With upwards of a thousand new users joining Steemit every day, the volume of content being produced every day is growing rapidly. This is a good thing. However, the nature of how Steemit works inevitably means that a lot of new users are here simply to make a quick buck, and not to grow the community as a whole. Classic 'clickbait' posts including NSFW content are becoming more and more frequent (and often successful), and, while effective, are doing very little to improve the overall quality of Steemit content as a whole. As their numbers increase, these kinds of posts also have the potential to damage Steemit's reputation as a place for people to share interesting and original thought.

Of course, one of Steemit's main drawing cards is the ability to post about anything you like, and any kind of enforced censorship has the potential to damage that reputation as well. Implementing a reporting system for inappropriate content such as that found on Facebook could go some way towards limiting posts that are deemed unsuitable for the site - but this begs the question of who will decide what is and is not suitable. A set of guidelines for posting that are voted on by the Steemit community might worth creating, but even when posting guidelines are made very clear, they're often not followed or strictly enforced. We hear often about Facebook content being flagged and even removed just because someone decided they didn't like it, and not because it goes against any stated guidelines for posting. The practicality of such a system would also be difficult, requiring admins to review any flagged posts and make the final call - a time-consuming and ultimately subjective process. This also introduces a kind of authoritative structure to what is supposed to be a decentralized system, so is perhaps not the best approach.

What is the best solution, then, for deciding what kind of content should be allowed on Steemit? For the time being, perhaps the simplest solution is for Steemit users, as integral parts of the self-regulating network, to vote with their feet (or rather, their fingers) - by simply upvoting content that they deem valuable and ignoring posts that are inappropriate. This, at the very least, should discourage people from posting unsuitable content by restricting the profit they can make from them. This doesn't just apply to NSFW posts, but also those that are shamelessly asking for upvotes, or simply do not contribute anything valuable. Another idea that might be worth putting forward is a system of actual downvoting whereby a post that dips below a certain threshold is automatically removed. Perhaps, in contrast to the autocracy of Facebook and other social media networks, Steemers can create a more realistic online democracy by taking responsibility as curators in this way.

What do you guys think? How should Steemit handle NSFW and other potentially unsuitable content? How can we as Steemers be part of the solution and help the network to grow in the best possible way? Please share your thoughts.

Should we allow NSFW content on Steemit? The debate over censorship vs freedom of posting.