5 ms·

Ask HN: Is discussion of wikileaks not allowed?

36 points by thisisdallas 10y ago

I submitted a post about Eric Schmidt working directly with the Clinton campaign and, in an email, stating, "Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them." The post was flagged and removed. Not sure why other than wikileaks discussion not being allowed....

johnny_d 10y ago
HN is full of memory holes and thoughtcrime is punished.
- derpSauce 10y ago
  2+2=5
gragas 10y ago
The frontpage is either: 1. Being heavily censored by admins 2. Being heavily flagged by butthurt Hillary supporters
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>2. Being heavily flagged by butthurt Hillary supporters Idiotic comments like this are why users are flagging election news, by the way.
  - gragas 10y ago
    How is that idiotic? Is it not the truth?
    - meira 10y ago
      It is true and butthurt Clinton supporters are downvoting you to prove.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - thisisdallas 10y ago
    FYI, this isn't specifically election news. This is news about a tech giant suggesting a database be created based on voting habits that includes additional metadata about individuals.
MrZongle2 10y ago
Sure looks like it isn't, at least not when the story at hand is...inconvenient for certain parties. Quickly killed threads include https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12840068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12840068 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12840251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12840251
- dang 10y ago
  Those threads are obviously just pure politics of the kind that fall outside the site guidelines here, so users were right to flag them. There's an intrinsic tension on this site: by excluding pure politics and the low level of discourse that comes with it (c.f. "butthurt Hillary supporters" elsewhere in this thread), HN becomes a place for relatively substantive discussion. Naturally, people then want to use this relatively substantive place for political discourse as well. That's understandable, because there are so few public places to have substantive discussions about politics. But if we were to let that happen, HN would soon become just like everywhere else (as I said, c.f. "butthurt Hillary supporters" elsewhere in this thread). Therefore we can't let that happen. Unfortunately, a lot of people respond to this not with "yeah, I see the tradeoff" but with "this site is censored by butthurt Orwellians".
grzm 10y ago
I think there are a lot of HN users who are flagging political/US election-related topics in general, especially those that don't have a strong tech angle. Just for clarification, as I understand it, "flagged" is a result of users marking it flagged. I'm not sure how a submission gets marked dead (for example, if it's moderator-only or can be marked dead if there are enough flags) There's been a lot of discussion on other similarly politically-charged threads as well. For example: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12738677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12738677 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792215 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12839742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12839742 Those are just the first couple occurrences I found. I don't intend them to be representative of any particular bias.
- piotrjurkiewicz 10y ago
  You must be a new HN user. Few weeks ago HN front page was full of political/election topics. They weren't flagged, and even some of them were heavily upvoted. But these submissions were mostly anti-Trump. Now, when most submissions are anti-Clinton, they are being flagged and removed. Those which despite that are able to get many upvotes, are being silently hidden from front page. Moderators also add "a moderation downweight" to these submissions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332). WikiLeaks submissions are particularly targeted, as these are pure facts, which cannot be easily dismissed in comment threads.
  - piotrjurkiewicz 10y ago
    And here we go: this story has just been delisted from front page, despite it (now, 2016-10-31T20:34:43+00:00) has 21 points and isn't flagged. I checked the next 7 pages as well, and it isn't present there either.
    - detaro 10y ago
      Flagging affects ranking before it is visible (it's actually a fairly new feature that flagging is shown at all before the story is killed and closed for new comments)
matt4077 10y ago
Yeah, sorry about that. Conspiracy headquarters was busy with the daily mass media realignment groupthink and I couldn't get you the usual 1055 ("useful appearance of opposition") exemption.
pavlov 10y ago
Maybe because you didn't provide any context? Cherry-picking one sentence from an email doesn't seem like a good faith attempt to discuss the issues. (The same applies for Trump quotes! We should give him the benefit of doubt and make a reasonable attempt to understand the proper context of his bizarre but extremely quotable statements... But in his case, it's often difficult or meaningless to determine context because he rambles off the cuff all the time -- often it seems like many of the quotes just surface from his subconscious, and there's nothing else in the surrounding thought stream that could explain it.)
- piotrjurkiewicz 10y ago
  You comment his actions, but haven't even bothered to check the submission he complains about, have you? He provided a link to the full content of email he cited. I thought that this is a preferred approach: provide just facts, without adding own subjective context and interpretation to them.
  - pavlov 10y ago
    Actually I did look at the Schmidt email, and I didn't see what the fuss is about. The same advice could have been given by any other number of people. That's why I wish the poster would have given some context: why is this worthy of being on HN? Just because it's a private email from Eric Schmidt?
    - thisisdallas 10y ago
      This is news about a tech giant suggesting a database be created based on voting habits that includes additional metadata about individuals. The fact that Schmidt obviously has ties to Google brings up the question of whether or not Google resources and user data would be used to help create such a thing. Honestly, the political aspect is quite minor compared to the the tech aspect. On another note, my original post included the suggestion that the Clinton campaign hire low wage workers. Implying their political passion would allow them to pay low wages. In my opinion, that manipulation is horrible. Both of those topics seem like something the hn community would like to discuss. Unfortunately, it seems mods/admin/whoever are letting their political biased rise up above login and quality conversation.
throwaway274739 10y ago
Hacker News is, as clearly stated in the FAQ, "for things of interest to hackers". Given how widely discredited WikiLeaks is -- pretty much every neutral observer acknowledges they're now little more than a messenger for Russian intelligence operatives -- I can't see much value in discussing this garbage. There are plenty of places for on the internet where you can find Donald Trump circle jerks where you can discuss this with the plethora of conspiracy theorists, white nationalists and Trump supporters this stuff tends to attract. Hacker News is not one of them.
- 58 10y ago
  So what are you saying, that the emails are fake or doctored?
  - throwaway274739 10y ago
    They could be fake, they could be doctored, they definitely are are out of context, etc. We know these emails are provided courtesy of Russia. Considering the Trump campaigns disturbing ties with Russia, these should be taken with extreme skepticism. To me, the much bigger question is, what does Russia want from Trump? He is obviously going to repay the favor somehow.
    - 58 10y ago
      We don't know who leaked the emails. You'll have to show me proof otherwise. What's disturbing is the content of the emails. Clinton will not last six months into her presidency, I can promise you that. There is clear evidence from the Podesta emails so far that the Clinton campaign cheated, broke the law, and used the Clinton Foundation for shady purposes. Mark my words, after what's come out in the last few weeks about Clinton, she will be seen in history as criminal, just like her husband. Did you see she got debate questions ahead of time via Donna Brazile (in addition to the previously discovered town hall question)? That they made millions off pay-for-play with brutal foreign governments? Every day there are multiple discoveries of enormous magnitude, and that confirm long-standing suspicions about the Clintons.

