Comment by dkjaudyeqooe
2 days ago
Shouldn't that be directed to those with an agenda who and are flagging certain posts?
Those of us who complain about this highly targeted flagging just want to avoid censorship. I can't see how we need to reflect on this.
Forums like this are "censored" and that's a really good thing. We don't need a steady stream of (for example) hate for women, minorities, and trans people that you see on truly uncensored forums.
This is correct. For the people who disagree, go read Slashdot at -1 for a while. Then pretend that you're one of the people who are targeted by that vitriol, and think about how much you'd read the HN comments if they were like that.
I agree, but when that is abused because of a minorities' preference, then it's bad.
That's what's happening here.
I think we need to get specific -- what preferences are you referring to, and who is the minority?
EcommerceFlow mentioned opinions that are "very normal nationally." I don't want to assume the worst so I'm trying not to read in to that.
1 reply →
All illegal speech should be hidden from public discussion.
However, it would be disconcerting if stating biological facts led to censorship on a forum that focusses on science and technology.
The definition of "hate" has been stretched a lot over the last few years, and if that restricts discussion of facts and ideas, then it is harmful.
One major problem is when people presume that their simplistic understanding of a subject is factual, and that everyone else is going off emotion. For example, some people will erroneously claim that the 2 genetic human options are "XX = woman, XY = man". Those seem to be the most likely combinations, partly because we don't collect DNA from 100% of the population and compare it to the observed anatomy, but they're clearly and documentedly not the only options.
Even without considering trans people, it's factually untrue that "XX = woman, XY = man, and those are the only possibilities." And yet, people who stopped at high school biology will argue until they're blue in the teeth that anyone with a more nuanced take is anti-science.
1 reply →
"Stating biological facts" is code for an opinion about how society should view trans people, which is off-topic for HN.
4 replies →
They are flagging posts that they see as pushing an agenda. There isn’t some official separation of agenda-less and agenda-full ideas.
Posts that break guidelines should be flagged, and the bar should be pretty high.
I don't think there is a guideline that bans posts from "pushing an agenda" (which would be very subjective)
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity."
"Agendas" are often ideological battlegrounds. I flag comments, even those I agree with, that I recognize from experience are going to lead to the same tired, off-topic debates and flame wars.
Lately, I've also been maintaining a personal uBlock Origin filter list to hide certain prolific rule breakers. I would love if HN had an equivalent built-in "killfile"[0] functionality for auto-hiding submissions and comments. (This has been suggested to the admins, and was seemingly received favorably, but I'm sure it's a matter of resources.)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file
How do you feel about flags being public?
1 reply →
I draw a distinction between posts and comments here.
Comments that are "pushing an agenda" are noticeable because they Just. Will. Not. Deviate. From. The. Party. Line. Ever. They will never acknowledge an opposing viewpoint's point, no matter how valid. It's not a good faith conversation, and it deserves to be both downvoted and flagged. When one side (or both!) is like talking to a brick wall, this is often what's going on.
Posts are harder. If user X posts articles pushing a viewpoint, that's harder to prove that they're intending to do that. Or it would be, except that user X will also usually be active in the discussion about the article, and their comments will fit the above pattern. If you see that, then you can say that the post was probably pushing an agenda as well.
2 replies →