Naked Aggression: Decentralized my Ass

I write this at the risk of getting downvoted into oblivion. But I honestly don't care. I've been put through enough shit the last two years in my offline life that I've developed a tough skin. But this morning I have been triggered into many of the same thoughts and feelings that I experienced in the height of my abusive relationship. I can't keep silent, it would go against everything I have learned over the last two years.

I apologize to anyone who voted on my Weekend
post, especially @galenkp (thanks for the support, I really appreciated the feeling that I had made it on this platform). Downvote bots from the self appointed police force @hivewatchers, @guiltyparties, and others have decided that all of my posts must be downvoted because according to them I plagiarized photos with my commentary posts.

I will no longer be posting commentaries on naturist photos, because I can't source them to the satisfaction of these jack boot wearing assholes.

In my humble opinion, these types of services directly violate the decentralized spirit of Hive. This is supposed to be a free market where users decide what deserves upvotes and downvotes. The ecosystem naturally weeds out plagiarism by downvoting content which is clearly lifted from other sources.

@hivewatchers and others are clear examples of centralized policing that come rife with the problems that most centralized forces have, namely a blanket policy of downvoting any and every post from users which violate their self-written rules.

They make a case that I "stole" the photos in my "Photos of Nude Living" posts, but I never once passed them off as my own. In fact I clearly said they were from around the internet. If you read those posts and thought those were photos were mine, you probably shouldn't be on Hive.

Here’s how I perceive decentralization: if you as an individual find true plagiarism, downvote and keep scrolling. If you find your own material stolen, downvote it and comment that is was stolen so others know.

In a free market, police forces will naturally form. But these entities should be oriented towards specific instances of crime. And they should be hired by victims of crime, not self appointed. If someone finds their material stolen, they should report it to the police force, who will enact penalties on specific instances of theft, not thuggish blanket beat downs. If they reach further than the specific instance of theft, they are guilty of mere aggression. The penalties should match the crime.

I still maintain that my works were not plagiarism, since my intent was not to pass anything that wasn't mine off as my own. I did not lie and claim the images as my own, nor did I defraud the creators of such photos. They have posted their works online with the intention of those photos being reproduced or at the very least the knowledge that such photos would be reproduced. I do not post photos from places which specifically say not to reproduce them. I maintain that ip is theft itself, but that's an argument for another day.

But even if I was found guilty under arbitrary rules, the downvotes should have only applied to the posts in question, not to every single post within the payout window.

@hivewatchers and other aggregated police forces hide behind bots. They have no appeal system other than "contact us on Discord", where they belittle and ignore users who they have abused with their policies. There is no way to "punish" them for their abuse as they don't post anything other than spammy comments. Nothing can be downvoted. They have unchecked power over the Hive.

A slanted power structure nearly always leads to abuse. This was my experience in marriage, and now it's showing itself here. People who have no real accountability destroy those under them without a single concern. Hive was supposed to be structured democratically, giving everyone an equal voice in choosing what to support and what not to support. When certain parties create bots and take on the authority to monopolize enforcement of "rules" they are clearly violating this structure.

I don't know what to do about this within Hive, as I am little more than a minnow here, but I hope this brings some awareness to the abuses going on.