Re: Steemit.com: Blogging is the new Mining

Hello guys, I'm pretty new to Steem.
I read a lot about Steemit, and I have a few questions on Steem blockchain.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
So Steem is a POS coin that powered by witnesses (is that just another name for nodes?). They are verifying transactions (like on the BTC blockchain) but they also have to store all the content (accounts and posts) right? Do they need to operate hard drives like with Siacoin?
Also is all the content on Steemit stored on the Steem blockchain ? accounts, posts, comments, votes, muted accounts (I saw that you can't see on Steemit.com which users muted you but you can still see it by yourself on the blockchain right?), website url... And is it possible to delete that content or once something has been posted, i'll stay on the blockchain forever ? I mean, it can cause several problems, serious problems. What happens if someone publishes illegal content? It can be copyrighted content, like movies or music, or even worse : pedo, terrorist propaganda (lel).... I know that only text can be uploaded on Steem, pictures and videos have to be uploaded on third-party websites. But still, it's forbidden to distribute access to illegal content even if photos and videos are not uploaded on the site in question. And a .com public domain such as steemit.com can be easily seized.

Thank you in advance for enlightening me (btw maybe everything I said is retarded and I didn't understand anything at all but I had to ask you about that, it sounds very important to me lmao)

edit : Finally, I read that you can upload pictures directly on Steemit

Movies, pictures, etc. none of that stuff goes on the blockchain. It is all hosted on some server and only the links go on the blockchain. If the content is too hot to handle, the server hosting it can block it or remove it.

As someone else pointed out the issue of storing controversial data on a blockchain exists for all blockchains. In fact some dirty stuff was stored on the Bitcoin blockchain years ago. If this bothers you, you better stop using all blockchains now.

Further steemit.com is a centralized web site owned by Steemit Inc that facilitates access to the blockchain, it is not the blockchain itself. Steemit can block anything they want from being accessed via their steemit.com web site (and has instructions on there for making DMCA notices, etc.) though it would still be accessible other ways.

Interesting, see I knew you had answers that I would never have even thought of.

So if Steemit.com is centralized, what are all these posts screaming "Uncensored Decentralized" blogging platform if it is actually completely centralized and owned by who? @ned?

What about busy.org? I haven't really checked out that site, but is it essentially another centralized platform to gain access to the Steem block-chain?
Which if that answer is yes, i'd have to ask: Is there a way to access the Steem block-chain manually?
(Decentralized Steem Block-chain App... I already see an ICO for it)

You can run the node software yourself and participate directly at the blockchain level. That's a decentralized p2p network. This is not what most would consider user friendly (cli tools, etc.).^*

You you access the blockchain via a web site, that's centralized (there is a web server, owned by somebody).

Various sites including steemit.com, busy.org, chainbb.com all run web sites which allow you to interact with the Steem blockchain. But when you do that you are accessing it via a necessarily centralized service and you are at the whim of the owner of that service to define how, when, etc. you can access the site. Each has its own rules.

^*The software that powers the steemit.com web site is also open source and you can download it and run it on your own computer. This would be reasonably user-friendly in terms of use but still requires some technical skills to set up.