Lots of opinion here, no real data. The one chart from the pew research center is how people, "feel," about an issue. OK...so what? Ironically, Hacker News i

Lots of opinion here, no real data. The one chart from the pew research center is how people, "feel," about an issue. OK...so what? Ironically, Hacker News is censored by Y-Combinator, but no one on this thread seems to mind. As soon as it's a government body however, many people on this particular thread are up-in-arms. So one thing we do know for certain is that stated intent about censorship is different than actual behavior, within the context of our discussion. How can we improve this conversation? In general, people love censorship if it benefits themselves, (in the case of Hacker News, keeping a non-post-September environment), but they don't like the idea of it potentially damaging free speech and causing societal dissent overall. I don't know the answer here, but I was reminded of something interesting I read years ago, about how we can, "measure" the type of censorship going on. There have been many studies that have come out measuring the speed and duration and types of Chinese censorship, and it's really interesting; here is an example: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512231/computer-scientists-measure-the-speed-of-censorship-on-chinas-twitter/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512231/computer-scientist... I know there are ways to measure censorship, I have never seen a structured approach to measuring internet censorship that already exists in Hacker News or the type of astroturfing that is done by the US Government already, etc. Those types of articles I think would heighten the discussion from the current state of, "hurr durr Government censorship universally bad in all circumstances, regardless of whether it's blatantly false."