On page 14-15 of Steemit’s White Paper, it says:

“Furthermore, those who have a large investment in a community also have the most to lose by attempting to game the voting system for themselves. It would be like the CEO of a company deciding to stop paying salaries so he could pocket all of the profits. Everyone would leave to work for other companies and the company would become worthless, leaving the CEO bankrupt rather than wealthy.”

The scenario above describes kind of a natural correction mechanism that ought to prevent manipulation techniques from gaining the upper hand.

The PROBLEM here is:

Users that MANIPULATE the voting system for themselves often get HIGH REWARDS.
Which means that these users’ posts are a SOURCE of HIGH CURATION REWARDS.
Which in turn results, of course, in other users voting for these posts in order to enrich themselves.

Thus, the above-mentioned correction mechanism works only to a limited extent!

One more note:

As I have explained, I am afraid voting bots and self-votings may damage or even ruin Steemit in the long run.

Too much manipulation makes people lose faith in the platform.

Steemit’s White Paper explains this as follows:

“[…] algorithms must be designed in such a manner that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit. Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system.” (Steemit White Paper, page 6)

“Steem is designed around a relatively simple concept: everyone’s meaningful contribution to the community should be recognized for the value it adds. When people are recognized for their meaningful contributions, they continue contributing and the community grows. Any imbalance in the give and take within a community is unsustainable. Eventually the givers grow tired of supporting the takers and disengage from the community.” (Steemit White Paper, page 6)

Certain issues might really need some adaptation and more control.

I hope things will get settled soon!

image source: pixabay.com (user name: geralt)