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I've seen it here in small amounts before, but it's rather shocking to observe so much obviously biased downvoting and flagging in one story. A number of anti-

I've seen it here in small amounts before, but it's rather shocking to observe so much obviously biased downvoting and flagging in one story. A number of anti-CCP posts already dead, and others on their way... I suppose it's rather predictable that people can't post something about the CCP on a meta-story about the CCP killing news stories, without their posts in turn being killed.

pwned1 7y ago
I came to this thread to observe the same behavior, without any plans to comment, expecting any comment that is even mildly anti-CCP to be heavily downvoted. But I just had to second your own observation at the peril to my own karma.
- phkahler 7y ago
  Fortunately we dont live in a country where you online karma is relevant. Yet...
  - Der_Einzige 7y ago
    What do you call your credit score?
    - jmeister 7y ago
      False equivalence. Credit scores measure failure to honor financial contracts. They’re not about honoring arbitrary social norms
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - ignoramous 7y ago
    > Platforms like Arya — which says it’s been used by Home Depot and Dyson — go even further, using machine learning to find candidates based on data that might be available on a company’s internal database, public job boards, social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, and other profiles available on the open web, like those on professional membership sites. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/12/20993665/artificial-intelligence-ai-job-screen https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/12/20993665/artificial-in...
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    I think we are going to come to a time where it does. I only hope that the algorithms will eventually recognize that the best things we say are always polarising, rather than seeking a bland conformity.
    - phkahler 7y ago
      Polarising topics are usually very important. The things most people say about them add little value though. HN is IMO quite a bit better in that area. This is the only place where I sometimes skip a headline and read the comments on article to see if it's worth reading.
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    But you should be worry if they can manipulate yours but not the other way round. When next virus come they would how to control more. Good luck.
  - izzydata 7y ago
    I wonder how many people here change what they say depending on whether it will get them more karma. Karma doesn't even do anything so I'm not sure why people would care.
  - yters 7y ago
    This kind of light censorship is in some ways also dangerous because it shapes the discourse in a non obvious way, giving entities like the CCP control over the perceived consensus.
- gnu8 7y ago
  The CCP must be destroyed.
  - dang 7y ago
    Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
- dang 7y ago
  Your comment has been extremely heavily upvoted, as has the GP. That's because the actual pattern here is the opposite of what you guys are saying. What's happening is that you're falling prey to the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
seneca 7y ago
It is really out of control. I'm not sure what can be done, but it seems like something a motivated group could find a technical solution for, if even just to shine a light on the phenomenon.
detaro 7y ago
which of the dead comments should have stayed in your opinion?
DenisM 7y ago
>it's rather shocking to observe so much obviously biased downvoting and flagging in one story. A number of anti-CCP posts already dead, and others on their way... And which posts would that be? I have show-dead on, I see four dead posts, and I struggle to see any substantial criticism of CCP in their rank.
AJ007 7y ago
I was thinking about how many low quality Bloomberg News stories have generated complaints on HN. They keep getting posted and upvoted and are just junk. The quality used to be there. The stories were well researched and more business on-topic than other places like the Wall Street Journal, but now that’s over a decade ago. Besides this CCP thing, one wonders what else they are watering down. Why would Bloomberg report anything negative about their major customers?
- rhegart 7y ago
  Why would Fox News report anything negative about GOP or CNN about Democrats? Media checks and balances are other orgs of different beliefs. Dangerous to rely on only 1 source or even 1 partisan community.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    I agree that it's vital to consume heterogeneous media, but as for 'why would they': Because they should not be mere propaganda machines. Incidentally, I have seen anti-GOP coverage on Fox and anti-DNC coverage on CNN. Not enough, but a non-zero amount. Maybe the motive is simply to give the false impression of impartiality, I don't know.
kick 7y ago
All of the top comments are anti-CCP. There are four dead comments in this thread. * Two are entirely unrelated to the article at hand. * One is a plea to not have this kind of content on Hacker News. * One is meta-criticism that HN is fragile. None of them match your criticism.
- DamnYuppie 7y ago
  To be fair you commented hours after this was posted. What was shown and downvoted changed greatly from that point in time. When I first saw this thread the exact issues the OP was stating were in fact playing out.
  - sangnoir 7y ago
    > What was shown and downvoted changed greatly from that point in time. Which is exactly why the moderators frown upon comments that mope about astroturfing - they add nothing but noise to the discussion. Any weird voting biases will even-out over time. If you suspect astroturfing, send an email to the mods instead of degrading the quality of conversation.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      I don't know if "nothing but" is fair. They add noise, certainly. But if astroturfing is happening, to pretend by fiat that it's not significantly distorts the discourse.
      - kick 7y ago
        If astroturfing were happening, the best course of action would be to alert moderation. Baseless accusations of astroturfing help literally no one, and poison discourse.
  - kick 7y ago
    I saw it within ten minutes of it being posted, it didn't reflect reality. I drafted this when it said it was posted thirty-five minutes ago. I sent it after an hour of the post being up. I sent mail to the site's moderation about this post's title when there were only four comments or so, not including the one we're discussing. At none of these points was what the person said true. I think I've had a fairly-conclusive watch on this post; the accusations in his post don't reflect reality and haven't.
tasuki 7y ago
Yours is currently the top comment, does that disprove your point? And downvoting your comment would prove your point - very well played!
dang 7y ago
What you're seeing is a routine artifact of the topic being divisive. Equally routine: users imagining sinister scenarios because they don't like the straightforward explanation, that people are simply in disagreement. Take a look at the hundreds of explanations I've posted about this over the last 5 years: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... The same pattern plays out over and over on every divisive topic. The truth, as far as I can tell after studying the data closely for years now, is that this is pure cognitive bias. One easy way to see this is to notice how people who like and dislike the opposite things have precisely opposing pictures of the bias they think dominates here. Somehow people find it difficult to understand how someone else, with a different background, might have a very different view. It feels like it can't possibly be sincere—it must be dishonest and disingenuous, such as communist agents under the hood (or shills being paid to astroturf, or whatever lingo fits the theme). In reality, this is how a non-siloed internet forum works: you encounter others who believe very different things than you do. If it feels weird or odd, that's because we're good at siloing ourselves into places where we don't rub shoulders with such people with such views. HN isn't like that, because it's the same set of stories and comments for everyone. There are millions of people here, all over the world. If a topic is at all divisive, there's at least a million people who strongly disagree with you about it. That's all you need to explain the comments, votes, and flags you dislike. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20silo&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- DenisM 7y ago
  One thing to add to that: People are not just wildly different in their opinions but also in their demeanor. I used to develop a fairly popular app (GeeTasks), and I had fans in my forums overflowing with enthusiasm for the app and hostility towards an occasional detractor. I would have assumed they were paid to do it, but then I most certainly did not, and I can scarcely imagine that my competitors would. Having witnessed this first-hand I given up on my formerly impeccable shill-detecting skills.
- mellow2020 7y ago

