7 ms·

U.S. human rights report documents China's genocide in Xinjiang

81 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

mc32 6y ago
So... I guess we can expect some slaps on the wrist sanctions against a few government officials and call it a day soon. Our true north companies like Nike and Apple, etc., will, of course, announce pulling out too because there is no way they would want to be associated with doing business with such a regime either and Nike will hire Uyghurs for their ads in defiance.
- rhizome 6y ago
  The US government plainly said that they don't sanction high-level leaders when the Khashoggi Report identified Mohammed bin Salman's culpability in that murder. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/biden-administration-mbs-sanction-never-a-viable-option/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/biden-administration... The lesson we can take away from this is that if you want to murder someone, start climbing the ladder of elected (or monarchical) office. No wonder Trump could confidently say he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a voter.
shanghaikid 6y ago
fake news everywhere
- s5300 6y ago
  Yes, this is in fact true. It is also true that the US currently has quiet a lot of young children being held in practically prison cells near our Southern Border It is also true that China has been committing genocide by definition for quite some time now.
  - marshmallow_12 6y ago
    see the sibling comment. The US is not afraid to face it's issues in daylight. Furthermore, to even compare the two (terrible) situations is disrespectful to the plight of the Ughyrs.
  - Iv 6y ago
    I can't be the only one disturbed by the fact we are using the word "genocide" for something that does not include Mass killings. I know that legally it is valid and that the actions it describes are still despicable, but there is an important distinction between mass internment and mass killing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - s5300 6y ago
      While there may be some slight semantics if you're simply googling "definition of genocide" It's very much been hashed out already. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions As far as the most civil nations/governments of our world are concerned, what China is doing to Uyghers very much falls under the established conditions for being denoted as genocide.
      - bingbong70 6y ago
        >As far as the most civil nations/governments of our world are concerned. Most of the world doesn't agree with these so called "civil nations" that have murdered more innocent Muslim civilians than anyone else over the last 2 decades. Also notice what's going on in Palestine isn't called genocide because its not convenient for these "civil nations", even though what Israel is doing is more genocidal and violent than anything that has happened in Western China to Uighurs. Reeks of double standards being set by western nations to suppress China's economy. At this point, any manufactured excuse will get adopted and mainstreamed.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > I can't be the only one disturbed by the fact we are using the word "genocide" for something that does not include Mass killings. Mass killings is mass homicide. Genocide is destruction of an ethnic/racial/cultural group by any means; the thing being killed isn't people, it's the a people as an entity (gens, from which the first part of genocide is derived, is the latin for “tribe”.) They are essentially orthogonal concepts, though genocide historically frequently includes mass homicide. > I know that legally it is valid and that the actions it describes are still despicable, but there is an important distinction between mass internment and mass killing Yes, murder and extermination are crimes against humanity distinct from, frequently accompanying, and in addition to genocide. So the distinction you are looking for exists and is made quite clearly; there is no need to narrow the concept of genocide to make it. See, e.g., https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml And: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-huma...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- King-Aaron 6y ago
  Which part is false?
dundarious 6y ago
Where is the actual report? On iOS Safari at least, the linked state.gov URL does not seem to link to the body of the report and only briefly mentions Uyghurs twice.
- bgee 6y ago
  It's structured by country. You need to go to the Location dropdown and select China to see the actual report.
  - dundarious 6y ago
    Thanks to you and Aunche! For me that meant using the red sliders hovering button on the bottom right.
- Aunche 6y ago
  The interface is kind of confusing. On the side you can selection the country of interest: https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/china/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-...
- dundarious 6y ago
  I’m critical of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, but also critical of the govt. and major media’s breathless approval of Adrian Zenz’ questionable work.
biggio 6y ago
What will the report achieve? Will China put an end to their Uyghur genocide now?
lawrenceyan 6y ago
Points I found most valuable from the article: > Introducing the report, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said President Biden would put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. > The report finds that more than one million mainly Muslim Uyghurs were held in detention camps in China’s Xinjiang region, with some subjected to forced sterilization, rape, forced labor and torture. > He also acknowledged that the U.S. had work to do at home on human rights, including in combating systemic racism, but would face those challenges in the daylight, unlike autocratic countries.
- dundarious 6y ago
  The "million in detention" claim is based on Adrian Zenz' questionable work, where he took the percentage of people per village in camps from 8 Uyghur testimonies (totaling ~2000 in camps), and extrapolated out to the entire region. I have no doubt the police state in Xinjiang is brutal to my Western conception, but given the recent history for the US in particular to compile dodgy dossiers filled with "encouraged" testimony from a handful of sources, I'm skeptical and would absolutely not take the million figure as fact.
henryscala 6y ago
It is false accusation based on fake news. Advise you read China Daily or a book https://www.laroutedelasoie-editions.com/notre-catalogue/essais/ouighours-pour-en-finir-avec-les-fake-news/ https://www.laroutedelasoie-editions.com/notre-catalogue/ess...
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > China Daily (simplified Chinese: 中国日报; traditional Chinese: 中國日報; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe this comment is a joke, but just in case, the user is advocating what is essentially just the writings of the Communist Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily
  - henryscala 6y ago
    Why do you think we read news from China Daily is a joke? Why don't you think that the news in BBC or VOA are joke?
    - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
