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I feel like I've read the exact same HN comment, comparing Facebook to the NSA, five times in the past couple days. Here it's barely tangentially related to the

I feel like I've read the exact same HN comment, comparing Facebook to the NSA, five times in the past couple days. Here it's barely tangentially related to the topic at hand. Is there some sort of mini PR push going on to mitigate FB's recent reputational damage?

hyder_m29 9y ago
I second this. I too noticed a bunch of suspiciously pro-Zukerberg top comments on frontpage articles that are even remotely related to FB.
ribosometronome 9y ago
"Hey guys, remember how Facebook had to go in front of congress? Zuck did a crappy job there!" is not exactly a great, confidence instilling PR push.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Hrm... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook%20nsa&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook%20nsa&sort=byDate&pre...
dang 9y ago
Please don't post comments insinuating astroturfing or shillage unless you have some more substantive reason for it—in which case you should email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. All this is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's natural for things to seem this way, but that's because there's enough data on HN to produce seeming patterns of all kinds. Overwhelmingly, it's just users being users. Unfortunately the internet habit of leaping to "shill!" or "PR!" as an explanation for $annoying_view does more damage, because it's more widespread. That's why we ask people to inhibit the reflex. I've posted a ton about this if anyone wants more background: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
- mintplant 9y ago
  You're right, on reflection this was unnecessarily silly/snarky of me to post here. Thanks for the course correction.

hyder_m29 9y ago

I second this. I too noticed a bunch of suspiciously pro-Zukerberg top comments on frontpage articles that are even remotely related to FB.

ribosometronome 9y ago

"Hey guys, remember how Facebook had to go in front of congress? Zuck did a crappy job there!" is not exactly a great, confidence instilling PR push.

dredmorbius 9y ago

Hrm... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook%20nsa&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=pastWeek&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=facebook%20nsa&sort=byDate&pre...

dang 9y ago

Please don't post comments insinuating astroturfing or shillage unless you have some more substantive reason for it—in which case you should email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. All this is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's natural for things to seem this way, but that's because there's enough data on HN to produce seeming patterns of all kinds. Overwhelmingly, it's just users being users. Unfortunately the internet habit of leaping to "shill!" or "PR!" as an explanation for $annoying_view does more damage, because it's more widespread. That's why we ask people to inhibit the reflex. I've posted a ton about this if anyone wants more background: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

mintplant 9y ago
You're right, on reflection this was unnecessarily silly/snarky of me to post here. Thanks for the course correction.