Steem can land you in jail and it's not FUD

I am not spreading meaningless FUD

Blockchain can lead to jail, it's not a certainty but a possibility which needs to be addressed.

Don't straight away discard this post as shit or blame me for spreading FUD. Raising uncomfortable questions which provide insightful answers is very important. I am a pragmatist, to an extent you can call me a stoic as I like to think about both sides of things. I am very unlike the naysayers and do not completely agree with the blind flagbearers who don't see any problems or issues.

We need to ask ourselves uncomfortable questions to figure out if something is wrong with us, the same is true for other things in life including Steem, or for that matter the blockchain technology as a whole including the likes of Bitcoin.

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Nothing in life is perfect. Same with blockchain. Even though the founding principles of this technology is based on universal ideals of the betterment of humanity, we the users are not always so perfect.

Think deeply and do some of your own research on the below two scenarios. I think you will understand how it can really put you behind bars or at least create legal hassles for you.

I am not even talking about you partaking in illegal trade using Bitcoin or Steem. You don't need to do anything other than just downloading blockchain into your computer.

Piracy and Plagiarism

I had some concerns about this but a brilliant post by Hive account@bobinson really drove home the risks of the rampant plagiarism (and perhaps piracy of content on Hive account@dtube and other media platforms) on the Steem blockchain.

He raises a very valid point. I agree with him and I think that just flagging by Hive account@steemcleaners may not be enough as anti-piracy and anti-plagiarism laws might not be complied with just by making the information invisible at first glance. The immutable nature of blockchain technology means all such information gets stored in the blockchain itself and can be accessed by anyone if they care to write the necessary code.

I don't think Hive account@dtube saves the uploaded videos on the blockchain itself but I also do not know if there is a takedown policy which will comply with legal notices as and when they arrive. The DMCA and other authorities across the globe will not be very happy to have a piracy problem similar to what we have seen with torrents even though the nature of it is somewhat different.

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Anyone who has the blockchain downloaded (acting as nodes for information transfer) becomes automatically complicit in the transfer of pirated or stolen media and text content. Maybe the blockchain itself cannot be taken down because one node will be replaced by another, a thousand by a thousand other but what about the individuals who find themselves facing the law? What happens to them?

Child porn

In my opinion, a more severe issue is the propagation of child porn through blockchain. A research has found that about 1.4% of the Bitcoin blockchain's transactions contain arbitrary data and this data contains, along with many other things, links to child sexual abuse images.

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It does not need to be elaborated that even by downloading the blockchain into your laptop, you may break several very stringent laws in almost any country on this planet.

Counter points like anonymity, "will not be able to track" are secondary as in principle doing something like this is actually breaking laws which keep our society safe.

Think about it.

Something needs to be done soon

There is a reason why I am not a blind supporter of the "no-censorship" bandwagon. I do believe, some kind of information control is required, even though I do not know how and what that should be. I do not know how to arrive at the perfect balance to allow "freedom of speech" and yet not allow things which are detrimental to society at large.

There are multiple aspects to this question, like who decides what is detrimental to society and who decides what to allow or censor. I know it's complicated and I do not have an answer. The community as a whole will have to figure this out.

Hope the law does not catch up before that.

Reference

1. https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/03/21/bitcoins-blockchain-content-land-in-jail/
2. https://fc18.ifca.ai/preproceedings/6.pdf
3. https://steemit.com/steemcleaners/@bobinson/scenario-dmca-takedown-of-steem-blockchain

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