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And people downvote you as a disagreement button on this site instead of qualifying their opinion in words. But you’re not wrong in your opinion and allowing d

And people downvote you as a disagreement button on this site instead of qualifying their opinion in words. But you’re not wrong in your opinion and allowing downvotes without requiring a response encourages groupthink as well. But where’s the line? Do we as society mandate freedom of speech on all private platforms? Are downvotes on HN protected speech? You’re right that it’s a tough problem. We are at an inflection point right now. The boundaries of speech freedoms for the next century are being defined right now.

ryankemper 6y ago
Even more concerning than using downvote as a disagree button is flagging as a disagree button. It's happened to me many times where my good-faith comments have been flagged due to advocating a minority position (specifically, that the COVID-19 lockdown is harmful, just to give context) and I have/had to e-mail Dang to get a human to look at the flagged comments and determine if they were actually violating a guideline.
rplst8 6y ago
Freedom of speech is only about whether what you say can be used against you for government persecution (other than admitting to a crime to an officer of the law). Therefore, I don't think we can say that posts and replies on the websites hosted by private companies can be considered protected speech. That said, treating upvotes and downvotes in the same way as the text in a post or reply is a pretty bad idea IMHO.
kps 6y ago
VC News is basically a Reddit clone to show off pg's then-up-and-coming toy language. • Discourages long-running discussions by burying (and ultimately locking) older content • Discourages coversation in favour of fire-and-forget comments by making it impractical to continue where you left off • Gamification of content • Numerically larger groups can bury content they would prefer others not see — but slightly worse — • No notification of replies, making actual discussion impractical • Extra privileges for conformity (downvoting, vouching) It doesn't match what pg wrote in http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html but actions speak louder than words.

ryankemper 6y ago

Even more concerning than using downvote as a disagree button is flagging as a disagree button. It's happened to me many times where my good-faith comments have been flagged due to advocating a minority position (specifically, that the COVID-19 lockdown is harmful, just to give context) and I have/had to e-mail Dang to get a human to look at the flagged comments and determine if they were actually violating a guideline.

rplst8 6y ago

Freedom of speech is only about whether what you say can be used against you for government persecution (other than admitting to a crime to an officer of the law). Therefore, I don't think we can say that posts and replies on the websites hosted by private companies can be considered protected speech. That said, treating upvotes and downvotes in the same way as the text in a post or reply is a pretty bad idea IMHO.

kps 6y ago

VC News is basically a Reddit clone to show off pg's then-up-and-coming toy language. • Discourages long-running discussions by burying (and ultimately locking) older content • Discourages coversation in favour of fire-and-forget comments by making it impractical to continue where you left off • Gamification of content • Numerically larger groups can bury content they would prefer others not see — but slightly worse — • No notification of replies, making actual discussion impractical • Extra privileges for conformity (downvoting, vouching) It doesn't match what pg wrote in http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html but actions speak louder than words.