5 ms·

Ask HN: Is HN being censored?

Today I have noticed a post shooting to the top, linked from an mit.edu domain, which is not exactly a junk source, disappearing.

znpy 5y ago
You might enable the showdead feature, you'll start to see a lot of dead posts. In theory this happens because a lot of people flag posts. In theory. One thing, for sure, is that I noticed in the trump era, that there seemed to be some kind of pro-trump task force that flagged everything non-positive about trump and its administration
- friendly_chap 5y ago
  Very interesting! I intentionally did not mention the topic as I was already accused of taking sides in the matter due to poor wording. In fact that accusation is what made notice this disappearance, but now thinking about it it must come from the community as you say and not from mods. I guess that answers my question with a no, there is no censorship on HN but bias of the community on certain topics. Thanks PS: thanks for the showdead tip, will look it up.
gus_massa 5y ago
Looking at https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mit.edu https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mit.edu , I guess https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234111 You can write to the mods and ask. Most of the times, the answer is that many users flagged the post.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
logicslave 5y ago
Alot of popular discussions that become unsavory, i.e. discussions about incels and sexless men get removed from the front page. Basically hard truths that are hot topics for men in technology. HN generally avoids allowing controversial discussions about race, gender, discrimination, etc. All of which I think is fine, this isnt really the medium for that. When a big event occurs, they allow the discussion, otherwise, things get downranked. I really dont think the downranking is by members, it usually happens too rapidly, and makes no sense given the number of replies occurring in the thread.
- domano 5y ago
  Very strange examples, why are incels hot topics for men in tech? I have known one incelish person in tech and i've met many hundreds of people by now. Is this incel stuff actually relevant in america? In europe i think it is not
  - logicslave 5y ago
    Because tech has alot of nerdy men online, who arent the demographic known for attracting women. Its absolutely relevant, the discussion is mostly suppressed. It will impact society in a big way though
    - domano 5y ago
      I am really nerdy (including the awkward at school stuff etc.) and am married. This goes for most nerdy tech people i know. The ones that stayed single usually had some other issues like hygiene or erratic behavior. From what i can gather this seems to be the case for most people that label themselves "incel". The full meaning of the word itself is evidence of problematic sovial behavior, as if somebody owes them sex lol
proc0 5y ago
Of course. All social media is censoring now. People here also seem to be ok with censorship with the intent (if I'm generous) to protect other people. The evidence is you can't talk about censorship itself, it will get censored. (this post will be case and point)
n00bdude 5y ago
Yes. I get that my posts are not so favored here, but I do believe I am doing one of the more “interesting” things in scope of collab. creative writing in terms of “story” / literature Posted today twice - Show HN: Build-a-Blocks, a Copyleft Creative Writing Platform [1] both times, didn’t show up on multiple devices under “new” section of HN sad because am making quality effort [1] https://baldinoblog.com/tags.html https://baldinoblog.com/tags.html
- busyant 5y ago
  So, I poked around the website and for almost every link that I clicked on I saw "coming soon" I don't get it.
  - n00bdude 5y ago
    Did the explanation not make sense? I just made that build-a-blocks.html page/file today, so the essence has yet to come But the idea is basically Linux for literature (or creative writing) In any case thanks for checking it out
    - gus_massa 5y ago
      > Did the explanation not make sense? (Not the GP.) I still don't understand. Is this like Reddit where everyone can post their work? Is this like Wikipedia where everyone can modify a shared work? Is this like a blog where only you can post? --- One important recommendation for post in HN is that it must be at least a working prototype. It's not necessary that it is super polished, or fancy, but it must work minimally.
      - n00bdude 5y ago
        Hey, thanks for the response & thoughts - quite literally the most feedback I’ve ever had It seems I need to make things more clear, but also, I just finally (yesterday) created the tags (build-a-block) categories, and haven’t yet started creating / organizing the blocks. The idea is copyleft creation of literature / movies / plays, anything really. I’ve been writing a short story series. While the short story is copyright, the characters themselves (which will be featured on blog) will be copyleft (CC BY-SA 4.0) which means you can create with/ reinvent them & sell them commercial Say you want to be a writer & you want to do your own short story or make a film or reinvent a certain character from one of these short stories for a novel - you can legally do this & resell. The overarching idea is Linux for storytelling / build your own distro And demonstrated in a “microblog” format, where the “build-a-blocks” (reworkable writes) make for succinct posts that convey the basic elements. Probably a best / good use case is in terms of “character-bank” - lotss (so far ~ 60+) of fiction story characters that can be reinvented / reimagined / evolved Any thoughts on how I can maybe convey that in a more “accessible / succinct” manner? In any case thanks again :)
hntroll1332 5y ago
Yes, just not the usual way. People with karma can flag things they don't like regardless of whether it's correct, factual, polite, etc, and there's no feedback mechanism to rein them in. When your post full of correct information is hidden from others, you can't tell who the culprits are. You can't demand that they say why they did what they did. I think HN is best thought of as a machine for deepening the delusions of the left. Nothing they don't like will reach the front page, first of all, or if it does, it will be flagged. Whatever remains for consideration, in the comment section you are allowed to fiddle around with a few extraneous details about it, but you can't skewer the whole thing. You can't say it's fundamentally invalid. Nor can you question the source. If it's a science article from the Guardian, you can't link to ten false science predictions the Guardian made in the past and ask people not to post fake news; the Guardian is simply blessed. It is Official Information. The leftists on HN can throw bricks at your head all day long. But if you pick up any of those bricks and start throwing them back, you'll be downvoted or even banned for being inflammatory.
i_love_apples 5y ago
This topic has been continuously getting flagged for the whole past week. It is obvious that the community wants to discuss it because there have been many submissions which immediately get a lot of interest but then get killed without any reason. It's frankly eye opening how much censorship there is going on. Out of curiosity I started reading about it and I was deeply disturbed by what I found. I had not realized the situation was THAT bad. I encourage everyone to do their own research on the situation and not let themselves be mislead by mainstream media, all of which are so blatantly biased it is unbelievable. It really made me question the supposed free speech we have in this country.
- dang 5y ago
  > It is obvious that the community wants to discuss it because there have been many submissions which immediately get a lot of interest but then get killed without any reason. The observation is correct but the interpretation is mistaken. Some of the community wants those submissions to be on the front page. But another segment of the community is flagging them. You're attributing one action to "the community" and an opposite action to "censorship", but I can assure you that both are coming from the community. The community is simply divided. This tug of war between upvotes and flags is in large part how HN's front page gets constituted. It's typical for the most sensational stories to get heavily upvoted at first, enough to make the front page, but then to trigger an immune reaction from the rest of the community. Those who like the story will say that it is flagged "for no reason"; but large sectors of the community do not share their views, and from these others' point of view, it wasn't "for no reason" at all. In the case of the recent Israel vs. Gaza stories, the mods mostly didn't intervene. To the extent that we did intervene, it was to override user flags on certain stories. That makes me think that your statement, "It's frankly eye opening how much censorship there is going on", is an overinterpretation. Should we have intervened more or less? Unfortunately the answer to that question is isomorphic to your pre-existing position on the underlying issue.
dang 5y ago
The mechanisms at work are all described in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. HN gets 1200 submissions a day. Perhaps 100 spend significant time on the front page. Are the other 1100 being censored? Well, people basically use that word depending on how they feel about a story.

