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Comment by kjkjadksj

18 hours ago

Talking about our march into fascism is still considered off topic here apparently. Isn’t that exactly the sort of topic a supposed forum of hackers ought to be discussing however?

6 comments

kjkjadksj

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jjulius  18 hours ago

This forum, in spite of the name, was never about the older hacker ethos that began way back when. It was founded by a VC and was called "Startup News" at first, only changing its name six months later. It was created by the wealthy, for those who wanted to get wealthy (and make it's founder wealthier in the process). It co-opted "hacker".

MathMonkeyMan  18 hours ago

The concern is that it's too easy to contribute to hot political topics. Moderation wants to prevent this forum from becoming identical to so many others, and the only tool available is to deemphasize posts.

  • hsuduebc2  16 hours ago

    That’s an absolutely valid point — it’s important to prevent discussions from devolving into chaotic political battles. But there is a clear limit to how far you can go. When moderation starts suppressing or de-emphasizing information simply because it doesn’t align with a certain viewpoint — even when that information is objectively true — it’s no longer moderation, it’s censorship. What’s happening around Wikipedia shows how quickly the protection of truth can turn into political pressure: when a platform is accused of "propaganda" simply because its content is inconvenient for certain groups. I really hope we are not yet at the point where mere disagreement automatically makes someone a propagandist who must be silenced by force.

hsuduebc2  18 hours ago

I fully agree with you. Maybe I wrote it in a bad way. I do not like that these things that are objectively wrong for a functioning democracy are getting flagged because for some reason this got political connotations. I consider it dangerous and I do not understand why this is controversial at all.