Comment by zozbot234
6 years ago
Perhaps. But this is also the kind of story that can go far beyond the HN niche, especially given how it can align with current political views. It depends whether they do publish the article, and what it's like.
6 years ago
Perhaps. But this is also the kind of story that can go far beyond the HN niche, especially given how it can align with current political views. It depends whether they do publish the article, and what it's like.
They need only write something like "Scott has been called alt-right and anti feminist online" (as I'm sure somewhere they have, once) and then any public defense of the character can be labelled as being racist and toxic.
there are other simple strategies that can be put into place to make any defence of a person harder and most people will look at the surface representation and move on to the next story. Eventually the story about the story will itself fade away.
> 'Scott has been called alt-right and anti feminist online'
Who hasn't? I mean, I see your point and it would be correct in many cases but if people can use this so easily to score points against the NYT, they aren't going to be deterred by that. The online culture that likes to label anything and everything as "racist and toxic" would only make their point stronger.
I think you misunderstood. The NYT could use it to silence support for Scott Alexander because anyone saying "no, he's a reasonable person that writes about the beliefs of people without holding it themselves" will hang next to him as somebody that is supporting Scott Alexander "who many say is prominent alt-right figure and who has lead a hate campaign against feminists on his blog".
Eric Weinstein has gotten this treatment for questioning mainstream narratives. He calls it the distributed idea suppression complex (DISC).