The other day, I entered a post to participate in a giveaway. Not for the prize, which was a token, but just to have a little fun and leave a silly comment. Suddenly, I realized that Hivewatchers had left a threatening comment asking them to reject their winnings. But what surprised me was that it was only 0.25 cents in author rewards. It's like the police chasing someone for selling a couple of lemons on the street without a permit. It's ridiculous; the police aren't there for that.
So I called them out in a comment. The first thing they did was try to intimidate me. Then they went on to falsely accuse me without any evidence, and finally, they threatened me if I continued to freely express my opinion.
The work Hivewatchers does is shameful. I spent a while browsing their comments to see who they were working against. Besides intimidating newcomers. The fact that the first greeting you get when you arrive somewhere is the police doesn't encourage you to keep posting. I wanted to see if I was wrong, and I wasn't. I made a random compilation of seven performances. What do they all have in common? None of them earned more than 10 cents in author rewards.
Incredible, right? Hivewatchers charges $95 a day from the DHF. At that rate, they'd have to intervene 950 times a day, or, what amounts to the same thing, almost one performance per minute, for it to be neutral. I'm telling you, they're not doing that. But the most serious thing is that they're killing flies with cannonballs using everyone's money. They don't go after the powerful, but rather, they go after political rivals, so to speak. I've seen many articles lately from users complaining about their overzealousness. For example, that the publications have to have more than 300 words (Hivewatchers wants you to write doctoral theses) or that they are low-effort publications (as if it were possible to measure the effort of others) they also accuse them of using AI but without providing any proof (but they have always used bots to do their work) they also accuse people of farming (but the whales that support them vote for a very small circle of people. That should not be farming. Some even burn Hive to avoid sharing anything with the community).
In their last reply to my comment, they asked me for proof that they're not going against the powerful. I think it's pretty obvious to any impartial person who's been on Hive for more than a month, but I'll give some examples. I won't name names because I don't want to single anyone out, but they're pretty easy to find.
User A: Post of less than 500 words in two languages, or less than 250 words. A trivial topic with no contributions. More than $10 in rewards. User B: Post about a curation community, about 600 words, but almost all copy-pasted and a summary of the curations. More than $5 in rewards. User C: Post of less than 300 words, only asking questions to the community and using funny, unfunny images. Almost $20 in rewards. User D: Post of less than 90 words about toys, almost $30 in rewards. User E: Post about a large curation community, with almost the entire text copied and pasted. More than $13. Their posts are daily. This one is voted for daily by hivewatchers or their clones. User F, my favorite, is a 90-word post about kittens (I love kittens), earning no less than $90 in profit.
I could go on all day because there are many more examples, but I think it's clear that @hivewatchers does a poor job at the very least. My personal opinion is that they do excellent work on behalf of the powerful in exchange for money.