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This is an excellent article also showing the danger of censorship, which on HN happens via the voting and flagging system as well as shadow bans. People become

This is an excellent article also showing the danger of censorship, which on HN happens via the voting and flagging system as well as shadow bans. People become afraid to speak their minds and you end up with dangerous conformity.

lastres0rt 7y ago
Cool story bro. I think HN's real problem is a certain amount of "monoculture" unlike reddit's communities, but sure, whatever makes your karma counter go up.
- pbourke 7y ago
  Monoculture and groupthink can act as defacto censorship. We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. If anything, the HN response to this event has demonstrated to me that uninformed, smug, back-of-the-napkin takes from computer programmers on domains totally outside of their experience will be richly rewarded on this site.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. They aren't really that interesting, though. HN is for interesting stuff, not for "I'm too lazy to go to CNN to get my daily dose of news".
    - JRKrause 7y ago
      Is the global propagation of a contagious pathogen actually considered not that interesting? I ask because some coworkers have the same attitude and I just assumed it was them reacting to the pop-medias (assumed) obsession with it.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        > Is the global propagation of a contagious pathogen actually considered not that interesting? In general it is. With daily updates on the latest speculation and "if this is true, everyone will die" predictions? Not to me, no. It has little value and is mostly just providing a place where people can indulge in their fears of mortality (boring!), their new found hatred of China (boring!), some ideas of pandemics spreading they gathered from Plague, Inc. (fun, but not really that interesting) and their general feeling of uneasiness and tribalism ("it's really Trump's fault, you know?" - "no, it's the progressive's fault!" - "Shut up, you two, it's obviously capitalism, err Russia"). A general recap might be interesting at some point, and so would more details be. Articles that trigger "should I buy face masks and lock down my house now" comments aren't, imho.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    > Monoculture and groupthink can act as defacto censorship. So-called "censorship" on the level of a forum like HN is of laughable unimportance. That pales in comparison to the kind of censorship the Chinese government practices. (And no, it's not a "slippery slope", or any other hand-wavy argument you can make about similarities.) > We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. Perhaps for the most part hackers don't find it interesting, at least not in this forum. I've been reading about it elsewhere, and have been happy with the coverage I've been getting. I'm certainly not going to downvote/flag an article about it on HN, but frankly I don't come here for that. (Heh, and yet, here I am, reading comments and even posting.) > If anything, the HN response to this event has demonstrated to me that uninformed, smug, back-of-the-napkin takes from computer programmers on domains totally outside of their experience will be richly rewarded on this site. That's hardly unique to this type of article, or any article, really. People often have uninformed opinions about things outside their area of expertise, and aren't shy about expressing them. I see no more (or less) of that here than I do in most other HN comment threads. And regardless, who are you to say? Are you a doctor, or, better, an epidemiologist? Are you an expert political scientist? Have you deeply studied this history of authoritarian regimes vs. democracies? Your opinion that all this is just "back-of-the-napkin takes" is no more (or less!) valid than the takes you criticize. And you're the one throwing around accusations of smugness!
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- drummer 7y ago
  How is "monoculture" created? Slowly by censoring divergent information, in this case, down voting and flagging. The irony also appears to be lost on the people downvoting my comment, LOL. Anyway, I'd also like to point out that the exact same issue mentioned in the article, apart from forums like HN and Reddit, also exists in companies. Any authoritarian system. An example is Boeing. The same kind of problem also caused the 737 MAX crisis currently underway at Boeing. Criticism wasn’t tolerated in the company and engineers who brought all kinds of design issues up were sidelined by management — silenced and suppressed [1]. This resulted in critical flaws getting into their products, in this case the 737 MAX aircraft, which resulted in two crashes killing a few hundred people. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/engineers-say-boeing-pushed-to-limit-safety-testing-in-race-to-certify-planes-including-737-max/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/engin...
cannotspeakwc 7y ago
Yes. > One could go so far as to say that from the highest echelon to the very bottom of the system, this lot represent the worst political team to have run China since 1978. That is why I believe that it is imperative that the nation act on and truly put into practice [Article 35 of the Constitution][1]. That is to say [we ourselves should advance Five Key Demands]: > 1. Lift the ban on independent media and publishing; > 2. Put an end to the secret police surveillance of the Internet and allow people their right to freedom of speech so they can express themselves with a clear conscience; > 3. Allow citizens to enjoy their right to demonstrate as well as the freedom of assembly and association; > 4. Respect the basic universal rights of our citizens, in particular their right to vote in open elections. From an [essay][2] by Xu Zhangrun, translated and annotated by Geremie R. Barmé. [1]: http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372964.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/... [2]: https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-...
mschuster91 7y ago
While I agree with you that HN has a nasty habit of downvoting if one does not subscribe to the hardcore US libertarian view regarding "freedom of speech", it is nowhere even comparable to the censorship in China.