Today I have noticed a post shooting to the top, linked from an mit.edu domain, which is not exactly a junk source, disappearing.

znpy 5y ago

You might enable the showdead feature, you'll start to see a lot of dead posts. In theory this happens because a lot of people flag posts. In theory. One thing, for sure, is that I noticed in the trump era, that there seemed to be some kind of pro-trump task force that flagged everything non-positive about trump and its administration

friendly_chap 5y ago
Very interesting! I intentionally did not mention the topic as I was already accused of taking sides in the matter due to poor wording. In fact that accusation is what made notice this disappearance, but now thinking about it it must come from the community as you say and not from mods. I guess that answers my question with a no, there is no censorship on HN but bias of the community on certain topics. Thanks PS: thanks for the showdead tip, will look it up.

gus_massa 5y ago

Looking at https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mit.edu https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mit.edu , I guess https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234111 You can write to the mods and ask. Most of the times, the answer is that many users flagged the post.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

logicslave 5y ago

Alot of popular discussions that become unsavory, i.e. discussions about incels and sexless men get removed from the front page. Basically hard truths that are hot topics for men in technology. HN generally avoids allowing controversial discussions about race, gender, discrimination, etc. All of which I think is fine, this isnt really the medium for that. When a big event occurs, they allow the discussion, otherwise, things get downranked. I really dont think the downranking is by members, it usually happens too rapidly, and makes no sense given the number of replies occurring in the thread.

domano 5y ago
Very strange examples, why are incels hot topics for men in tech? I have known one incelish person in tech and i've met many hundreds of people by now. Is this incel stuff actually relevant in america? In europe i think it is not
- logicslave 5y ago
  Because tech has alot of nerdy men online, who arent the demographic known for attracting women. Its absolutely relevant, the discussion is mostly suppressed. It will impact society in a big way though
  - domano 5y ago
    I am really nerdy (including the awkward at school stuff etc.) and am married. This goes for most nerdy tech people i know. The ones that stayed single usually had some other issues like hygiene or erratic behavior. From what i can gather this seems to be the case for most people that label themselves "incel". The full meaning of the word itself is evidence of problematic sovial behavior, as if somebody owes them sex lol

proc0 5y ago

Of course. All social media is censoring now. People here also seem to be ok with censorship with the intent (if I'm generous) to protect other people. The evidence is you can't talk about censorship itself, it will get censored. (this post will be case and point)