pwned1 7y ago

I came to this thread to observe the same behavior, without any plans to comment, expecting any comment that is even mildly anti-CCP to be heavily downvoted. But I just had to second your own observation at the peril to my own karma.

phkahler 7y ago
Fortunately we dont live in a country where you online karma is relevant. Yet...
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  What do you call your credit score?
  - jmeister 7y ago
    False equivalence. Credit scores measure failure to honor financial contracts. They’re not about honoring arbitrary social norms
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- ignoramous 7y ago
  > Platforms like Arya — which says it’s been used by Home Depot and Dyson — go even further, using machine learning to find candidates based on data that might be available on a company’s internal database, public job boards, social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, and other profiles available on the open web, like those on professional membership sites. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/12/20993665/artificial-intelligence-ai-job-screen https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/12/20993665/artificial-in...
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  I think we are going to come to a time where it does. I only hope that the algorithms will eventually recognize that the best things we say are always polarising, rather than seeking a bland conformity.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    Polarising topics are usually very important. The things most people say about them add little value though. HN is IMO quite a bit better in that area. This is the only place where I sometimes skip a headline and read the comments on article to see if it's worth reading.
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  But you should be worry if they can manipulate yours but not the other way round. When next virus come they would how to control more. Good luck.
- izzydata 7y ago
  I wonder how many people here change what they say depending on whether it will get them more karma. Karma doesn't even do anything so I'm not sure why people would care.
- yters 7y ago
  This kind of light censorship is in some ways also dangerous because it shapes the discourse in a non obvious way, giving entities like the CCP control over the perceived consensus.
gnu8 7y ago
The CCP must be destroyed.
- dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
dang 7y ago
Your comment has been extremely heavily upvoted, as has the GP. That's because the actual pattern here is the opposite of what you guys are saying. What's happening is that you're falling prey to the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

seneca 7y ago

It is really out of control. I'm not sure what can be done, but it seems like something a motivated group could find a technical solution for, if even just to shine a light on the phenomenon.

detaro 7y ago

which of the dead comments should have stayed in your opinion?

