I was listening to the Minnow University Curation Show with @aggroed, @isaria, and @swelker101 tonight and much like everywhere else I've seen, people are talking about Alex Jones getting banned from some popular social media platforms. Generally I tend to avoid the politically charged conversations as I'm more focused on philosophy these days, but this is a pretty critical issue that I feel warrants an exception. Today I'm going to share my perspective on why platforms like the STEEM blockchain are absolutely fundamental and necessary to secure any semblance of a future that permits free speech and self ownership.
The first thing to realize is that as much as this issue is about Alex Jones getting silenced, it's actually about something bigger that I think most people are missing. This isn't just about one person or their extremist and often comical views that many people write off as fake news and conspiracy theories. On a very real and tangible level, this is about allowing giant corporations that are flirting with government regulations and monopoly status dictate what we are or are not allowed to say in a semi-public forum.
Essentially this is all based around our own consent to utilize or not utilize these platforms and that is the worst part of it. People are generally just accepting that these platforms are monopolies and then the question that whether or not the government needs to regulate who does or doesn't have free speech on these platforms. Either way when we use them we are essentially voluntarily donating our time, attention, energy, and data for these companies to monetize and do with as they please through Terms of Service contracts that most people click through without reading.
It's easy to get caught up in the monetary aspect of a platform like Steemit or any of the other decentralized applications that we're using to store data on the blockchain, but on a much grander scale it isn't about that. It's about having a decentralized database of data that can't be controlled or regulated by any outside agenda. People are free to do or say what they want and even though sometimes there are consequences for those actions, the data is still there, even when posts are flagged below payout threshold. Even when people vanish without a trace, the data lives on.
If we can accept the underlying power in that then we can realize what it actually means. If Steemit Inc decides that you are their Alex Jones and they decide to alter the front end to shun you from their platform, everything you've ever done on the platform is still accessible from other front ends. Steemit Inc doesn't own your posts, your opinions, your voice, or anything you've uploaded to the blockchain or IPFS. The government has no ability to step in and say "silence that person." Everyone that uses the blockchain should keep in mind that simple fact and be grateful for that if nothing else.
I spend a lot of time trying to explain to people that feel like they're being shunned by other platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, that they should come and check us out and see that we don't allow that here. Of course the biggest criticism that I usually get hit with is that we don't have the user base that those other platforms do, so it's much harder to network. The truth that we're all going to have face at some point is that convenience comes with a pretty hefty price and that as long as we make excuses for these other platforms, the problems will persist.
We don't have to never touch those other platforms to cross promote our content to the blockchain. Personally I avoid using them, but if you have a network there, you can always make sure to inform them of the alternatives. Any argument that people have against using STEEM is generally based on money and amount of users, but the technology still works whether a hundred people use it or a billion. Blockchain isn't a get rich quick scheme, it's a paradigm shift towards taking back ownership of our own lives from corporations and governments. Namaste.