TLDR: Hivewatchers’ toxic threats and misrepresentation of itself as an official representative of the platform is driving genuine new users away from the blockchain community
Around a year ago I was introduced to the wonderful Creative Work Hour team. Through them I was encouraged to try the hive and block chain community. It was explained to me as an open community where creatives shared their works and supported each other. And the blockchain has been that, but it’s also been a massive source of anxiety, discouragement and destruction of my creative passion.
As a content creator accustomed to disconnected social media platforms, I posted on dbuzz and PeakD as one would on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – a short snippet and image or, a full text post as appropriate. After a couple weeks of this and feeling proud of myself for keeping up a posting routine I was slammed by dire threats from Hivewatchers. I was apparently “scamming” and “bitcoin farming.” I’d reached out to try touching something new and my hands were mercilessly scorched. There were no instructions, no information about how the platforms interacted and that a post on one was visible on both, simply accusation and threat.
Image Description: September 13, 2023 Comment under my post accusing me of "fraud and exploitation" claiming my account will be blacklisted if I continue. On this day seven of my posts from September were spammed with this threat.
Sinking
Are You a Man Now?
Writer
Weeding
Grey
My Credo
Soul
Fortunately, I had a community around me and we – I’d thought – sorted it out. Instead of posting a poem in both places I posted the poetry to PeakD and some thought provoking question about the poem or that led me to write it on dbuzz. Yet a little while later the threats resumed. I tried joining the Hivewatchers’ Discord server to understand what was going on and was told that because I post my content on my own website, they considered it scamming to also post the content on Hive despite there being additional stories and information, and even podcasts in the Hive post that weren’t there in my website’s poetry blog.
Image Description: November 4, 2023 Comment under my post accusing me of "fraud and exploitation" claiming my account will be blacklisted if I continue. The posts were entirely different except for the headlining image but this did not dissuade them. On this day seven of my posts were spammed with this threat.
Winter is Coming - poem
Winter is Coming - inspirational question
Well Done - poem
Short Thought about a poem
Autumn Haikus - poems
Use Words - poem
Use Words - inspirational question
Feeling burnt out both from NaPodPoMo and the hostililty from Hivewatchers I completely stepped away from using Hive. It simply wasn’t worth the exacerbation of my mental illness. Gentle support and nudging from the Creative Work Hour team has brought me to a place where I’m occasionally making a small post. It’s not the same amount or breadth of content creation I’m capable of – I share that elsewhere. I simply haven’t felt safe sharing it in the blockchain due to the militant toxicity of Hivewatchers. It’s just not worth sharing creative content I’ve put hours of thought and effort into in a place where they throw their weight around like a bully.
Recently I came across a Hivewatchers threat targeting a dear friend in my creative community and followed their link to a post condemning specific forms of AI they choose to target. I was stunned and thrilled to see the official PeakD response to that post explaining Hivewatchers speaks for the Hivewatchers community and does not speak for PeakD. With the legalistic language and dire threats, I was under the impression that Hivewatchers was an officially sanctioned group. Learning they are not, has significantly lightened the festering weight of Hivewatchers pushing me away from participating in the hive blockchain.
Image Description: PeakD statement identifying Hivewatchers as "a little group of users" that "has nothing to do with PeakD.com, Hive Blockchain or any consensus decision of the community." Rather Hivewatchers is a small group stating "how they want to vote with their stake."
If Hivewatchers went after scammers and bitcoin farmers trying to take without giving anything to the community, I could understand their purpose. Maybe they do that too, but from what I’ve seen they spend a sickening amount of time threatening and driving away new blockchain users trying to learn the ropes. Others have also noted this problem. There is no onboarding support or information offered by them, and the “rules” being broken are specific to Hivewatchers – according to the actual platform’s guidelines the new users have done nothing wrong. The dire warnings are also administered inconsistently. Some AI prompters post frequently without issue while some people who use AI to help work around disabilities yet create original content are penalized.
Those who prompt AI images frequently receive large community support with no attacks, yet those who largely write their own work but use AI to support them for small sections are hunted down. I'm not personally a fan of AI usage in artistic fields as it uses theft to build the algorithms. My personal choice is simply to generally not upvote AI based content. I don't see the need to attack those who use it. Yet if a group is going to go after AI users, consistency would create an equitable environment rather then random targeting, often of the smallest creators, rather then people making money off it but have a large enough presence Hivewatchers chooses to leave them be.
As it stands right now, I occasionally make posts but no longer feel comfortable as a member of the blockchain community. With Hivewatchers behaving as it is at present, not only could I not in good conscious recommend the community to fellow creatives, I would feel obligated to strongly caution them against joining the community. Hopefully my speaking about this will inspire change and growth making the community a healthy place again. Until then, best wishes on your creative journeys and I will see you here now and then.