DenisM 7y ago

>it's rather shocking to observe so much obviously biased downvoting and flagging in one story. A number of anti-CCP posts already dead, and others on their way... And which posts would that be? I have show-dead on, I see four dead posts, and I struggle to see any substantial criticism of CCP in their rank.

AJ007 7y ago

I was thinking about how many low quality Bloomberg News stories have generated complaints on HN. They keep getting posted and upvoted and are just junk. The quality used to be there. The stories were well researched and more business on-topic than other places like the Wall Street Journal, but now that’s over a decade ago. Besides this CCP thing, one wonders what else they are watering down. Why would Bloomberg report anything negative about their major customers?

rhegart 7y ago
Why would Fox News report anything negative about GOP or CNN about Democrats? Media checks and balances are other orgs of different beliefs. Dangerous to rely on only 1 source or even 1 partisan community.
- jshevek 7y ago
  I agree that it's vital to consume heterogeneous media, but as for 'why would they': Because they should not be mere propaganda machines. Incidentally, I have seen anti-GOP coverage on Fox and anti-DNC coverage on CNN. Not enough, but a non-zero amount. Maybe the motive is simply to give the false impression of impartiality, I don't know.

kick 7y ago

All of the top comments are anti-CCP. There are four dead comments in this thread. * Two are entirely unrelated to the article at hand. * One is a plea to not have this kind of content on Hacker News. * One is meta-criticism that HN is fragile. None of them match your criticism.

DamnYuppie 7y ago
To be fair you commented hours after this was posted. What was shown and downvoted changed greatly from that point in time. When I first saw this thread the exact issues the OP was stating were in fact playing out.
- sangnoir 7y ago
  > What was shown and downvoted changed greatly from that point in time. Which is exactly why the moderators frown upon comments that mope about astroturfing - they add nothing but noise to the discussion. Any weird voting biases will even-out over time. If you suspect astroturfing, send an email to the mods instead of degrading the quality of conversation.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't know if "nothing but" is fair. They add noise, certainly. But if astroturfing is happening, to pretend by fiat that it's not significantly distorts the discourse.
    - kick 7y ago
      If astroturfing were happening, the best course of action would be to alert moderation. Baseless accusations of astroturfing help literally no one, and poison discourse.
- kick 7y ago
  I saw it within ten minutes of it being posted, it didn't reflect reality. I drafted this when it said it was posted thirty-five minutes ago. I sent it after an hour of the post being up. I sent mail to the site's moderation about this post's title when there were only four comments or so, not including the one we're discussing. At none of these points was what the person said true. I think I've had a fairly-conclusive watch on this post; the accusations in his post don't reflect reality and haven't.

tasuki 7y ago

Yours is currently the top comment, does that disprove your point? And downvoting your comment would prove your point - very well played!

dang 7y ago

What you're seeing is a routine artifact of the topic being divisive. Equally routine: users imagining sinister scenarios because they don't like the straightforward explanation, that people are simply in disagreement. Take a look at the hundreds of explanations I've posted about this over the last 5 years: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... The same pattern plays out over and over on every divisive topic. The truth, as far as I can tell after studying the data closely for years now, is that this is pure cognitive bias. One easy way to see this is to notice how people who like and dislike the opposite things have precisely opposing pictures of the bias they think dominates here. Somehow people find it difficult to understand how someone else, with a different background, might have a very different view. It feels like it can't possibly be sincere—it must be dishonest and disingenuous, such as communist agents under the hood (or shills being paid to astroturf, or whatever lingo fits the theme). In reality, this is how a non-siloed internet forum works: you encounter others who believe very different things than you do. If it feels weird or odd, that's because we're good at siloing ourselves into places where we don't rub shoulders with such people with such views. HN isn't like that, because it's the same set of stories and comments for everyone. There are millions of people here, all over the world. If a topic is at all divisive, there's at least a million people who strongly disagree with you about it. That's all you need to explain the comments, votes, and flags you dislike. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20silo&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

DenisM 7y ago
One thing to add to that: People are not just wildly different in their opinions but also in their demeanor. I used to develop a fairly popular app (GeeTasks), and I had fans in my forums overflowing with enthusiasm for the app and hostility towards an occasional detractor. I would have assumed they were paid to do it, but then I most certainly did not, and I can scarcely imagine that my competitors would. Having witnessed this first-hand I given up on my formerly impeccable shill-detecting skills.
mellow2020 7y ago