Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, twitter, Internet Forums and the like all share one thing in common: they attract internet trolls.
What is an internet troll? According to wikipedia:
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response, or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement.
But why do these sites attract internet trolls? Is it the anonymity of the internet?
I would argue that it is not necessarily the anonymity alone that causes people to become trolls, but that these websites all exist in a way that numbs our ability to empathize and/or sympathize with the people we are talking to. Just like the real life sociopath who has less activity in parts of their brain that help them see themselves as others might see, and to have emotional empathy (to feel what others are feeling), I would argue that mainstream social platforms have the same effect on most regular people who would otherwise be good people.
All the normal queues that our brains are given when speaking to people face to face, or even on the telephone, seem to lie dormant while conversing with others on the internet, especially if we have never talked to them in person. At the same time, our reward systems (i.e. dopamine) seem to heighten, and our inhibitions can come down as we seek that short term reward.
While I am only hypothesizing as to the cause, I do believe that we are hardwired genetically for direct contact with each other, and the internet does not provide the social queues necessary in a lot of people to trigger certain brain functions - almost like getting whacked in the head with a flying baseball would hurt most people, while getting hit in the head with a dry sponge might only effect those who are already very sensitive and cause their nervous system to react wildly (despite not actually being hurt), and leave anyone else unphased.
But I digress. Anti-social behavior and disorders are topics left to experts who study the most extreme of these people on a daily basis.
So what makes Steemit different in this regard? Can a troll even exist on this platform for very long?
I believe that the very thing that generally makes people act horribly, is actually what stops people from being an ass on Steemit; that thing (I believe) is monetary reward.
It just so happens that money has a profound impact on our internal reward systems, so much so that people will be motivated to be mindful of others on Steemit; or at the very least not be a troll.
On Facebook, Twatter, Reddit etc., you can ignore someone, but big whoop - why do they care? They can even make 100 more accounts and troll you incessantly. Once a troll gets a taste for someone's reaction, they are then caught in their own reward loop, being fed by the reaction of the other person. This is known as "feeding" a troll, and it's why you will often hear people say "do not feed the trolls."
On Steemit, you get one free account with a little bit of steem power delegated to it from the pool. If you want another account for whatever reason, you have to buy it, and it comes with no starter delegation. This alone makes having an account feel or seem like a privilege, not a right.
With Steemit, the attraction is greatest for content producers, and that content includes commenting, which is considered a post that can gain SBD and Steem power too. Once you get a taste for the monetary reward on Steemit, you are not going to jeopardize that by being a troll because you will get flagged, downvoted, ignored, and receive no reward whatsoever. It's an air-tight system for the most part.
If someone was a jerk and they just couldn't help themselves, they could still buy a bunch of steem, power up, write posts that offends everyone and no one (because everyone ignores them), upvote themselves and still "solo" their way up. But a person would have to be extremely dense to even want to do this, because interacting with the platform, even if you were being completely fake and pretending to be nice, would still be far more rewarding.
At the end of the day, we are motivated to do things via our internal reward system. The difference between someone who goes jogging everyday, and someone who passes out in an alleyway with a needle dangling from their arm, is mostly external. on the inside, both are seeking and obtaining a reward that makes them feel really good.
I believe the same can be said for social interaction on the internet. The difference between a pro-social and anti-social person online is mostly external. You can be positive or negative in a social setting, and your reward system will follow suit. On Steemit, the reward just so happens to be first and foremost monetary, which requires everyone to be on their best behavior... at least in a way that doesn't get in the way of getting upvotes and/or followers.
To the real life sociopath, Steemit may seem like a game where everyone is being "fake nice," where people are either smart and leveraging the system, or being stupid and not "getting it," but even they could not deny that you cannot survive on this platform very long if you seek to aggravate other users deliberately.
But this solution to an old problem leads to other new problems. Spammers, fakers and plagiarizers are then the "new" trolls of this platform, the ones who eat into the reward pool that should be rightly going to Steemians that put a lot of effort into their posts. The backlash to this problem can sometimes lead to witch hunts, which in turn can attract a completely new type of online user that is even worse than a troll - someone with a sadistic personality disorder that aggressively brawls their way into the open, and starts pointing their finger at anyone who is not following some new unwritten rule. These bad actors are like a misguided knight, honoring their own selfish chaotic sense of justice, even if their own actions are worse than what they are trying to fight.
These unstable aggressors are very real on this platform (albeit very rare, I've only encountered one), but luckily most are not big enough to cause damage to anyone but themselves. In the end, they too get ignored and forfeit any reward they could be getting if they valued it.
It's one thing to go after those that damage or harm the platform with scams or phishing expeditions - they need to be down-voted into oblivion - but it's entirely another thing to aggressively target a large swath of people in a show of bravado and dominance. That garbage works in street gangs and on Facebook or Reddit, but not here on Steemit. Nobody does, and nobody will really "own" the platform and dictate rules. The day that occurs, the platform dies and Steem becomes worthless.
But that's why Steemit is so great. Centralization of power only leads to an implosion, so anyone with a lot of Steem Power still has to be careful not to upset the apple cart.
I believe Steemit is the template for social media as the internet moves forward. I honestly have no motivation to hang out on Facebook unless it's to converse with close friends or family. Those places attract the worst of human behavior in everyone, and advertisers and shareholders get paid for it; the more froth, the better. While Facebook continues to promote anti-social norms, Steemit will continue to grow as more and more people see the benefits of a social media platform that records everything you say and do permanently, while rewarding you properly.