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The author of this comment has a history of apologizing for Chinese crimes: >>LOL, kill thousands of its own citizens in protests? The Chinese government never
by nappy 8y ago
The author of this comment has a history of apologizing for Chinese crimes:
>>LOL, kill thousands of its own citizens in protests? The Chinese government never did that (even the famous tank man was unharmed and was not arrested), the truth is, many soldiers got killed because they were not allowed to fire at citizens. Even the Chinese government did kill its own citizen they learnt from the US (1932 Bonus Army, 1970 Kent state massacre, Jesus that was only 48 years ago, not mentioning almost every day someone is being shot by the police somewhere in the US. The funny thing is one shot won't even make it to the newspaper now.)
>>In a word, you have been brainwashed by your media. I know it's hard to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep, but it's good for you.
- AsyncAwait 8y agoDo you have a substantive point relevant to what the parent said here?
- tempestn 8y agoSeems like pretty relevant context to me.
- lagadu 8y agoWhy? The argument stands on its own legs, how is the commenter's post history relevant?
- afpx 8y agoWhy? Because there are a lot of paid propagandists on this site (which is expected, given HN’s influential power).
- neom 8y agoPaid propagandists? I genuinely find this hard to believe. Maybe I'm naive
- dang 8y agoWhat evidence do you have for that? Someone having an opposing opinion doesn't count as evidence. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622054 and https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Plenty more at 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.... I've spent a lot of time looking into this. We are always open to new information and when we find evidence of abuse, we ban accounts and then some. We have low tolerance for actual abuse on HN. But I can tell you with confidence that most people accusing "paid propagandists" are simply imagining the nastiest about those who happen to disagree with them. Both sides do this on divisive issues. That's not acceptable either.
- afpx 8y agoDang, I really respect you; you are a pretty amazing and patient moderator. However, the odds of there being paid propagandists here are extremely high, even without glaring evidence. HN is probably the most influential technology / startup / venture capital forum on Earth. Many important people and groups read this site daily. Those factors alone make it a target for influence campaigns. So, it would be extremely unlikely for HN to be completely free from it, especially given the current state of world affairs and that it’s well known that online influence campaigns are very effective. That’s not a rip on you, the previous poster, or anyone. It’s just a statement that, yeah, sometimes it is important to highlight a poster’s potential bias. Why would you not want to? Also, I’m curious: what technologies do you guys use to identify bad actors? Maybe if I understood the sophistication of your methods, I would have more trust. There are a lot of smart people here (much smarter than me) who may want to help.
- dang 8y agoI'm not seeing a big disagreement here, except that in my view you're badly underestimating how common, and how toxic, it is for users to hurl these accusations at others simply because they disagree with them. That's a cheap, vulgar move that has nothing to do with actual astroturfing, it's by far the most common phenomenon in this space (and growing), and it poisons the community. Therefore people aren't allowed to do that on HN. "Sometimes it's important to highlight a poster's potential bias" is covered by the site guideline that asks you to send such concerns to hn@ycombinator.com rather than posting them in the threads. In the vast majority of cases that I see, it's not hard to establish that the accusation of shillage is wrong and that the user was just expressing their personal view—unless you think the Chinese government planted people on HN years ago to establish posting histories about Julia or whatever. Legit HN users have a right not to be dressed down or have their histories hauled out by a flash mob that doesn't like what they said. If you're concerned that someone is breaking the site guidelines or otherwise abusing HN, please contact us privately. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- akvadrako 8y agoHow is a commenter's potential conflict of interest not relevant?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- AsyncAwait 8y agoSubtract the OP's posting history. Is what they wrote still relevant and valid? Yes? There's your answer.
- fitpolar 8y agoEveryone technically has a conflict of interest or premeditated motivation. An argument should stand on its own merit, regardless of who makes it. Analyzing anything other than the argument is immature.
- ghusbands 8y agoCalling someone's argument or stance immature is immature.
- fitpolar 8y agoWith that mindset nobody should use that word. We should wipe it from the dictionary.
- EliRivers 8y agoAnalyzing anything other than the argument is immature. Yet sometimes it leads to a better outcome than just analysis of the argument alone. Context is real. Context matters. Automatically disregarding real information on the grounds of "maturity" ideology can lead to a worse outcome, so it doesn't seem like the best course.
- fitpolar 8y agoWhile context is important, I’ve found that the context of who someone is personally is rarely beneficial when being objective. If anything, this approach is anti-ideology, as you are not taking ideological bias into account...and there’s way too much ideological bias in discussions these days. I think that’s what I meant by maturity.
- asianthrowaway 8y agoLol, busted! I wonder if he's getting paid by the Chinese government.
- qd6pwu4 8y ago.
- asianthrowaway 8y ago5 points have been deposited in your social credit account Edit: why did you censor yourself? At least own up to what you post.
- Throwaway888899 8y agoReally? Didn't work out so well for the Huawei CFO
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- qd6pwu4 8y agoWhat I'm posting under this thread is based on fact. So you want to criticize me for irrelevant things?
- swarnie_ 8y agoLiterally every post you make here is on the subject of China as well. How much is the party paying you to shill this hard?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dang 8y agoPosting like this breaks the site guidelines and will get you banned here regardless of what another commenter is doing. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again. There's plenty of explanation of 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... if you want to understand why we make a big deal about this on HN.
- dang 8y agoIt looks like you've been using HN primarily for nationalistic political comments. That breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Could you please review those and use HN as intended, i.e. for intellectual curiosity, from now on? The test we apply is whether an account has crossed the line of using HN primarily for political battle. If that is the case, we ban the account, regardless of which politics or nation they're fighting for or against. That is because these battles have a way of consuming everything if allowed to, and therefore must not be allowed to. Further explanations of how we moderate this are here for anyone who wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20primarily%20test https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- otalp 8y agoI don't have a history of doing that and came to comment very similar things. US sanctions against Iran are motivated solely for geopolitical realpolitik.
- throwawaylolx 8y agoThe author of this comment has a history of attacking the Chinese government: >This is ridiculous equivocation between a democratic society with a rule of law and an authoritarian regime. You're kidding yourself if you don't think the Chinese government has an interest in data owned by foreign nationals that they could gain access to.
- HeavyStorm 8y agoAd hominem?
- throwawaylolx 8y agoJust as much as the poster I replied to.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- simias 8y agoThe fact that the parent is pro-chinese is pretty clear, I don't see what digging into their post history adds to the discussion, especially since in this case it's tangential at best.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoIt's always good to know the other parties agenda/ideology as that will (consciously or unconsciously, often the latter) influence what they feel deserves or doesn't deserve being mentioned.
- Dirlewanger 8y agoBecause astroturfing has utterly subverted discussion on hot-button issues on all social media platforms (including this one), whether you choose to believe it or not.
- fosco 8y agoI wonder if there are solutions to astroturfing that have not been explored. this is really challenging as it is something I have been thinking about a long time and each idea I have I find a way that it would simply not work.
- dang 8y agoWe've spent a lot of time working on this, and the actual astroturfing that we've found is small compared to the frequency with which users fire this accusation at each other merely because they hold opposing views. That's why the site guidelines ask people not to bring this toxic trope up without evidence. Some users holding opposing views to yours is not evidence of astroturfing, only of divided views. Perhaps you or someone else knows more than we do about this on Hacker News, but in that case you should be telling us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. That's in the guidelines as well. When there's real information, we take it very seriously. Unfortunately, though, this trope is driven mostly by imagination, not information. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sattoshi 8y agoIs this reddit?
- joelx 8y agoHN should shut down nation state's propaganda accounts.