Apparently This Is Abuse Now

Apparently This Isn't Political

I find it rather amusing that @HiveWatchers once promised they would never go political and would concern themselves only with abuse, because apparently that promise has acquired some interesting qualifications.

In the comments of another post, HiveWatchers explained their position rather clearly: “This account's replies were silenced individually by the Hivewatchers account because it went on an unstable trolling spree. The account has also been actively promoting a fraud chain called Blurt on social media, instead of promoting Hive.”

There is something wonderfully convenient about calling criticism of your proposed DHF funding “trolling” while simultaneously objecting to someone promoting a competing blockchain. I had always assumed that deciding which blockchain people should promote was the sort of thing that fell rather comfortably under the category of politics, particularly when the people making that decision are also involved in requesting funding from the very system whose interests they are supposedly defending.

The “fraud chain” part is especially curious. If Blurt were actually some fraudulent operation, one would think Hive would have a problem with it existing within its own ecosystem, yet Blurt tokens have been allowed to exist and trade through Hive-Engine for years. Apparently it is fraudulent enough to use as a justification for silencing someone, but not fraudulent enough to prevent it from participating in Hive's own infrastructure.

But apparently I misunderstand the meaning of political.

Perhaps “political” means anything except using your position to silence people who disagree with you about money, competition, and the direction of the platform. In that case, I can see how HiveWatchers can simultaneously promise never to go political while describing the promotion of a competing blockchain as something worthy of mentioning when explaining why someone's replies were silenced.

I especially love the phrase “instead of promoting Hive.” There is apparently now an expectation that users should be promoting Hive rather than its competitors, and somehow this expectation has found its way into an explanation from an organization that supposedly concerns itself with abuse rather than politics.

I suppose free speech is still perfectly safe, provided you remember which opinions are considered abusive.

I use both Hive and Blurt as ways of keeping a permanent record of what I do and what I create, and I move value between them when it makes sense. In fact, I'm currently using Blurt to fund my Hive account. So when promoting another chain gets folded into an explanation for why someone's replies were silenced, I suppose the funny part is that I'm still going to use both chains exactly as I intended to use them. If anything, Blurt just gives me another place to keep the records while I continue doing the same thing.

Anyways, at least they promised never to go political.