliminate the system?"*
In my opinion, the situation today is even more clear. When it's not even a regular token holder, but the controller of the dev fund -- intended to promote the growth of the system -- is used to enact total autocratic control over the system, with intent to destroy or migrate it, that system no longer is functioning as a decentralized community driven one.
I have written a lot about decentralization in the past. Two posts worth a read are here:
- [What Makes a 'dApp' a 'dApp'?](https://steempeak.com/steem/@anyx/what-makes-a-dapp-a-dapp)
- [Fully Decentralizing dApps](https://steempeak.com/steem/@anyx/fully-decentralizing-dapps)
It is important to understand that a system that is centralized has no reason to use a DLT or a blockchain. These systems are designed with "anti-trust" in mind -- I do not have to trust you to interact with you in a trustable way, so long as the system remains secure. With an autocratic dev fund, and an iron grip on governance installing puppets and pawns, this system has failed. Like a failed state, this is a failed chain. This is not something worth continuing to support.
## My Infrastructure Shift
A system is only as good as the resources backing it. Running one of [the largest API nodes by volume](https://steempeak.com/steem/@anyx/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-steem-api), I know my infrastructure is important for the continuation of this community.
You can read more about my infrastructure in the SPS proposal post [here](https://steempeak.com/sps/@anyx/proposal-funding-for-anyx-io-infrastructure-recurrent-costs).
**After the airdrop, all `anyx.io` infrastructure will be pointing towards the new Hive blockchain.**
I am not a fan of politics. This is not a choice I make lightly. But I have no interest in supporting a system that is centralized.
I am also not tribalistic. As an academic, I enjoy discussing systems and their properties. It is no secret tha