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What about domains that are instaflagged? For example, I tried posting a Breitbart article [0] about a conservative blogger at Google, because in this one case

What about domains that are instaflagged? For example, I tried posting a Breitbart article [0] about a conservative blogger at Google, because in this one case I felt like it was the best "primary source" to get the discussion started. It was auto-killed like every article on Breitbart. [1] So I resubmitted via archive.is and actually got 6 upvotes [2], showing there was at least some interest in the topic that would never had surfaced if I used the original link. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16103017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16103017 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=breitbart.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=breitbart.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16246184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16246184

raguuu 9y ago
I'm hellbanned because HN doesn't like my views. Sometimes my comments do go through for whatever reason.
- dang 9y ago
  You're banned because you've serially abused HN and broken the site guidelines many times. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
  - raguuu 9y ago
    I have never received the reason or what guidelines I have broken many (???) times.
croon 9y ago
Have we really arrived at a place where "conservative blogger" is an accurate description of a person who: * "isn't exactly allergic to the stuff" (re: white nationalism) * wrote "Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For others, it is more suited to slavery. " * asked "What's so bad about the Nazis?" * etc ? I'm not sure if it's liberals or conservatives who should be offended by that. Hopefully both.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Exactly these so call "conservative" views are actually hard right ones if not oughtright fascist ones. In UK terms the national front or EDL. Danmore did not want to say set up a group of googlers into field sports (hunting Shooting and Fishing) did he.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  The interesting part of that article was that his views were sufficient to silently land him on a “do not visit” list at Google HQ, which implies that Google is tracking people who hold such opinions and adding them to such lists.
  - hux_ 9y ago
    No great conspiracy here. Any mid to large org maintain such lists. If you fire someone who is wasting the orgs time, do you then want him to show up/get hired/be entertained by some group in the next building/next campus etc who have no idea what the story is?
    - chatmasta 9y ago
      The guy is not an ex-Google employee. This event was named in the Damore lawsuit as evidence of discrimination against political views because all he was guilty of was blogging things someone at Google had a problem with. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable to know that even if you’ve had no previous interactions with Google, you may be tracked and added to a list of undesirables? Who controls the list, who has power to add people to it, and what else are they doing with this list? What if they’re looking at his search history too? Would that be okay?
      - gnud 9y ago
        As long as the list is used for "people who will/won't be invited to speak at Google HQ", and not used to influence search results, I have zero problems with it.
      - 9y ago
1337biz 9y ago
As far as I understand the HN mod team tries to reduce politically discussions as much as possible. For my taste they are doing a great job at this because it protects the community from tearing apart. There are so many places that had once interesting discussions and now have morphed into political shouting matches - for me Twitter is a main example of that. I personally like that culture on HN and I am trying to contribute by flagging any politically charged topics no matter if they are leaning left or right.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  I also like that culture, and hate political spam on HN, but I found this article relevant due to its relation to Google. In general, politics that intersect with tech tend to generate fairly extensive and generally mature HN discussions. See James Damore, Susan Fowler, etc. for examples.
soundwave106 9y ago
In this case, I actually would not consider Breitbart to be the best source to report from (owing to their strong political bias). The source of this complaint is the James Damore lawsuit filing here (https://www.scribd.com/document/368692388/James-Damore-Lawsuit https://www.scribd.com/document/368692388/James-Damore-Lawsu...). You can find the portion mentioning Curtis Yarvin on page 37. That would be the best primary source to link to. (Even the lawsuit description is problematic to me, as the "influential conservative personalities" mentioned -- Alex Jones, Theodore Beale, and Curtis Yarvin -- all come from the "alt-right" / conspiracy-oriented / "neo-reactionary" side of conservatism. There's no indication that this list also includes other influential conservative personalities like, say, George Will and Charles Krauthammer, so at first the description in the lawsuit seems overly broad. But the lawsuit text provides more context than Breitbart did, IMHO.)
dang 9y ago
If the site is banned, as breitbart.com is, then you should either find another article on the topic, or failing that, email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look. I'd never rule out making an exception, but would probably want to post a comment in the thread explaining the situation to readers. As for why breitbart.com is banned, one need look no further than this subthread. Posting from it is bomb-throwing whether you intend to or not, more or less regardless of the content. I suppose I should add that no, this is not because of political bias, it's because of anti-flamewar bias. There are sites with opposite politics which are banned for the same reason.
- hammock 9y ago
  Can you share a list of banned domains?
  - dang 9y ago
    I'm afraid not, because most are spam and we spend enough of life answering "why is my site banned" emails already.

