4 ms·

This "IT Cell" is pretty active on Twitter. It is vicious and relentless. I suspect it is present on HN platform too. I have posted two submissions (one from N

by ak39 7y ago

This "IT Cell" is pretty active on Twitter. It is vicious and relentless. I suspect it is present on HN platform too. I have posted two submissions (one from NYTimes and another from The Guardian) on issues that highlight the Modi government's continued descent into what writers are calling fascist policies. Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN?

woodrowbarlow 7y ago
it's more likely that your posts were simply deemed off-topic by the community. the guidelines [1] say "most stories about politics" are off-topic. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  And yet political discussions are constantly on the front page. How often do we make it a week without a lengthy tangent about real estate policy?
  - nindalf 7y ago
    After reading HN for years I'm basically an expert on housing policy in the Bay Area. I may not know much about anything else but goddamn, I can talk for an hour and ten minutes without a break about the complexities of this one issue.
    - lwf 7y ago
      Write up a "compendium of SF housing policy complexities" article and post it to HN, then :)
    - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
      Some am I, too some extend. And I live in France and mostly skip these articles. In my case it is rather that weird interest in esoteric things about which I read without a reason to be interested (though SF indeed changed a lot between my visit 20 years ago and last year)
- ddevault 7y ago
  I disagree. In truth, the flag functionality on HN is broken, and allows a small number of users to censor otherwise good posts. It happens a lot, and has little to no oversight.
nindalf 7y ago
In my experience, there are many Modi apologists on HN. In a recent thread about people being prosecuted for using VPNs, they were out in full force justifying the effective house arrest of several million people and the suspension of basic human rights like Habeas Corpus. And sure enough, they achieved their goal on that thread too - it was flagged and removed from the front page within hours. We shouldn't allow anything that tarnishes the reputation of our Dear Leader. You don't even have to go find the original thread. The Modi apologists are on this thread too. See if you can spot the person justifying murdering Muslims for the crime of eating beef.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > The Modi apologists are on this thread too. There are those for and against Modi in this thread. It's easy to spot both sides. An easy way to spot one of the sides is their use of words like "Modi apologists", etc. Considering Modi is arguably the most popular politician of a country with 1.3 billion people, why are people shocked when that support translates to support online? Or are only Modi detractors supposed to voice their opinions? Shouldn't Modi supporters have their say too?
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  I flagged this post after reading comments at the bottom and in my experience, the reason why you see less political posts from india on the front page is mostly due to the demography of the site and guidelines. Indian posts always have little activity with or without political element and for few political threads that do get some activity, lot of uninformed opinions posted within a few minutes. People just aren't interested outside of HN too, I don't think the IT cell mob will come in private political forums/guilds. I might also point out indian news sites are horrible with tracking, adverts and UI/UX. A blog post from someone on hn about mac revealed that an average HNer spent very little time on the site compared to other places. So that might skew things further outside of international sites. Secondly, I can see who you might be referring to as modi apologist, I also see similar attack from the opposite spectrum. Either doesn't seem healthy and should be kept somewhere else. 1.34 billion people are a lot. That's 3x the size of US. We have greater inequality and varying standard of living resulting in highly different or counterproductive expectations from the system. A farmer getting by barely with not much need for hyper internet connectivity may not see the implications of laws that deteriorate freedom/privacy online. They are in different hierarchy of human needs than someone living in urban area with a lot of solved problems and some artificially created as a consequences. One want more roads, the other want more greenery. One want availability and affordability, the other want quality. There are highly controversial laws passed such as the act to give less qualified people the same authority of a doctor so they can treat patients and there were some consequences to it of course but it happened because someone wanted it or at least thought it was a good idea than nothing. I have met a couples like that and know personally. Becoming condescending, calling everything propaganda or blindness because you don't agree with it or think it's fine is a good way to cause hurdles in leading to a compromise. What you see online isn't representative of most things. People won't mention about a product/service they don't face any problem with, they mention about things they face problem with or have had a horrible experience most of the time. It's easy to say nothing than a thank you. We ought to do it more but we don't. The specific indian culture I have lived in doesn't encourage that and sometimes even discourage thanking people because it's their job or things should be like that encouraging people to share views in negative light more. This isn't specific to india either but we have a tad bit more pressure to live within segregated communities directly or indirectly. Marrying into the same caste, income bracket or status quo. Interacting with people from the same checks only. I would recommend working for upping the quality of life for everyone and things will stablize on their own but in the meantime, calling people modi apologist will give you a knee jerk reaction from otherwise people who may listen.
delhanty 7y ago
>Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN? My subjective impression is that flagging feature on HN is routinely abused by flagging-rings conspiring to suppress submissions and comments on certain topics. I'm super happy that the ability to flag exists, but it would be nice if something could be done to stop its abuse.

