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You may feel it necessary to your own safety to censor those of us who are paying attention to these things - but as history has proven time and again, you're s

You may feel it necessary to your own safety to censor those of us who are paying attention to these things - but as history has proven time and again, you're shooting yourselves in your own feet by banning speech you deem unsuitable for your purposes. Good, interested hackers can without doubt find other places to discuss the very relevant machinations of the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex and its negative influence in contemporary hacker culture - but if HN is no longer a safe, relevant place to be discussing the nature of whistleblowing, technology, or indeed world politics in the technical age, then so be it: why allow anything to be posted about Assange, at all, then? His story is nothing but political in nature.

dang 7y ago
I posted at length about this the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013092. If, after reading that, you feel like there's a relevant point about how we moderate political threads that it doesn't address, I'd be happy to hear what that is. There seems to be a misunderstanding in this bit: > you're shooting yourselves in your own feet by banning speech you deem unsuitable for your purposes Our purpose is to optimize HN for intellectual curiosity. You're right in that sense, but only that sense. HN moderation has no purpose related to Assange or any other hot topic, nor are we moderating based on what we agree or disagree with. I moderate comments I agree with every single day. Perhaps that sounds weird? After a while, one gets used to it. If you take a step back and look at HN threads on topics with political overlap, you'll find that many HN users have figured out how to express their views thoughtfully, without resorting to fiery rhetoric or denunciation. You'll also find that many of them are expressing views similar to yours. Please be more like them. It's really just for good conversation. No one wants to be in the room that someone is blasting with a megaphone, regardless of the megaphone's views.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  "Mind your manners", I can agree with. "Don't mention the war", I cannot. I believe that censoring opinion around the subject of the Wests' criminal wars only provides further cover for those who profit from it.
  - dang 7y ago
    Nobody said you can't mention things. You need to drop fiery rhetoric, denunciation, and other weapons of ideological battle when posting here.

dang 7y ago

I posted at length about this the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013092. If, after reading that, you feel like there's a relevant point about how we moderate political threads that it doesn't address, I'd be happy to hear what that is. There seems to be a misunderstanding in this bit: > you're shooting yourselves in your own feet by banning speech you deem unsuitable for your purposes Our purpose is to optimize HN for intellectual curiosity. You're right in that sense, but only that sense. HN moderation has no purpose related to Assange or any other hot topic, nor are we moderating based on what we agree or disagree with. I moderate comments I agree with every single day. Perhaps that sounds weird? After a while, one gets used to it. If you take a step back and look at HN threads on topics with political overlap, you'll find that many HN users have figured out how to express their views thoughtfully, without resorting to fiery rhetoric or denunciation. You'll also find that many of them are expressing views similar to yours. Please be more like them. It's really just for good conversation. No one wants to be in the room that someone is blasting with a megaphone, regardless of the megaphone's views.

fit2rule 7y ago
"Mind your manners", I can agree with. "Don't mention the war", I cannot. I believe that censoring opinion around the subject of the Wests' criminal wars only provides further cover for those who profit from it.
- dang 7y ago
  Nobody said you can't mention things. You need to drop fiery rhetoric, denunciation, and other weapons of ideological battle when posting here.