originaly published on steemit

Last days were very intense to me. Some few months ago, I was a Steemit outsider and quickly became passionate about the driving ideas behind the Steemit platform. I was moved and willing to participate in the makings of it.

Decided, I buckle down to understand the workings of Steemits's gracious engine, and Inevitably, a sharp criticism on voting-bots just built up on my mind. To short the argument, voting-bots are affecting the pools reward distribution and acting as promoters of low-quality content.

Believe me, I was ferociously reading posts about this theme, interacting with many other community members who share similar opinions, and I got a feeling that this might be a vital issue to brainstorm and think about.

From the Steemit FAQ "What is Steemit.com?" we read _a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice_.

Followed by "How does Steemit works?" _Users who hold more tokens in their account as "Steem Power" will get to decide where a more substantial portion of the rewards pool is distributed._

Readers, I really hope to hear your thoughts about that, because I saw too much activity which is in conflict with the latest statements. Large holders of Steem Power are now selling their valuable votes in exchange for promoting dubious-quality-content. I remember reading a community member stating that "This is Capitalism, and I am fine with that," but actually, I can't believe Steemit was built for being a Capitalism-Driven business model for whales associated to voting-bots.

Steemit was built as _a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice_ with reward distribution according to the community curation. Indeed, curation happens to be one of the most valuable human-inputs from the Steemit platform, together with the content production itself!

Latter on FAQ we read "How does Steemit differ from other social media websites?" _While most social media sites extract this value for the benefit of their shareholders, Steemit believes that the users of the platform should receive the benefits and rewards for their attention and the contributions they make to the platform._

I believe the Steemit community needs to re-think more seriously about this last point because what currently happens there seems the exact opposite. Whales, running voting bots -which pay no attention to the post content- are ruining the human-curation system and the fair distribution of rewards. Human-Curation has lost its value due to abusive voting-bots!

How is that even allowed in there?!!

Still in the FAQ page we have the question "Why are people getting vastly different rewards?" to with adds the answer _Most of the authors that you see earning high rewards are users that have spent a lot of time in the network building followers, making connections with others, and developing a reputation for bringing high-quality content._

This is for sure one of the basic concepts powering the Steemit platform, but we all know -very well- that it is not there anymore.

Currently, what we see are whale-bots promoting low-quality content up to the trending page. And we know very well this is a Huge abuse over the crucial community-driven concepts of _building followers, making connections with others, and developing a reputation for bringing high-quality content _.

To my current understanding, abusive-voting-bots are the biggest threat to the Steemit community, even more than the flag-censorship issue (to which I think steemians are already moving forward to address, improving towards a better balance. [Check the post from @taskmaster4450 about it](https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/steem-community-the-solution-to-all-steem-problems) )

steemit is under siege

Please, readers, this is my humble opinion. I would like to hear what you have to say about the Steemit situation. Let us talk and build understanding, not hate.

Gracefully. Publish0x has arrived as a game-changer option, where Human-Curation might really work out!

bb.

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