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I see no hypocrisy here -- a lot of information is, and was, only one-way. Town criers in the ancient times, teachers, theaters, art galleries, books, newspape
by theamk 6y ago
I see no hypocrisy here -- a lot of information is, and was, only one-way.
Town criers in the ancient times, teachers, theaters, art galleries, books, newspapers, radio/TV.
The idea that one "must allow all public comments" if you talk about other people is a pretty weird one. Things generally do not work this way in real world, and I see no obvious reason why it should be different online.
- dukeofdoom 6y agoWell, I think you are unnecessarily advocating for a form of Authoritarianism. The powerful get a microphone. But the public will not get a voice. I personally think it enhances democracy to allow public comments on articles.
- theamk 6y agoImagine you are an artist and you have your own space, maybe a small table at the fairgrounds where you are selling your pictures from. Would you allow random people to attach notes to your pictures -- the notes that everyone who wants to look your pictures would see? Or will you say, "this is my table and I decide what goes here"? If the later, does this make you undemocratic authoritarian? It is not just "the powerful" who "get a microphone". Anyone can speak out. There are tons of places where we one comment on articles -- we are on one of those. And getting your own site is pretty easy, too.
- jiofih 6y agoNews is not art. It is part of public discourse and has entirely different dynamics.
- anigbrowl 6y agoAnyone can run a blog or so for free. I lose very little sleep over awful people promoting their awful views on blogs, but I get quite annoyed when I read a news article and want to hear opinions on it (even ones I may disagree strongly with), but the legitimate opinions are downed out by abusive assholes spamming hate speech or endlessly trolling. A lot of those people are just bullies trying to drive others away so they can 'own' the comment section.
- jiofih 6y agoYou cannot compare a random persons’ blog to a comment on mainstream media. The audience size is vastly different, and the overlap probably nil.
- anigbrowl 6y agoWhy not? People say they want free speech, but it turns out what they often mean is they want a free audience.
- jiofih 6y ago“Free speech” that you can only have in your own bedroom is not really free, is it? It’s about public spaces. News media are not private forums, they receive a public license to operate, which is in the interest of society.
- anigbrowl 6y agoNews media are not private forums, they receive a public license to operate ???
- yspeak 6y agoYes this is true. Only the highly educated have anything useful to say. This is why HN is so brilliant and diverse. We have opinions from all over SV and from all walks of the tech world. We know the world so can give voice to the world. The common sorry of comments on a news articles are usually so ill informed as to be embarrassing, you can tell that because they are typically nothing someone from HN would consider. The moderators on HN and the highly evolved intramural voting do a great job ensuring that open sophisticated voice is rarely found elsewhere.
- lordloki 6y agoYour examples are all based in times of local news sources not large global news sources. In the times before the internet all communication was local, and all pushback was local too. It may have looked one way, but counterpoints were made locally. Almost all cities had multiple newspapers that had slightly different takes on events. Now in the age of global news and the internet, counterpoints need to be made in the same medium.