      The royal charter. Does China daily have something similar?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Because neither the BBC and VOA are produced by the publicity arm of a particular British or American political party. (“But”, you say, “the PRC is structured as a one party state, so there is no difference between party media and state media.” And that's true, but not in a way which elevates the credibility of party organs, just one that degrades that of state organs compared to ones in regimes where state institutions have some institutional protection against partisan patronage. Which is not to say that state institutions are ever neutral sources on the interests of their own state, just that even among structurally biased sources there are still different levels of unreliability.)
Leary 6y ago
So the US doesn't have the balls to sanction Xi Jinping when he directed this "genocide" on Xinjiang? Okay, maybe it'll sanction the Chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region - Shohrat Zakir[1]? Again, nope. I'm curious, how does an Uyghur genocide his own people? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shohrat_Zakir#:~:text=Shohrat%20Zakir%20(Uighur%3A%20%D8%B4%DB%86%DA%BE%D8%B1%DB%95%D8%AA%20%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%89%D8%B1,deputy%20party%20chief%20of%20Xinjiang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shohrat_Zakir#:~:text=Shohrat%....
airflow 6y ago
I wonder why Russia and China are enlisted. Is it because the gov wants to see this result or Blinken's team is doing the research with a high bias? AFAIK, the main issue of China is the high price of housing, which Chinese gov is trying to control. And these researchers just turn a blind eye to it.
frabbit 6y ago
I found this hard to read. Principally I was looking for sources and I found a lot of statements with no easy footnoting of sources. After looking at the Grayzone/ModerateRebels video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkxaEC1xjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkxaEC1xjY about the very odd and weak claims about China's behavior in this regard I was hoping that some more diverse, specific and accurate sources would be present in e.g. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/china/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-... If only a fraction of what Blumethal claims in the video is correct then this is singularly unhelpful and definitely smells a bit. I look forward to the call for sanctions on the USA by the USA, backed up by appropriate force to support the workers in the gig economy suffering in the same way as the ones in China cited at the end of the report: Workers in the gig economy were considered contract workers and not under the protections of the labor law. There were reports of app delivery drivers injured or killed on the job. On September 9, the magazine Renwu exposed how online platform algorithms created dangerous conditions for delivery drivers, including by shortening delivery times and issuing penalties for delays. The report prompted two major delivery firms to extend delivery times and reduce penalties for late deliveries.
- mc32 6y ago
  Call us back when such companies force sterilizations[1] and force free labor and force indoctrination and confiscate any travel papers, etc. [1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/twitter-removes-china-us-embassy-post-saying-uighur-women-no-longer-baby-making-machines https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/twitter-remove...
  - frabbit 6y ago
    Got a source for that?
    - hkmaxpro 6y ago
      Have you watched the victims’ testimony videos and this primary evidence report? https://shahit.biz/eng/ https://shahit.biz/eng/ Or this report [0] by more than 50 global experts in international law, genocide, and China? [0] https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an-examination-of-chinas-breaches-of-the-1948-genocide-convention/ https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an...
WANGCHEN 6y ago
This news let me believe that the westerns don't have common sense, brain washed and stupid. According to stats, the Uyghur has 10.17 millions in 2010. And after "genocide", the Uyghur population size has dramatic decreased to 12.71 millions. I used to believe that the US is the lighthouse of human civilization, now I think the US are full of clowns, they don't like Muslim, they don't like Chinese, but they like Chinese Musilm.
- pupppet 6y ago
  The fact you are cognizant of the population growth is telling. Let me guess, this population growth is a problem to you.
  - WANGCHEN 6y ago
    Your comment is another typical US arrogance and ignorance reply. You know nothing, but you pretend that you know everything.
  - dang 6y ago
    You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.
- dang 6y ago
  You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.
caminocorner 6y ago
I'm surprised by the number of comments here purporting to call this information fake, or attempting to redirect the blame toward the US. This has been well documented by multiple sources for nearly two years. The world has many problems but genocide is decidedly one of the worst.
b0ner_t0ner 6y ago
But but but Regina Ip isn't wrong though: https://twitter.com/ReginaIplau/status/1375582243956002816 https://twitter.com/ReginaIplau/status/1375582243956002816
kstenerud 6y ago
Looks like HN will need an "unfairly flagged" button to counter the organized cleaner squads who use it to bury stories...
- dang 6y ago
  These threads have all become the same hellish flamewar, endlessly repeated. That's automatically off topic on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), regardless of how important the underlying story is. I don't see how this place has any obligation to host flamewars that destroy it, any more than a building has an obligation to let a fire burn it down. On the contrary, we have a duty not to burn down, and need to do more to prevent it. We've been tirelessly asking HN commenters to please not destroy the commons for years, but the users posting in these threads are doing it more, and worse. Tireless asking is clearly insufficient, and from my perspective we could use more flags, not fewer. Going directly to internet failure mode doesn't help anyone, let alone oppressed peoples. Moreover, if you see as much of this as I do, it becomes painfully obvious what these angry arguments are really about: highly-activated tribal emotion. In that sense they are an expression of the problem, not any step toward solution. I posted about this earlier today, if anyone wants more explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637365
  - kstenerud 6y ago
    Fair enough. I was looking at this from a pure "fairness" POV in which a perfectly normal article is being flagged, with no way for users to say "hang on, this article isn't breaking any rules, so this shouldn't be flagged." But if the purpose of allowing this is as another indirect method for keeping flamewars off HN, then I agree that it's an acceptable compromise.
    - dang 6y ago
      Thanks for the kind reply. I would say that fairness comes into it this way: it applies to all threads and doesn't vary with the topic, but rather with the degree of flamewar.
reinkaos 6y ago
Heavy on allegations, very light on proof, as usual.

