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Ask HN: What is HN doing to stop foreign misinformation during Covid-19?

4 points by aaron695 7y ago

In this short intense time period misinformation will amplify economic changes quickly, we should assume all sites are under some sort of attack. Has HN increased security?

cjbenedikt 7y ago
Excellent question.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Jugurtha 7y ago
Wouldn't "What is HN doing to stop misinformation during Covid-19?" be better? Foreign, domestic, deliberate or otherwise.
mikst 7y ago
Sorry, you must be new to the Internet. Everything besides World Health Organisation website (in this particular case) is an opinion here. 99.9999% of the information on the Internet is not to be treated in any other way from the start. Not only you are not supposed to trust HN, as they just folks like you, it is very rude to demand them to work for you and verify facts instead of you.
- Jugurtha 7y ago
  >Sorry, you must be new to the Internet. Everything besides World Health Organisation website (in this particular case) is an opinion here. It is ironic you mention the World Health Organization as a source of truth given this tweet: >If you do not have any respiratory symptoms, such as fever, cough, or runny nose, you do not need to wear a medical mask. When used alone, masks can give you a false feeling of protection and can even be a source of infection when not used correctly.[0] - WHO Twitter Account I put a spin on it: >If you are not drunk, you do not need to wear your seat belt. When used alone, seat belts can give you a false feeling of protection, and can even be a source of accidents when not used correctly. [0]: https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024 https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024
  - badpun 7y ago
    Yep, looks like the WHO chose to manipulate the public into not using the masks so that enough is available for health-care professionals. It had a positive short-term impact, but also damaged their reputation and trustworthiness, which is very bad.
    - chatmasta 7y ago
      Wait, really? As in, the WHO followed an intentional strategy of misleading the public, akin to a real life trolley problem? I'd be interested in reading more about this if there are sources.
  - mikst 7y ago
    The most simple face mask (not a gas mask) does not protect you from environment, it protects other people from you. Hoarding prevention is also a very important task in the midst of a crisis. Hence WHO recommendation is justified. Moreso a mask can be a cause for reinfection with virus, since you are breathing back in what you exhale. Best wishes and good health.
    - Jugurtha 7y ago
      I fail to understand this. >The most simple face mask (not a gas mask) does not protect you from environment, it protects other people from you. >Moreso a mask can be a cause for reinfection with virus, since you are breathing back in what you exhale. >Hoarding prevention is also a very important task in the midst of a crisis. Hence WHO recommendation is justified. These three sentences can be boiled down to: - WHO's recommendation is justified to prevent the hoarding of that item because: If you're sick, wearing it will harm you and protect others. If you're not, it's useless to you. Therefore, only sick people wanting to remain sick should wear them. That excludes physicians who may not be sick, and do not wish to remain sick if they already are. Furthermore, is the protective property on the simple face masks anisotropic? How does it protect in a way and not in the other? Does a mask of non null thickness and non null fabric count protect less than no material? Will it prevent absolutely no harmful particle from getting to me? Sick++|| Healthy (works when sick wears it) Sick+ +||Healthy (fails when healty wears it) Do I understand this correctly?
taf2 7y ago
Ask not what your HN can do for you, but what you can do for your HN
blaser-waffle 7y ago
HN is the newsfeed of Ycombinator -- it's right there in the URL -- which is a start-up incubator. They've got a vested interest in promoting their start-ups, and keeping discussions about their former startups as positive as possible. Like, if they're not making money from adds or in-app purchases (aka reddit gold), then their value is in shaping consensus. So assume everything on here has some freakin HUGE biases.
- dang 7y ago
  This comment misunderstands the basics of how we manage HN to benefit YC. People naturally assume the worst, but it's important to know how HN actually works, because we're luckier than that here. The way to maximize HN's value for YC is to have HN be as good as possible, where 'good' means gratifying intellectual curiosity. That's what makes the community happy, and the community is what's valuable about HN. Since a happy-community HN is the most valuable-to-YC HN, that's all we try to optimize for. HN is in an odd sort of sweet spot on the internet where the way it can best serve the business interests of its owner is simply by being as good as possible. We don't have to juice engagement, pump numbers up, and so on. We can just be 'bookish', something pg used to say he wanted for this place. Like I said, we're lucky that way. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... So no, we don't focus on promoting startups or keeping discussions about YC startups as positive as possible. (There are plenty of negative ones. Just look in on any Airbnb thread.) The community wouldn't be happy if we did that, nor would it be good for intellectual curiosity, so we don't. We do use moderation as a counterweight against predictable indignation in general (on any topic). But we do that kind of moderation thing less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved—see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... There are three formal things that HN does do for YC: job ads for YC startups (which appear on the front page and then https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs), Launch HNs for YC startups (which appear on the front page and then https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), and usernames of YC alumni appearing in orange to other YC alumni. Those are definitely special privileges. We do that as a way of giving back to YC in exchange for funding HN. But we keep them very delimited and explicit. I really need to add this to the FAQ.