n00bdude 5y ago

Yes. I get that my posts are not so favored here, but I do believe I am doing one of the more “interesting” things in scope of collab. creative writing in terms of “story” / literature Posted today twice - Show HN: Build-a-Blocks, a Copyleft Creative Writing Platform [1] both times, didn’t show up on multiple devices under “new” section of HN sad because am making quality effort [1] https://baldinoblog.com/tags.html https://baldinoblog.com/tags.html

busyant 5y ago
So, I poked around the website and for almost every link that I clicked on I saw "coming soon" I don't get it.
- n00bdude 5y ago
  Did the explanation not make sense? I just made that build-a-blocks.html page/file today, so the essence has yet to come But the idea is basically Linux for literature (or creative writing) In any case thanks for checking it out
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    > Did the explanation not make sense? (Not the GP.) I still don't understand. Is this like Reddit where everyone can post their work? Is this like Wikipedia where everyone can modify a shared work? Is this like a blog where only you can post? --- One important recommendation for post in HN is that it must be at least a working prototype. It's not necessary that it is super polished, or fancy, but it must work minimally.
    - n00bdude 5y ago
      Hey, thanks for the response & thoughts - quite literally the most feedback I’ve ever had It seems I need to make things more clear, but also, I just finally (yesterday) created the tags (build-a-block) categories, and haven’t yet started creating / organizing the blocks. The idea is copyleft creation of literature / movies / plays, anything really. I’ve been writing a short story series. While the short story is copyright, the characters themselves (which will be featured on blog) will be copyleft (CC BY-SA 4.0) which means you can create with/ reinvent them & sell them commercial Say you want to be a writer & you want to do your own short story or make a film or reinvent a certain character from one of these short stories for a novel - you can legally do this & resell. The overarching idea is Linux for storytelling / build your own distro And demonstrated in a “microblog” format, where the “build-a-blocks” (reworkable writes) make for succinct posts that convey the basic elements. Probably a best / good use case is in terms of “character-bank” - lotss (so far ~ 60+) of fiction story characters that can be reinvented / reimagined / evolved Any thoughts on how I can maybe convey that in a more “accessible / succinct” manner? In any case thanks again :)

hntroll1332 5y ago

Yes, just not the usual way. People with karma can flag things they don't like regardless of whether it's correct, factual, polite, etc, and there's no feedback mechanism to rein them in. When your post full of correct information is hidden from others, you can't tell who the culprits are. You can't demand that they say why they did what they did. I think HN is best thought of as a machine for deepening the delusions of the left. Nothing they don't like will reach the front page, first of all, or if it does, it will be flagged. Whatever remains for consideration, in the comment section you are allowed to fiddle around with a few extraneous details about it, but you can't skewer the whole thing. You can't say it's fundamentally invalid. Nor can you question the source. If it's a science article from the Guardian, you can't link to ten false science predictions the Guardian made in the past and ask people not to post fake news; the Guardian is simply blessed. It is Official Information. The leftists on HN can throw bricks at your head all day long. But if you pick up any of those bricks and start throwing them back, you'll be downvoted or even banned for being inflammatory.

i_love_apples 5y ago

This topic has been continuously getting flagged for the whole past week. It is obvious that the community wants to discuss it because there have been many submissions which immediately get a lot of interest but then get killed without any reason. It's frankly eye opening how much censorship there is going on. Out of curiosity I started reading about it and I was deeply disturbed by what I found. I had not realized the situation was THAT bad. I encourage everyone to do their own research on the situation and not let themselves be mislead by mainstream media, all of which are so blatantly biased it is unbelievable. It really made me question the supposed free speech we have in this country.

dang 5y ago
> It is obvious that the community wants to discuss it because there have been many submissions which immediately get a lot of interest but then get killed without any reason. The observation is correct but the interpretation is mistaken. Some of the community wants those submissions to be on the front page. But another segment of the community is flagging them. You're attributing one action to "the community" and an opposite action to "censorship", but I can assure you that both are coming from the community. The community is simply divided. This tug of war between upvotes and flags is in large part how HN's front page gets constituted. It's typical for the most sensational stories to get heavily upvoted at first, enough to make the front page, but then to trigger an immune reaction from the rest of the community. Those who like the story will say that it is flagged "for no reason"; but large sectors of the community do not share their views, and from these others' point of view, it wasn't "for no reason" at all. In the case of the recent Israel vs. Gaza stories, the mods mostly didn't intervene. To the extent that we did intervene, it was to override user flags on certain stories. That makes me think that your statement, "It's frankly eye opening how much censorship there is going on", is an overinterpretation. Should we have intervened more or less? Unfortunately the answer to that question is isomorphic to your pre-existing position on the underlying issue.

dang 5y ago

The mechanisms at work are all described in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. HN gets 1200 submissions a day. Perhaps 100 spend significant time on the front page. Are the other 1100 being censored? Well, people basically use that word depending on how they feel about a story.