grzm 10y ago

"You must be a new HN user. Few weeks ago HN front page was full of political/election topics." Yes, I am a relatively new commenter (24 days). I started following comments at a particularly heated time. And the community aspects of the site are very interesting to me, in traction between users, community policing, the behavior of the moderators, how people choose to trust some sources and distrust others, how people who disagree can constructively discuss the contentious points. This last is particularly important to me, especially given the polarized political climate in the US. I'm not prepared to weigh in on whether or to what extent there's user bias as to which stories or comments are getting flagged or down voted. I think it's a worthwhile question that should be examined analytically, with more than anecdotes. Also, I don't know how the flamewar detection algorithms work, which causes some submissions to be removed from appearing on the front page. And based on what I've seen of the moderators, I give HN the benefit of the doubt that this system doesn't specifically include a political bias. As for "moderation downweight", do you have some links for discussion on this feature? Personally, I see no evidence that the moderators are actively biasing discussion other than trying to keep things civil and substantive. As for user flags and down votes, those are reflective of the community, and I say that without judging whether it's the correct behavior or not. Communities play a role in shaping themselves. How that shaping occurs is also up for discussion. As for changes in flagging aggressiveness, I think people here in general want to be tolerant (explaining the early political/election topics) and have been getting increasingly tired of seeing the same topics getting rehashed (explaining the more aggressive flagging of political topics now). Anyway, I am new so maybe this is all crap :) Thanks for taking the time for reading to this point. What do you think? Fair analysis? Bunk?

piotrjurkiewicz 10y ago
> As for "moderation downweight", do you have some links for discussion on this feature? I pasted a wrong link in parentheses next to the fragment about moderation downweight. Here is a link to a comment where moderator admits it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715332
- grzm 10y ago
  Thanks for the link! I appreciate it. Your phrasing "a comment where moderator admits it": "admit" is often used in cases where someone is acknowledging some wrongdoing. Is this the connotation you intended? Here's what the moderator said: "Sorry, but pure politics aren't a good fit for HN, so in addition to the user flags already on the post we've added a moderation downweight." To me that looks like an explanation. It doesn't look like they're trying to hide their decisions (whether or not one agrees with them). If I'm misreading your intent, please stop now and let me know :) I don't mean or want to put words in your mouth. If you do think what they did was wrong in some way, I'm interested in hearing why you think so. Some more questions, if you'd take the time to answer. If you're not, that's perfectly fine, too. - Is it wrong for moderators to enforce stated community guidelines? (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) - Do you think the moderators are doing so unevenly? On purpose? - Should communities have guidelines? If so, what guidelines are fair? - Is there a difference between topic guidelines and behavior guidelines? For example, I've seen users cautioned by moderators to keep comments substantive and civil here on HN. I'm trying to inform my own opinion around these topics, and would like to know what others think to get a better understanding of the issues. Thanks again! At this point I think I've said all I really can on this thread, so, as they say on the radio, I'll take my answer off the air :)