4 points by aaron695 7y ago

In this short intense time period misinformation will amplify economic changes quickly, we should assume all sites are under some sort of attack. Has HN increased security?

cjbenedikt 7y ago

Excellent question.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Jugurtha 7y ago

Wouldn't "What is HN doing to stop misinformation during Covid-19?" be better? Foreign, domestic, deliberate or otherwise.

mikst 7y ago

Sorry, you must be new to the Internet. Everything besides World Health Organisation website (in this particular case) is an opinion here. 99.9999% of the information on the Internet is not to be treated in any other way from the start. Not only you are not supposed to trust HN, as they just folks like you, it is very rude to demand them to work for you and verify facts instead of you.

Jugurtha 7y ago
>Sorry, you must be new to the Internet. Everything besides World Health Organisation website (in this particular case) is an opinion here. It is ironic you mention the World Health Organization as a source of truth given this tweet: >If you do not have any respiratory symptoms, such as fever, cough, or runny nose, you do not need to wear a medical mask. When used alone, masks can give you a false feeling of protection and can even be a source of infection when not used correctly.[0] - WHO Twitter Account I put a spin on it: >If you are not drunk, you do not need to wear your seat belt. When used alone, seat belts can give you a false feeling of protection, and can even be a source of accidents when not used correctly. [0]: https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024 https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024
- badpun 7y ago
  Yep, looks like the WHO chose to manipulate the public into not using the masks so that enough is available for health-care professionals. It had a positive short-term impact, but also damaged their reputation and trustworthiness, which is very bad.
  - chatmasta 7y ago
    Wait, really? As in, the WHO followed an intentional strategy of misleading the public, akin to a real life trolley problem? I'd be interested in reading more about this if there are sources.
- mikst 7y ago
  The most simple face mask (not a gas mask) does not protect you from environment, it protects other people from you. Hoarding prevention is also a very important task in the midst of a crisis. Hence WHO recommendation is justified. Moreso a mask can be a cause for reinfection with virus, since you are breathing back in what you exhale. Best wishes and good health.
  - Jugurtha 7y ago
    I fail to understand this. >The most simple face mask (not a gas mask) does not protect you from environment, it protects other people from you. >Moreso a mask can be a cause for reinfection with virus, since you are breathing back in what you exhale. >Hoarding prevention is also a very important task in the midst of a crisis. Hence WHO recommendation is justified. These three sentences can be boiled down to: - WHO's recommendation is justified to prevent the hoarding of that item because: If you're sick, wearing it will harm you and protect others. If you're not, it's useless to you. Therefore, only sick people wanting to remain sick should wear them. That excludes physicians who may not be sick, and do not wish to remain sick if they already are. Furthermore, is the protective property on the simple face masks anisotropic? How does it protect in a way and not in the other? Does a mask of non null thickness and non null fabric count protect less than no material? Will it prevent absolutely no harmful particle from getting to me? Sick++|| Healthy (works when sick wears it) Sick+ +||Healthy (fails when healty wears it) Do I understand this correctly?

taf2 7y ago

Ask not what your HN can do for you, but what you can do for your HN

blaser-waffle 7y ago

HN is the newsfeed of Ycombinator -- it's right there in the URL -- which is a start-up incubator. They've got a vested interest in promoting their start-ups, and keeping discussions about their former startups as positive as possible. Like, if they're not making money from adds or in-app purchases (aka reddit gold), then their value is in shaping consensus. So assume everything on here has some freakin HUGE biases.

dang 7y ago
This comment misunderstands the basics of how we manage HN to benefit YC. People naturally assume the worst, but it's important to know how HN actually works, because we're luckier than that here. The way to maximize HN's value for YC is to have HN be as good as possible, where 'good' means gratifying intellectual curiosity. That's what makes the community happy, and the community is what's valuable about HN. Since a happy-community HN is the most valuable-to-YC HN, that's all we try to optimize for. HN is in an odd sort of sweet spot on the internet where the way it can best serve the business interests of its owner is simply by being as good as possible. We don't have to juice engagement, pump numbers up, and so on. We can just be 'bookish', something pg used to say he wanted for this place. Like I said, we're lucky that way. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... So no, we don't focus on promoting startups or keeping discussions about YC startups as positive as possible. (There are plenty of negative ones. Just look in on any Airbnb thread.) The community wouldn't be happy if we did that, nor would it be good for intellectual curiosity, so we don't. We do use moderation as a counterweight against predictable indignation in general (on any topic). But we do that kind of moderation thing less, not more, when YC or YC startups are involved—see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... There are three formal things that HN does do for YC: job ads for YC startups (which appear on the front page and then https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs), Launch HNs for YC startups (which appear on the front page and then https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), and usernames of YC alumni appearing in orange to other YC alumni. Those are definitely special privileges. We do that as a way of giving back to YC in exchange for funding HN. But we keep them very delimited and explicit. I really need to add this to the FAQ.