While we chill here on Steem fighting centralization, on Reddit they're fighting for centralization by encouraging their users to promote censorship and brigade groups they disagree with.
This censorship movement had existed for a long time, but it was never as strong as it is right now. Previous to the existence of r/AgainstHateSubreddits, there has always been an array of other communities dedicated to discussing what they disagreed with, and occasionally brigading them. One of them is called r/ShitRedditSays. Just look at the name of the community and you'll see what I mean:
Sadly these individuals currently outnumber those who want free speech on Reddit, and this is not at all helped by the fact that Reddit admins have been bought by the Chinese company Tencent
Anti-Censorship Communities
Some communities on Reddit are against censorship and have been documenting recent events. Two that I'm familiar with are
Let's capitalize on this and fight censorship & Reddit
By moving the affected communities to Steem, we accomplish a few goals
- We fight censorship: We provide a safe place where people can easily join and share whatever they want without fear of centralized consequences. There are downvotes and blacklist, etc., but things are still in the blockchain and, anyway, if they hit those blacklists it's community management and not centralized removal.
- We fight Reddit: Steem is currently in direct competition with all other social networks. By mass-offering Steem to all the outcasts of the censorship war, we get a passionate anti-censorship community that will potentially grow and strengthen the ecosystem.
Answers to the criticism I foresee:
- If you're one of the people who dislike the users who are being censored, you will certainly have doubts about the effectiveness of this process. Rest assured that downvotes, blacklists and other measures still exist.
- However, you will ask yourself "do I want these people here?". The answer is: do you agree with everyone on the blockchain already? Probably not. But there are measures to keep communities separate here. Having people who will shill about the way Steem is censorship-proof is not a bad idea, and any news involving a censorship-resistant social network will surely benefit us.
I will be personally bringing a few people over, maybe 100, maybe 200, maybe 5, maybe 5000. Let's see how things go. Trust the power of memes.