INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT,

NIRMA UNIVERSITY

Management Information Systems

Individual Assignment - I

“Steemit : A new Social Media?”

Submitted By: Dimple Bhojwani (DPM)

Roll No: 203101
Section A

Submitted To: - Prof. Neil Harwani

Date of Submission – 20th December, 2020

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would begin by expressing my deepest gratitude and appreciation to Institute of Management,

Nirma University and Prof. Neil Harwani for providing an opportunity of studying the subject
Management Information Systems as a part of my course. This subject has enhanced my
understanding towards technology and its implications deeply.

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 Executive Summary

The case talks about the Steemit, a unique social media platform that uses blockchain
technology. The factor that differentiates Steemit is that it is a single platform that actually
made the concept of Free Speech validated through decentralizing the power in the hands of
the users. It rewarded the potential users’ cryptocurrency for the content they posted on the
platform. The reward was in three different forms like Steem, Steem Power (SP) and Steem
Dollars(SBD). This case review analyses the problems that the company is facing and tries to
come up with effective solutions that can help Steemit in the long run in order to maintain its
good and healthy image in the market and to attract other new users and retain older users.
Majorly discussed pointers of the case are about content curation rules in Terms of Service,
continuous server security upgrades and making it more user friendly and gave fair and equal
opportunity to every user in the steemit to grow and earn steemit rewards according to their
posts.
 Analysis

Steemit, a social media platform was launched in 2016, and became famous for its stance on
freedom of speech and sharing their views on social media platforms, thereby letting users post
as they wish, unlike other platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The potential users of posts
were able to earn rewards by votes and comments by other users, which helped them earn
Steem points and other cryptocurrency rewards. Due to the inherent ways of blockchain, all the
accounts, their posts and their cryptocurrencies are fairly secure worldwide. However, in recent
past, the company is in dilemma about deciding long-term competitive strategies to attract and
maintain users, due to issues like hacked accounts, volatility of cryptocurrency market( as the
technology is still in its early adopters stage), security issues and selective curation of content
– including a post of “TheDarkOverlord” hackers’ group regarding thousands of leaked 9/11
attack documents – and other unfair practices on the platform.
1. Certain Problems highlighted in the case:

 The complexity of Steemit’s three financial functions like steem, Steem Power and
Steem Dollar are difficult to know their usage. Also the complex features like one
potential user becoming dominant over the other on the platform was posing as a
serious problem.

 The other issues that came infront by the cases that the hacker group “the Dark
overload” use to leaked thousands of information regarding 9/11 attack so that to earn
bitcoin from the public. As many Steemit users betrayed the ban used to impose on
the hacker and said it’s anti-censorship and anti-regulation stance.

 The steemit developers should bring the balance between crowd sourced and
centralized system. The many new steemit users claim that the moderators are
providing the users post to upvote their views and information and helping them to
grow and earn rewards.

 The security is also main concern in the steemit as hackers gained the access of more
than 200 users and stole the steem dollars of worth $85000. As these users are those
who created their account by Facebook or Reddit. The steemit gave money back to
the affected users and asked them to change the password. attack by the hackers in
response the steemit shut down it servers for security upgrade.
2. Evaluation of Main Problem:

 Semi Centralized system and Cascading Effect:- There was an inequality in

steemit users as it was not fully decentralized so that the users which use to have
more steem points often called Steem Power (called a “Steem Whale”), there always
was a potential threat of one user being more dominant on the platform.These users
decide about which posts should be rewarded more and likely to be upvoted. The
snowball effect also determines that the powerful users give direct benefits to the
founders of steemit to increase their reach of popularity of posts, which directly affect
the income of the users.

 Not User Friendly: - If the new user joins the steemit than he use to remember his
password as it can’t be changed or retrieved once forgot. The users also face
difficulty in finding the contents of their likes and interests after the limited numbers
of searchable tags. It doesn;t show the about which account you are followed while
commenting and liking the posts. Further this issue was to be resolved by a beta
version of steemit communities on shared interests.

 Hacking of Accounts: - In the recent past, 200 Steemit accounts were hacked and
$85,000 worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from users’ accounts by a hacker who
infiltrated the vulnerabilities of the browsers of users that created their accounts via
Facebook or Reddit. Though Steemit issued full refund to all the victim users and told
them to change their passwords. They also took necessary measures like launching an
 investigation against the hacker and upgrading their servers’ security, such incidents
are likely to cause insecurity among the users about their wallets, which further
negatively affects the user experience, and thereby reducing the attractiveness of
Steemit in front of new users.

 Volatility of cryptocurrency market :- In early 2018, the value of single steem token
reached at a peak of $7.31 which further sunk to $0.41 in early 2019. Because the value of
Bitcoin has felt more than 70% in the market. The value of all the cryptocurrencies,
including Steemit had the recent crash in the cryptocurrency market that adversely affected
all the related professions in Bitcoin like mining as well exchange ( Bitmain, Huobi). Due to
this, many users also lost the majority of the value invested in Steem and other bitcoins
during the massive fall in 2019.
3. Effective Solution/ Strategies

 Developing user-friendly interface: - The Steemit should bring the user friendly
platform for their users. As the steemit users finds its so complex as the password
can’t be recovered later and the three financial process of steem, steem Power and
steem dollar, many users didn’t know how to access such financial transaction
while getting earned through their posts.

 Update Security as per the Requirement:- Instead of waiting for things to go

wrong and hackers are getting benefitted by hacking the account of many steemit
users. The steemit should provide better security upgrades to the users, steemit must
provide regular and continuous upgrades to it. After the hackers attempt first time and
later they tried DDoS, it created a major change in the security in the server systems.
As the traffic goes down on the site they should likely update their systems according
to it. This step will make less vulnerabilities in the servers and the developers will
always be ahead from the hackers.