Good day ladies and gentlemen of Hive I want to raise quite an important topic with you today. Hive comments itself of being a welcoming community however I have to raise with you the incompetence of a group that in my opinion has poor governance, doesn't understand law and publicly defames users.
Incase you're not aware they are a group EARNING hive for what they say is ensuring plagiarism doesn't occur and whatever else they do. A great initiative and a welcomed one. Except when they get it wrong as to my understanding they have no knowledge of law or skill in it and I have run into them on 3 occasions all of which they were wrong and after publicly defaming me provided no compensation, no apology just left.
Might I add, Hive watchers does all this and is earning Hive with 0 accountability.
My first run in with them was a number of years ago when I ran a comp on drone images and promoted images that were submitted. Turns out one of them that I selected from the submissions weren't original content and instead of contacting me cast their allegation as judgement. Their allegation was wrong.
second run in
My second run in occurred on new years with 
Again 
## Third run in today
Today takes the cake, I can understand getting it wrong from time to time but today is beyond funny.
As many of you are aware I am involved in politics, my wife is a local politician that works towards addressing social issues and is a nurse by trade working on the front lines of the pandemic. She is an extremely popular political force for the people.
We have a PAID subscription to a photo sourcing account. I am also involved in politics and my background is social work and Law. I undertake audits and reviews of contracts for multi million dollar even the odd billion dollar contract for business and governments. I also volunteer my time helping smaller organisations meet contractual obligations and meet codes for FFREE.
I am fully across all aspects of what I can and can't do with my subscription as I not only use it in politics but also business and not for profit sector. A single image can be quite cost disabling for small organisations so providing that marketing and support is invaluable.
I wrote a post about a bird that my daughter and I spotted, we are avid bird watchers. We do this often, at no point did I state the image was mine. In fact in the comments section my original image that I took is submitted and I state mine were not of as good quality so I used my subscription.
I use my subscription for my Leo finance blog, I am not legally obligated to write a "source" as I am already legally covered through my subscription. That is why the water mark is removed..
Hive watchers enters and makes a false allegation, stating I committed plagiarism. Which is a defamatory allegation to an active author and costly. In fact I did not commit plagiarism..
They then further insult someone in law and practising with an incorrect explanation. Which is further demeaning.
They then accused me of "vote farming" and stated that the post was "an entry in a contest" the photo was not an entry in a contest and I am not vote farming. I am a blogger utilising a service. In my opinion Hive Watchers are rorting Hive and providing an illegitimate service and are receiving payment.
They have refused to apologise and have shown deep disregard for content producers and are incapable of comprehending law.
If an organisation has poor governance and 0 accountability they are a drag on any system or organisation.
I am seeking a public apology from Hive watchers, not one on discord one on this post for all to see.
Furthermore, compensation should be provided as being the third time they have incorrectly made a decision and have
- not read what is written in the post
- adequately investigated the complaint
- notify me of an issue
- provide false legal advice
- publicly defame an author
They have proven to be a fake governance group who is profiting by misleading the Hive community.
If they have gotten it wrong with me 3 times that means they are further making errors with other users. Without the ability to hold Hive watchers accountable it will lead to people not engaging in block chain.
The group needs to change or be hard forked out.
What are your thoughts?
You can read their false legal claims and the most recent post Here
Profiting on misleading the community is detrimental to the block chain and accountability needs to be had.