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The comments on this article make me absolutely certain that Google has a large PR team patrolling HN. HN may be fairly right-wing but there is an implausible

by adwhit 9y ago

The comments on this article make me absolutely certain that Google has a large PR team patrolling HN. HN may be fairly right-wing but there is an implausible amount of apologetics for one of the world's largest and most powerful companies engaging in plainly coercive behaviour.

dang 9y ago
This violates the HN guideline which asks you to refrain from insinuations about astroturfing or shillage: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. On the internet, people are far too quick do this because they can't imagine that views which seem (to them) so wrong and dumb could possibly be coming from others in good faith. But the truth is that the opinion diversity of the community wildly exceeds intuitive estimates. The null hypothesis, therefore, when it feels like astroturfing simply must be going on, is that you're underestimating the good faith of others. It's super tempting to reach for the stick (PR! astroturf! shill! how much are they paying you!) but we know from experience that this degrades discussion quickly, and therefore the temptation needs resisting—hence that guideline. Real astroturfing exists, of course, but it's a quite different species than this common astroturfy warbler. If you're worried about it, we can investigate, but you need to email us rather than post comments about it. In this case Occam is even more active than usual because there's a particularly obvious explanation for what you're seeing: the tendency of the community to respond with objections to whatever gets posted. If the article were slanted the opposite way, so would the comments be, not because different 'astroturfers' would show up but because the people most motivated to comment are the ones who see something to pick holes in. Then others show up to pick holes in the way the first round of holes was picked—invariably leading with "I can't believe this community is so X", not realizing that they're motivated by just the same thing as their predecessors. This dynamic is a problem in its own right but for different reasons. Btw your assessment of HN as 'right wing' has the same cognitive bias—underestimating the diversity of the community—embedded in it. It's clear (painfully clear, at least to me!) that the opposite wing sees HN just the opposite way and has just as ready a supply of examples to point to. An anarcho-anti-capitalist story has spent the last several hours on the front page, etc.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  > they can't imagine that views which seem (to them) so wrong and dumb could possibly be coming from others in good faith. When asked about the motivations and perspective of a smuggler, Quark explained[1], "No one involved in an extra-legal activity thinks of himself as nefarious." Bad faith would apply to a "PR team" involved in some sort of premeditated, intentional fraud. That isn't necessary, and I don't believe I've seen that type of accusation. I'm sure both the posts from various known Google-employees and a hypothetical "PR team" are acting in good faith. Is there even any significant difference in what a random "true believing" engineer and a PR agent would say? Google probably hasn't ordered a team of PR specialist to post on HN, but self-motivated employees defending their business may be functionally similar. [1] DS9 s06e25 "The Sound of Her Voice"
  - dang 9y ago
    To me it seems like you're changing the meaning of these terms. HN has lots of users who work for lots of different companies and of course they're free to (and do) share their genuine opinions just like anyone else does. That isn't astroturfing nor shilling nor PR. Is the effect the same? I doubt it, but that's just a point of theoretical interest. Do people make accusations of actual fraud (astroturfing, shillage)? You bet, all the time. That's why we added a site guideline saying not to.
- adwhit 9y ago
  Fair enough, I suppose I should have read the guidelines at some point.
- nkurz 9y ago
  This is a brilliant comment, Dan, both in the message and the wording. I loved the image of the "common astroturfy warbler". Previously, I hadn't considered much the importance of who comments on which posts, and how this changes based on the perceived slant of the original article. Going back to my hobby-horse, I wonder how much user-flagging of posts is caused by similar perceptual biases, and what effect this has on others' perceptions of the site. From the outside, it looks this article was flagged off the front page: http://hnrankings.info/15171291/ http://hnrankings.info/15171291/. Was it someone who disagreed with the anti-Google slant of the article, or someone who didn't like that many of the comments appeared pro-Google? Even if there was some non-flagging reason for the sudden drop, I'm sure that both "sides" will view the demotion as evidence that the site (admins, users, or both) is biased against them.
delroth 9y ago
Or, you know, in the tens of thousands of people that work at Google, a lot are HN readers and have been before they even joined the company. But feel free to assume this is a conspiracy if that makes you happy.

