Comment by dudefeliciano
11 hours ago
these topics are controversial for people who support the current US government, they don't want to see it on their tech-news website (even though it's called hacker news, the spirit of the hacker manifesto is not alive here).
Funnily enough, these flagged topics seem to spark a lot of conversation, and the voices of the government supporters are not heard here...So they just flag and move on, not even trying to defend their position
It only takes 4 HN users in support of something to silence opposition to it
That's the acutal number, 4 flags from users allowed to flag with a full weight? Where did you learn that?
> the voices of the government supporters are not heard here
This is sad to me because I really want to hear the other perspective, and there is no place that exists (that I know of) for people who disagree with each other to have a real conversation. Nothing left but echo chambers.
But I think HN falls into this trap because the down vote button is used when people disagree with the other person, which imo is a misappropriation and what prevents people from sharing unpopular opinions.
it would be interesting to see up and down levels rather than just a net effect. That lets a user see this is 50/50 split issue or like 70/30 split maybe it has more substance
Respectfully, I think it’s impossible to have “real conversation” on a site where users are (essentially) anonymous, discussions are threaded, and comments are boosted or hidden based on their upvotes. For deep, nuanced discussions where people can actually change their minds, you want a discussion board — but it’s a paradigm that’s difficult to scale, and so isn’t compatible with the modern notion of social media.
I'd replace "real conversation" with "community". And I think communities don't prohibit anonymity. I think the impossibility is really having a community with a very large active userbase. A macro version of Dunbar's number.
1 reply →
...replying to my self to point out that ironically my post is being downvoted.
I guess wanting to hear the other side's perspective is not looked upon favorably here, just like everywhere else.
Be careful though. It's easy to think you know why you are being downvoted (BTW, it looks like the pendulum has swung the other way—you don't look downvoted to me).
When you have a handful of sentences in your post, it may well be the one you're not expecting that triggered the downvotes.
I think the downvote on comments is; it's the flagging that's the problem because it essentially hides the post from the HN community (which is why I now always go to /active instead of the home page).
This will sound crazy but this is why I still use 4chan. Everyone is anonymous, there is no voting, and the only moderation is to remove illegal things or flagrant rule breaking. It's 99% dogshit (and worse), but if you go into it knowing that, you can find some good stuff sometimes. Not good as in morally good, just sometimes someone will post a link to a video or an article that will actually make me think.
Here, and on reddit, and anywhere with voting or people caring about the number next to their username, it's the most popular opinions at the top and everything else at the bottom or flagged. I genuinely don't understand what people get out of that.
And I guess I should specify that this is also why political topics get flagged. Sure, it probably has a lot to do with people flagging stuff that goes against their beliefs. But I also think that political threads here offer absolutely nothing aside from reaffirming existing beliefs. No one is trying to change anyone's minds, everyone is just yelling at each other. Threads about actual tech stuff can be very interesting and I do learn things from them sometimes. But political threads here are worthless.
edit: I do not mean /pol/, no one should ever go there
> This will sound crazy but this is why I still use 4chan. Everyone is anonymous, there is no voting, and the only moderation is to remove illegal things or flagrant rule breaking.
What you see is a mirage.
The problem with 4chan is that the loudest voices are the ones that have no lives, and can flood the board with their bullshit. You could be having a conversation with someone in one thread, meanwhile they're busy posting about the same damn thing in 3-4 other threads at the same time.
And that's assuming the person on the other end is real. These days, there are bot armies of paid shills or AI to worry about, flooding the zone with their narrative to the point where your voice gets drowned out.
You cannot have a decent social space without some form of active moderation and some protection against sockpuppeting. Not every place with both of those gets it right, but without both you're guaranteed to fail, and 4chan has neither.
> not even trying to defend their position
Hard to do when your position is essentially indefensible.
It is defensible.
First, there is no evidence that they were censored because of keywords. Crazily enough, they may have been censored by god (or simply datacenter issues).
Second, if there were such censorship features, then it shows that the US was right to buy TikTok. Imagine if National Socialists or those who are against liberty and justice had access to such features.
Third, we are in a time of great danger, thus requiring great actions. What is the danger? It cannot be explained. What is the solution? To re-use the past. In early 1000s, the Germans were both holy and roman and justly created living space in the East. Hundreds of years later, we started Manifest Destiny. Similar to 南进 of the Vietnamese, we should recognize the job has not been finished. This requires rewriting history. While China existed for 5000 years, the US has existed for 6000. The Jewish, Christian, and American spirits merged together, and people of 100s of different dialects were pulled into the area, and the wave of freedom moved back abroad. This was the formation of the American language, a true melting pot. While many Americans have genetic ties to Europe, they have one difference, a spirit that is free and mobile. Unlike the Europeans who stay in one place and look down at the wandering Roma, the Americans are inherently mobile, experiencing new ways at life. This is the Spirit and what allows for Americans to manifest the destiny of the world from East to West.
> voices of the government supporters are not heard here...So they just flag and move on, not even trying to defend their position
Why are you're assuming flagging indicates support of the government?
Maybe they're flagging because it's a topic that will generate much more heat than light. It doesn't have to be deeper than that.
[flagged]
> My problem with these type of posts in HN is that the discussion doesn't offer ANYTHING constructive.
They offer a chance for awareness, which is literally step one. Americans are some of the most propagandized people on Earth, and most don't even know it.
It's crucial that the tech community develops more awareness around censorship - no small share of the responsibility is with us.
Censoring stories about censorship, on a premier tech community and investment forum, just because the discussion gets 'visceral' is simply capitulation to any entity willing to try and make a discussion toxic. We need to do a lot better than that.
I was talking to my uncle last September who is a chaplain in the US Army, and I was shocked by the disparity between what he understood was going on in the US and what I understood. That's not to say that I'm not influenced in certain ways either, but it really cemented my understanding that people in the US (and here in Canada and I'm sure other countries too) are operating within two entirely different realities.
He's not even what I would call MAGA, but it still seemed like a gulf that is impossible to bridge.
2 replies →
I don't go to Reddit or other forums that discuss politics. HN is the only forum I visit, and it's important to be aware, and talk about, these issues that involve large tech companies but also have to do with politics, because of the widespread implications. The comments are sometimes informative of what similar things may be happening elsewhere, or technical-oriented perspectives on the matter, which aren't going to come up in a NYT or similar article.