81 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

mc32 6y ago

So... I guess we can expect some slaps on the wrist sanctions against a few government officials and call it a day soon. Our true north companies like Nike and Apple, etc., will, of course, announce pulling out too because there is no way they would want to be associated with doing business with such a regime either and Nike will hire Uyghurs for their ads in defiance.

rhizome 6y ago
The US government plainly said that they don't sanction high-level leaders when the Khashoggi Report identified Mohammed bin Salman's culpability in that murder. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/biden-administration-mbs-sanction-never-a-viable-option/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/biden-administration... The lesson we can take away from this is that if you want to murder someone, start climbing the ladder of elected (or monarchical) office. No wonder Trump could confidently say he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a voter.

shanghaikid 6y ago

fake news everywhere

s5300 6y ago
Yes, this is in fact true. It is also true that the US currently has quiet a lot of young children being held in practically prison cells near our Southern Border It is also true that China has been committing genocide by definition for quite some time now.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  see the sibling comment. The US is not afraid to face it's issues in daylight. Furthermore, to even compare the two (terrible) situations is disrespectful to the plight of the Ughyrs.
- Iv 6y ago
  I can't be the only one disturbed by the fact we are using the word "genocide" for something that does not include Mass killings. I know that legally it is valid and that the actions it describes are still despicable, but there is an important distinction between mass internment and mass killing.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - s5300 6y ago
    While there may be some slight semantics if you're simply googling "definition of genocide" It's very much been hashed out already. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions As far as the most civil nations/governments of our world are concerned, what China is doing to Uyghers very much falls under the established conditions for being denoted as genocide.
    - bingbong70 6y ago
      >As far as the most civil nations/governments of our world are concerned. Most of the world doesn't agree with these so called "civil nations" that have murdered more innocent Muslim civilians than anyone else over the last 2 decades. Also notice what's going on in Palestine isn't called genocide because its not convenient for these "civil nations", even though what Israel is doing is more genocidal and violent than anything that has happened in Western China to Uighurs. Reeks of double standards being set by western nations to suppress China's economy. At this point, any manufactured excuse will get adopted and mainstreamed.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I can't be the only one disturbed by the fact we are using the word "genocide" for something that does not include Mass killings. Mass killings is mass homicide. Genocide is destruction of an ethnic/racial/cultural group by any means; the thing being killed isn't people, it's the a people as an entity (gens, from which the first part of genocide is derived, is the latin for “tribe”.) They are essentially orthogonal concepts, though genocide historically frequently includes mass homicide. > I know that legally it is valid and that the actions it describes are still despicable, but there is an important distinction between mass internment and mass killing Yes, murder and extermination are crimes against humanity distinct from, frequently accompanying, and in addition to genocide. So the distinction you are looking for exists and is made quite clearly; there is no need to narrow the concept of genocide to make it. See, e.g., https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml And: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-huma...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
King-Aaron 6y ago
Which part is false?