by adwhit 9y ago

dang 9y ago

This violates the HN guideline which asks you to refrain from insinuations about astroturfing or shillage: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. On the internet, people are far too quick do this because they can't imagine that views which seem (to them) so wrong and dumb could possibly be coming from others in good faith. But the truth is that the opinion diversity of the community wildly exceeds intuitive estimates. The null hypothesis, therefore, when it feels like astroturfing simply must be going on, is that you're underestimating the good faith of others. It's super tempting to reach for the stick (PR! astroturf! shill! how much are they paying you!) but we know from experience that this degrades discussion quickly, and therefore the temptation needs resisting—hence that guideline. Real astroturfing exists, of course, but it's a quite different species than this common astroturfy warbler. If you're worried about it, we can investigate, but you need to email us rather than post comments about it. In this case Occam is even more active than usual because there's a particularly obvious explanation for what you're seeing: the tendency of the community to respond with objections to whatever gets posted. If the article were slanted the opposite way, so would the comments be, not because different 'astroturfers' would show up but because the people most motivated to comment are the ones who see something to pick holes in. Then others show up to pick holes in the way the first round of holes was picked—invariably leading with "I can't believe this community is so X", not realizing that they're motivated by just the same thing as their predecessors. This dynamic is a problem in its own right but for different reasons. Btw your assessment of HN as 'right wing' has the same cognitive bias—underestimating the diversity of the community—embedded in it. It's clear (painfully clear, at least to me!) that the opposite wing sees HN just the opposite way and has just as ready a supply of examples to point to. An anarcho-anti-capitalist story has spent the last several hours on the front page, etc.

pdkl95 9y ago
> they can't imagine that views which seem (to them) so wrong and dumb could possibly be coming from others in good faith. When asked about the motivations and perspective of a smuggler, Quark explained[1], "No one involved in an extra-legal activity thinks of himself as nefarious." Bad faith would apply to a "PR team" involved in some sort of premeditated, intentional fraud. That isn't necessary, and I don't believe I've seen that type of accusation. I'm sure both the posts from various known Google-employees and a hypothetical "PR team" are acting in good faith. Is there even any significant difference in what a random "true believing" engineer and a PR agent would say? Google probably hasn't ordered a team of PR specialist to post on HN, but self-motivated employees defending their business may be functionally similar. [1] DS9 s06e25 "The Sound of Her Voice"
- dang 9y ago
  To me it seems like you're changing the meaning of these terms. HN has lots of users who work for lots of different companies and of course they're free to (and do) share their genuine opinions just like anyone else does. That isn't astroturfing nor shilling nor PR. Is the effect the same? I doubt it, but that's just a point of theoretical interest. Do people make accusations of actual fraud (astroturfing, shillage)? You bet, all the time. That's why we added a site guideline saying not to.
adwhit 9y ago
Fair enough, I suppose I should have read the guidelines at some point.
nkurz 9y ago
This is a brilliant comment, Dan, both in the message and the wording. I loved the image of the "common astroturfy warbler". Previously, I hadn't considered much the importance of who comments on which posts, and how this changes based on the perceived slant of the original article. Going back to my hobby-horse, I wonder how much user-flagging of posts is caused by similar perceptual biases, and what effect this has on others' perceptions of the site. From the outside, it looks this article was flagged off the front page: http://hnrankings.info/15171291/ http://hnrankings.info/15171291/. Was it someone who disagreed with the anti-Google slant of the article, or someone who didn't like that many of the comments appeared pro-Google? Even if there was some non-flagging reason for the sudden drop, I'm sure that both "sides" will view the demotion as evidence that the site (admins, users, or both) is biased against them.

delroth 9y ago

Or, you know, in the tens of thousands of people that work at Google, a lot are HN readers and have been before they even joined the company. But feel free to assume this is a conspiracy if that makes you happy.