raguuu 9y ago

I'm hellbanned because HN doesn't like my views. Sometimes my comments do go through for whatever reason.

dang 9y ago
You're banned because you've serially abused HN and broken the site guidelines many times. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- raguuu 9y ago
  I have never received the reason or what guidelines I have broken many (???) times.

croon 9y ago

Have we really arrived at a place where "conservative blogger" is an accurate description of a person who: * "isn't exactly allergic to the stuff" (re: white nationalism) * wrote "Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For others, it is more suited to slavery. " * asked "What's so bad about the Nazis?" * etc ? I'm not sure if it's liberals or conservatives who should be offended by that. Hopefully both.

walshemj 9y ago
Exactly these so call "conservative" views are actually hard right ones if not oughtright fascist ones. In UK terms the national front or EDL. Danmore did not want to say set up a group of googlers into field sports (hunting Shooting and Fishing) did he.
chatmasta 9y ago
The interesting part of that article was that his views were sufficient to silently land him on a “do not visit” list at Google HQ, which implies that Google is tracking people who hold such opinions and adding them to such lists.
- hux_ 9y ago
  No great conspiracy here. Any mid to large org maintain such lists. If you fire someone who is wasting the orgs time, do you then want him to show up/get hired/be entertained by some group in the next building/next campus etc who have no idea what the story is?
  - chatmasta 9y ago
    The guy is not an ex-Google employee. This event was named in the Damore lawsuit as evidence of discrimination against political views because all he was guilty of was blogging things someone at Google had a problem with. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable to know that even if you’ve had no previous interactions with Google, you may be tracked and added to a list of undesirables? Who controls the list, who has power to add people to it, and what else are they doing with this list? What if they’re looking at his search history too? Would that be okay?
    - gnud 9y ago
      As long as the list is used for "people who will/won't be invited to speak at Google HQ", and not used to influence search results, I have zero problems with it.
    - 9y ago

1337biz 9y ago

As far as I understand the HN mod team tries to reduce politically discussions as much as possible. For my taste they are doing a great job at this because it protects the community from tearing apart. There are so many places that had once interesting discussions and now have morphed into political shouting matches - for me Twitter is a main example of that. I personally like that culture on HN and I am trying to contribute by flagging any politically charged topics no matter if they are leaning left or right.

chatmasta 9y ago
I also like that culture, and hate political spam on HN, but I found this article relevant due to its relation to Google. In general, politics that intersect with tech tend to generate fairly extensive and generally mature HN discussions. See James Damore, Susan Fowler, etc. for examples.

soundwave106 9y ago

In this case, I actually would not consider Breitbart to be the best source to report from (owing to their strong political bias). The source of this complaint is the James Damore lawsuit filing here (https://www.scribd.com/document/368692388/James-Damore-Lawsuit https://www.scribd.com/document/368692388/James-Damore-Lawsu...). You can find the portion mentioning Curtis Yarvin on page 37. That would be the best primary source to link to. (Even the lawsuit description is problematic to me, as the "influential conservative personalities" mentioned -- Alex Jones, Theodore Beale, and Curtis Yarvin -- all come from the "alt-right" / conspiracy-oriented / "neo-reactionary" side of conservatism. There's no indication that this list also includes other influential conservative personalities like, say, George Will and Charles Krauthammer, so at first the description in the lawsuit seems overly broad. But the lawsuit text provides more context than Breitbart did, IMHO.)

dang 9y ago

If the site is banned, as breitbart.com is, then you should either find another article on the topic, or failing that, email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can take a look. I'd never rule out making an exception, but would probably want to post a comment in the thread explaining the situation to readers. As for why breitbart.com is banned, one need look no further than this subthread. Posting from it is bomb-throwing whether you intend to or not, more or less regardless of the content. I suppose I should add that no, this is not because of political bias, it's because of anti-flamewar bias. There are sites with opposite politics which are banned for the same reason.

hammock 9y ago
Can you share a list of banned domains?
- dang 9y ago
  I'm afraid not, because most are spam and we spend enough of life answering "why is my site banned" emails already.