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Deplatforming, shadow banning, deboosting, demonetization are all modern forms of censorship. It might not be exactly like the Chinese or other types of censors

Deplatforming, shadow banning, deboosting, demonetization are all modern forms of censorship. It might not be exactly like the Chinese or other types of censorships we have seen in the past but it is a valid form of censorship. Definitions aren't everything, context matters. If you want to see a rising power filled with authoritarianism, look towards Google.

hnBansByDefault 7y ago
But HN would never do such a thing, right?
- dang 7y ago
  When an account has more than a little history here, we tell people that we've banned them, and why: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:sctb%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Brand new accounts posting trollish or flamebaity stuff get treated differently. Software filters some of those, and we shadowban some of them, especially if there's evidence that this is someone we've banned many times before. The converse is also true: if software has filtered out a new account that's not posting trollishly or flamebaitily, we restore their posts and mark the account legit so it won't happen again. I think this is a reasonable balance between transparency and defending the site against abuse. If we tried to give every banned account the same high-effort attention that we give established users, we'd do nothing else all day and still not get through them all. That would just be a new vector for people to DoS the moderators. A small number of abusive users can create a large number of disruptions. Edit: there is also a significant amount of spam, and if we told spammers we were banning them, they would spam us with emails demanding attention, asking why, and telling us how high-quality their articles really are. Actually they do this a lot already, and it's a pain.
  - stefantalpalaru 7y ago
    > A small number of abusive users can create a large number of disruptions. Yes, just like a small number of censors can cut off a suicidal Ian Murdock's last communication channels so he runs out of excuses for postponing his suicide, only to assure themselves the next day that they did nothing wrong.
- goodfight 7y ago
  I'm not positive on that statement. But I have seen political bias and ranking bias quite often on HN.
BubRoss 7y ago
China kills people who speak out against the government killing people. Reddit is literally still broadcasting everything /r/the_donald wants, they just aren't linking to it as much. I don't think that's the same as murdering individuals for political speech.

hnBansByDefault 7y ago

But HN would never do such a thing, right?

dang 7y ago
When an account has more than a little history here, we tell people that we've banned them, and why: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:sctb%20banned https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Brand new accounts posting trollish or flamebaity stuff get treated differently. Software filters some of those, and we shadowban some of them, especially if there's evidence that this is someone we've banned many times before. The converse is also true: if software has filtered out a new account that's not posting trollishly or flamebaitily, we restore their posts and mark the account legit so it won't happen again. I think this is a reasonable balance between transparency and defending the site against abuse. If we tried to give every banned account the same high-effort attention that we give established users, we'd do nothing else all day and still not get through them all. That would just be a new vector for people to DoS the moderators. A small number of abusive users can create a large number of disruptions. Edit: there is also a significant amount of spam, and if we told spammers we were banning them, they would spam us with emails demanding attention, asking why, and telling us how high-quality their articles really are. Actually they do this a lot already, and it's a pain.
- stefantalpalaru 7y ago
  > A small number of abusive users can create a large number of disruptions. Yes, just like a small number of censors can cut off a suicidal Ian Murdock's last communication channels so he runs out of excuses for postponing his suicide, only to assure themselves the next day that they did nothing wrong.
goodfight 7y ago
I'm not positive on that statement. But I have seen political bias and ranking bias quite often on HN.

BubRoss 7y ago

China kills people who speak out against the government killing people. Reddit is literally still broadcasting everything /r/the_donald wants, they just aren't linking to it as much. I don't think that's the same as murdering individuals for political speech.