dundarious 6y ago

Where is the actual report? On iOS Safari at least, the linked state.gov URL does not seem to link to the body of the report and only briefly mentions Uyghurs twice.

bgee 6y ago
It's structured by country. You need to go to the Location dropdown and select China to see the actual report.
- dundarious 6y ago
  Thanks to you and Aunche! For me that meant using the red sliders hovering button on the bottom right.
Aunche 6y ago
The interface is kind of confusing. On the side you can selection the country of interest: https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/china/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-...
dundarious 6y ago
I’m critical of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, but also critical of the govt. and major media’s breathless approval of Adrian Zenz’ questionable work.

biggio 6y ago

What will the report achieve? Will China put an end to their Uyghur genocide now?

lawrenceyan 6y ago

Points I found most valuable from the article: > Introducing the report, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said President Biden would put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. > The report finds that more than one million mainly Muslim Uyghurs were held in detention camps in China’s Xinjiang region, with some subjected to forced sterilization, rape, forced labor and torture. > He also acknowledged that the U.S. had work to do at home on human rights, including in combating systemic racism, but would face those challenges in the daylight, unlike autocratic countries.

dundarious 6y ago
The "million in detention" claim is based on Adrian Zenz' questionable work, where he took the percentage of people per village in camps from 8 Uyghur testimonies (totaling ~2000 in camps), and extrapolated out to the entire region. I have no doubt the police state in Xinjiang is brutal to my Western conception, but given the recent history for the US in particular to compile dodgy dossiers filled with "encouraged" testimony from a handful of sources, I'm skeptical and would absolutely not take the million figure as fact.

henryscala 6y ago

It is false accusation based on fake news. Advise you read China Daily or a book https://www.laroutedelasoie-editions.com/notre-catalogue/essais/ouighours-pour-en-finir-avec-les-fake-news/ https://www.laroutedelasoie-editions.com/notre-catalogue/ess...

MattGaiser 6y ago
> China Daily (simplified Chinese: 中国日报; traditional Chinese: 中國日報; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rìbào) is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe this comment is a joke, but just in case, the user is advocating what is essentially just the writings of the Communist Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily
- henryscala 6y ago
  Why do you think we read news from China Daily is a joke? Why don't you think that the news in BBC or VOA are joke?
  - Johnjonjoan 6y ago
    The royal charter. Does China daily have something similar?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Because neither the BBC and VOA are produced by the publicity arm of a particular British or American political party. (“But”, you say, “the PRC is structured as a one party state, so there is no difference between party media and state media.” And that's true, but not in a way which elevates the credibility of party organs, just one that degrades that of state organs compared to ones in regimes where state institutions have some institutional protection against partisan patronage. Which is not to say that state institutions are ever neutral sources on the interests of their own state, just that even among structurally biased sources there are still different levels of unreliability.)

Leary 6y ago

So the US doesn't have the balls to sanction Xi Jinping when he directed this "genocide" on Xinjiang? Okay, maybe it'll sanction the Chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region - Shohrat Zakir[1]? Again, nope. I'm curious, how does an Uyghur genocide his own people? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shohrat_Zakir#:~:text=Shohrat%20Zakir%20(Uighur%3A%20%D8%B4%DB%86%DA%BE%D8%B1%DB%95%D8%AA%20%D8%B2%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%89%D8%B1,deputy%20party%20chief%20of%20Xinjiang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shohrat_Zakir#:~:text=Shohrat%....

airflow 6y ago

I wonder why Russia and China are enlisted. Is it because the gov wants to see this result or Blinken's team is doing the research with a high bias? AFAIK, the main issue of China is the high price of housing, which Chinese gov is trying to control. And these researchers just turn a blind eye to it.