lastres0rt 7y ago

Cool story bro. I think HN's real problem is a certain amount of "monoculture" unlike reddit's communities, but sure, whatever makes your karma counter go up.

pbourke 7y ago
Monoculture and groupthink can act as defacto censorship. We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. If anything, the HN response to this event has demonstrated to me that uninformed, smug, back-of-the-napkin takes from computer programmers on domains totally outside of their experience will be richly rewarded on this site.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. They aren't really that interesting, though. HN is for interesting stuff, not for "I'm too lazy to go to CNN to get my daily dose of news".
  - JRKrause 7y ago
    Is the global propagation of a contagious pathogen actually considered not that interesting? I ask because some coworkers have the same attitude and I just assumed it was them reacting to the pop-medias (assumed) obsession with it.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > Is the global propagation of a contagious pathogen actually considered not that interesting? In general it is. With daily updates on the latest speculation and "if this is true, everyone will die" predictions? Not to me, no. It has little value and is mostly just providing a place where people can indulge in their fears of mortality (boring!), their new found hatred of China (boring!), some ideas of pandemics spreading they gathered from Plague, Inc. (fun, but not really that interesting) and their general feeling of uneasiness and tribalism ("it's really Trump's fault, you know?" - "no, it's the progressive's fault!" - "Shut up, you two, it's obviously capitalism, err Russia"). A general recap might be interesting at some point, and so would more details be. Articles that trigger "should I buy face masks and lock down my house now" comments aren't, imho.
- kelnos 7y ago
  > Monoculture and groupthink can act as defacto censorship. So-called "censorship" on the level of a forum like HN is of laughable unimportance. That pales in comparison to the kind of censorship the Chinese government practices. (And no, it's not a "slippery slope", or any other hand-wavy argument you can make about similarities.) > We are finally seeing some stories about COVID-19 break through to the front page and get some interesting discussion - it's taken over a month. Perhaps for the most part hackers don't find it interesting, at least not in this forum. I've been reading about it elsewhere, and have been happy with the coverage I've been getting. I'm certainly not going to downvote/flag an article about it on HN, but frankly I don't come here for that. (Heh, and yet, here I am, reading comments and even posting.) > If anything, the HN response to this event has demonstrated to me that uninformed, smug, back-of-the-napkin takes from computer programmers on domains totally outside of their experience will be richly rewarded on this site. That's hardly unique to this type of article, or any article, really. People often have uninformed opinions about things outside their area of expertise, and aren't shy about expressing them. I see no more (or less) of that here than I do in most other HN comment threads. And regardless, who are you to say? Are you a doctor, or, better, an epidemiologist? Are you an expert political scientist? Have you deeply studied this history of authoritarian regimes vs. democracies? Your opinion that all this is just "back-of-the-napkin takes" is no more (or less!) valid than the takes you criticize. And you're the one throwing around accusations of smugness!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
drummer 7y ago
How is "monoculture" created? Slowly by censoring divergent information, in this case, down voting and flagging. The irony also appears to be lost on the people downvoting my comment, LOL. Anyway, I'd also like to point out that the exact same issue mentioned in the article, apart from forums like HN and Reddit, also exists in companies. Any authoritarian system. An example is Boeing. The same kind of problem also caused the 737 MAX crisis currently underway at Boeing. Criticism wasn’t tolerated in the company and engineers who brought all kinds of design issues up were sidelined by management — silenced and suppressed [1]. This resulted in critical flaws getting into their products, in this case the 737 MAX aircraft, which resulted in two crashes killing a few hundred people. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/engineers-say-boeing-pushed-to-limit-safety-testing-in-race-to-certify-planes-including-737-max/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/engin...

cannotspeakwc 7y ago

Yes. > One could go so far as to say that from the highest echelon to the very bottom of the system, this lot represent the worst political team to have run China since 1978. That is why I believe that it is imperative that the nation act on and truly put into practice [Article 35 of the Constitution][1]. That is to say [we ourselves should advance Five Key Demands]: > 1. Lift the ban on independent media and publishing; > 2. Put an end to the secret police surveillance of the Internet and allow people their right to freedom of speech so they can express themselves with a clear conscience; > 3. Allow citizens to enjoy their right to demonstrate as well as the freedom of assembly and association; > 4. Respect the basic universal rights of our citizens, in particular their right to vote in open elections. From an [essay][2] by Xu Zhangrun, translated and annotated by Geremie R. Barmé. [1]: http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372964.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/... [2]: https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-...

mschuster91 7y ago

While I agree with you that HN has a nasty habit of downvoting if one does not subscribe to the hardcore US libertarian view regarding "freedom of speech", it is nowhere even comparable to the censorship in China.