by ak39 7y ago

woodrowbarlow 7y ago

it's more likely that your posts were simply deemed off-topic by the community. the guidelines [1] say "most stories about politics" are off-topic. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

prostheticvamp 7y ago
And yet political discussions are constantly on the front page. How often do we make it a week without a lengthy tangent about real estate policy?
- nindalf 7y ago
  After reading HN for years I'm basically an expert on housing policy in the Bay Area. I may not know much about anything else but goddamn, I can talk for an hour and ten minutes without a break about the complexities of this one issue.
  - lwf 7y ago
    Write up a "compendium of SF housing policy complexities" article and post it to HN, then :)
  - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
    Some am I, too some extend. And I live in France and mostly skip these articles. In my case it is rather that weird interest in esoteric things about which I read without a reason to be interested (though SF indeed changed a lot between my visit 20 years ago and last year)
ddevault 7y ago
I disagree. In truth, the flag functionality on HN is broken, and allows a small number of users to censor otherwise good posts. It happens a lot, and has little to no oversight.

nindalf 7y ago

In my experience, there are many Modi apologists on HN. In a recent thread about people being prosecuted for using VPNs, they were out in full force justifying the effective house arrest of several million people and the suspension of basic human rights like Habeas Corpus. And sure enough, they achieved their goal on that thread too - it was flagged and removed from the front page within hours. We shouldn't allow anything that tarnishes the reputation of our Dear Leader. You don't even have to go find the original thread. The Modi apologists are on this thread too. See if you can spot the person justifying murdering Muslims for the crime of eating beef.

dntbnmpls 7y ago
> The Modi apologists are on this thread too. There are those for and against Modi in this thread. It's easy to spot both sides. An easy way to spot one of the sides is their use of words like "Modi apologists", etc. Considering Modi is arguably the most popular politician of a country with 1.3 billion people, why are people shocked when that support translates to support online? Or are only Modi detractors supposed to voice their opinions? Shouldn't Modi supporters have their say too?
thrwaway69 7y ago
I flagged this post after reading comments at the bottom and in my experience, the reason why you see less political posts from india on the front page is mostly due to the demography of the site and guidelines. Indian posts always have little activity with or without political element and for few political threads that do get some activity, lot of uninformed opinions posted within a few minutes. People just aren't interested outside of HN too, I don't think the IT cell mob will come in private political forums/guilds. I might also point out indian news sites are horrible with tracking, adverts and UI/UX. A blog post from someone on hn about mac revealed that an average HNer spent very little time on the site compared to other places. So that might skew things further outside of international sites. Secondly, I can see who you might be referring to as modi apologist, I also see similar attack from the opposite spectrum. Either doesn't seem healthy and should be kept somewhere else. 1.34 billion people are a lot. That's 3x the size of US. We have greater inequality and varying standard of living resulting in highly different or counterproductive expectations from the system. A farmer getting by barely with not much need for hyper internet connectivity may not see the implications of laws that deteriorate freedom/privacy online. They are in different hierarchy of human needs than someone living in urban area with a lot of solved problems and some artificially created as a consequences. One want more roads, the other want more greenery. One want availability and affordability, the other want quality. There are highly controversial laws passed such as the act to give less qualified people the same authority of a doctor so they can treat patients and there were some consequences to it of course but it happened because someone wanted it or at least thought it was a good idea than nothing. I have met a couples like that and know personally. Becoming condescending, calling everything propaganda or blindness because you don't agree with it or think it's fine is a good way to cause hurdles in leading to a compromise. What you see online isn't representative of most things. People won't mention about a product/service they don't face any problem with, they mention about things they face problem with or have had a horrible experience most of the time. It's easy to say nothing than a thank you. We ought to do it more but we don't. The specific indian culture I have lived in doesn't encourage that and sometimes even discourage thanking people because it's their job or things should be like that encouraging people to share views in negative light more. This isn't specific to india either but we have a tad bit more pressure to live within segregated communities directly or indirectly. Marrying into the same caste, income bracket or status quo. Interacting with people from the same checks only. I would recommend working for upping the quality of life for everyone and things will stablize on their own but in the meantime, calling people modi apologist will give you a knee jerk reaction from otherwise people who may listen.

delhanty 7y ago

>Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN? My subjective impression is that flagging feature on HN is routinely abused by flagging-rings conspiring to suppress submissions and comments on certain topics. I'm super happy that the ability to flag exists, but it would be nice if something could be done to stop its abuse.