frabbit 6y ago

I found this hard to read. Principally I was looking for sources and I found a lot of statements with no easy footnoting of sources. After looking at the Grayzone/ModerateRebels video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkxaEC1xjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkxaEC1xjY about the very odd and weak claims about China's behavior in this regard I was hoping that some more diverse, specific and accurate sources would be present in e.g. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/china/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-... If only a fraction of what Blumethal claims in the video is correct then this is singularly unhelpful and definitely smells a bit. I look forward to the call for sanctions on the USA by the USA, backed up by appropriate force to support the workers in the gig economy suffering in the same way as the ones in China cited at the end of the report: Workers in the gig economy were considered contract workers and not under the protections of the labor law. There were reports of app delivery drivers injured or killed on the job. On September 9, the magazine Renwu exposed how online platform algorithms created dangerous conditions for delivery drivers, including by shortening delivery times and issuing penalties for delays. The report prompted two major delivery firms to extend delivery times and reduce penalties for late deliveries.

mc32 6y ago
Call us back when such companies force sterilizations[1] and force free labor and force indoctrination and confiscate any travel papers, etc. [1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/twitter-removes-china-us-embassy-post-saying-uighur-women-no-longer-baby-making-machines https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/twitter-remove...
- frabbit 6y ago
  Got a source for that?
  - hkmaxpro 6y ago
    Have you watched the victims’ testimony videos and this primary evidence report? https://shahit.biz/eng/ https://shahit.biz/eng/ Or this report [0] by more than 50 global experts in international law, genocide, and China? [0] https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an-examination-of-chinas-breaches-of-the-1948-genocide-convention/ https://newlinesinstitute.org/uyghurs/the-uyghur-genocide-an...

WANGCHEN 6y ago

This news let me believe that the westerns don't have common sense, brain washed and stupid. According to stats, the Uyghur has 10.17 millions in 2010. And after "genocide", the Uyghur population size has dramatic decreased to 12.71 millions. I used to believe that the US is the lighthouse of human civilization, now I think the US are full of clowns, they don't like Muslim, they don't like Chinese, but they like Chinese Musilm.

pupppet 6y ago
The fact you are cognizant of the population growth is telling. Let me guess, this population growth is a problem to you.
- WANGCHEN 6y ago
  Your comment is another typical US arrogance and ignorance reply. You know nothing, but you pretend that you know everything.
- dang 6y ago
  You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.
dang 6y ago
You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.

caminocorner 6y ago

I'm surprised by the number of comments here purporting to call this information fake, or attempting to redirect the blame toward the US. This has been well documented by multiple sources for nearly two years. The world has many problems but genocide is decidedly one of the worst.

b0ner_t0ner 6y ago

But but but Regina Ip isn't wrong though: https://twitter.com/ReginaIplau/status/1375582243956002816 https://twitter.com/ReginaIplau/status/1375582243956002816

kstenerud 6y ago

Looks like HN will need an "unfairly flagged" button to counter the organized cleaner squads who use it to bury stories...

dang 6y ago
These threads have all become the same hellish flamewar, endlessly repeated. That's automatically off topic on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), regardless of how important the underlying story is. I don't see how this place has any obligation to host flamewars that destroy it, any more than a building has an obligation to let a fire burn it down. On the contrary, we have a duty not to burn down, and need to do more to prevent it. We've been tirelessly asking HN commenters to please not destroy the commons for years, but the users posting in these threads are doing it more, and worse. Tireless asking is clearly insufficient, and from my perspective we could use more flags, not fewer. Going directly to internet failure mode doesn't help anyone, let alone oppressed peoples. Moreover, if you see as much of this as I do, it becomes painfully obvious what these angry arguments are really about: highly-activated tribal emotion. In that sense they are an expression of the problem, not any step toward solution. I posted about this earlier today, if anyone wants more explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637365
- kstenerud 6y ago
  Fair enough. I was looking at this from a pure "fairness" POV in which a perfectly normal article is being flagged, with no way for users to say "hang on, this article isn't breaking any rules, so this shouldn't be flagged." But if the purpose of allowing this is as another indirect method for keeping flamewars off HN, then I agree that it's an acceptable compromise.
  - dang 6y ago
    Thanks for the kind reply. I would say that fairness comes into it this way: it applies to all threads and doesn't vary with the topic, but rather with the degree of flamewar.

reinkaos 6y ago

Heavy on allegations, very light on proof, as usual.