Mob Justice often has two components. A ringleader (or ringleaders), and the followers they incite.
Throughout history, some of the most heinous acts of violence have occurred at the hands of a Justice Mob, and this has not changed today.
When we hear of "torches and pitchforks" this is what comes to mind. It often starts as one individual, or a small group of individuals that want justice for something personal, or against something they feel is a threat to their community.
In almost all cases, those involved in a justice mob feel their actions are warranted, simply because there is overwhelming reason and evidence present to "deal with" a person or group of people that cannot be tolerated or allowed to get away with something. But the Justice mob does not seek to exile their target or actually hand out justice, but rather the justice mob becomes an uncontrollable monster that will tear apart the target, torture, beat, accuse, question, torment, and finally kill.
In my time here on Steemit I have witnessed what appeared to be orchestrated drama between two accounts that I would guess are owned by the same person (or people in real life that know each other), where one account is committing #rewardpoolrape and abusing the platform, while the other account gathers up followers and forms a justice mob to stop the horrible acts being done. Both accounts end up with a massive amount of steem and steem dollars, while the clueless mob of minnows use up their voting power to barely make a dent in the payout of the supposed "bad guy." The only winners are the ringleader and the bad guy. Everyone else gets hosed, doubly so because the ringleader walks away with a sizable SBD payout.
I know there are also a lot of Steemians with noble intentions, who are not playing the part of law enforcement as a scheme to gain followers and build up wealth. But this is a system we all signed up for, knowing full well the types of characters that will inevitably slip in and find all the loopholes.
In truth, I see the Steemit platform and cryptocurrency in general as a loophole in the established systems of power that run the world. just consider their anger at cryptocurrencies, having been created deliberately to dethrone the centralized powers and give power back to the people. Well, look good and hard at Steemit, because this is the end result of removing centralized authority.
This experiment we call the steemit platform is a microcosm of what the world would be like without all its checks and balances. Steemit does have some checks and balances of its own, namely in the limitations that are put in place, much like how there are rules in a video game world that might make no sense in the real world. But at what point do you keep adding limitations to this system so that no more loopholes can exist? What are you sacrificing to achieve perfect balance and homogenization of Steemit? Welcome to North Korea?
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At present, Steemit is a sandbox. There is no right or wrong way to approach how you participate in the system. You are able to express yourself in exactly the manner that suits you. Your imagination is the limit. If someone doesn't like you, they Mute you. Problem solved.
If someone here on Steemit truly wants a system that dictates when, where and how people can conduct themselves, they are probably lost and looking for the real world - where government, law enforcement, courts, prisons, and many other branches of social control are present to keep people in line and on their best behavior.
So what then? Do we just let anyone and everyone behave as they please and commit #rewardpoolrape? And who is the proverbial We? A Justice Mob? Or maybe "We" is a Governing power that dictates where the lines exist that should not be crossed? How do you enforce those lines if the platform itself does not provide the proper means?
The problem with Steem in a nutshell, the pink elephant in the room if you will, is that there is a monetary reward system in place that fuels everything (the love of money is the root of all evil). If there was no predefined reward pool limit, surely everyone would dilute the reward pool so fast that Steem would become the next Dogecoin, right? But with a limit in place, there's only so much pie, and everyone is fighting for a piece of that pie. If there was no pie, then we might as well just go back to Reddit, or Facebook, or Quora, right?
Well, obviously there are other reasons to use Steemit over other social media platforms. For artists it is the best place currently in existence, because their work is stored forever in the blockchain, and the rights to their original work remain theirs to control and profit from. Even just using Steemit for that purpose, and then linking to another place like their website or their online portfolio is priceless. In fact, it is the cheapest means of doing so ever created on the internet.
But getting back to the topic of a limited reward pool. What is the solution for down-voting abusers, while keeping the downvoters in check? If downvoting did not diminish voting power, this might quickly become a disaster, much like Reddit where downvote squads roam around to censor content they don't like - Except in this case a person's monetary earnings are stripped away, or even worse.
Just imagine how much worse it would be if someone of a particular skin color, ethnicity, nationality or language was targeted by a group of downvoters, and down voting did not cost anything? How do we know that does not already take place, hmm?
No, I believe giving people more downvoting power is not the answer. Even giving people a separate meter that gets drained specifically for downvoting and diminishes so that flagging power needs time to recharge... this will still be abused, and in ways that will harm so many more people, and not just monetarily. It would be unleashing the worst kinds of behavior: racism, bigotry, sexism, heck even gingers might get targeted and downvoted for apparently not having a soul. It's a crazy world out there with a lot of crazy people who hold a lot of crazy beliefs about other people.
What I hope is that SMT's provide the solution to this seemingly never ending problem, because to dissolve the Steemit sandbox more and more, and add more and more restrictions will only result in the platform itself losing it's proverbial soul.
While I believe there are some people on Steemit that genuinely care about the rest of us and want to fight against the worst of the abusers, I believe that Justice Mobs are ultimately not the solution; they breed fear, anger, jealousy, and acts of violence (in this case virtual).
Steem Media Tokens on the other hand will open up the door to more positive ways of rewarding those who are not abusing the platform and devouring the foundation from the inside out: the genuine artists, musicians, writers, poets, bloggers, gamers, crypto-enthusiasts, teachers, Councillors, storytellers, and everyone else that enjoys just being here to share their original work and content in every form.
SMTs may also help solve the problems of exposure for new members. The Trending and Hot tabs at the top are useless for most of us. In time either changes to the platform or SMTs will help to make the Steemit experience more personalized for each of us. Already there are sites like D.Tube, Steepshot, and DMania that integrate into the Steem ecosystem and provide ways to help people gain exposure for a specific topic or type of content. Hopefully SMTs will make these extensions of the platform even more rewarding, and even allow the underlying Steem reward system to be adjusted in the future to combat abuse, without killing the system.
If steemit loses its proverbial soul, then we all lose.
These are just my thoughts I've typed as they entered my mind. If you enjoyed reading, you're welcome. If you were offended, you're welcome. No matter what, thank you for reading if you made it this far.