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I never said that HN gets by without moderation. I said that I don't feel censored here, and made sure to annotate that I haven't given that specific part of my

I never said that HN gets by without moderation. I said that I don't feel censored here, and made sure to annotate that I haven't given that specific part of my argument particularly much thought. HN was in no way the focus of my argument. Maybe the fact that you call yourself an unrepentant trash-talker coincides with what I referred to as absence of culture (not claiming it does or judging, just relating your response to the point I tried to get across). On the HN-thing: HN doesn't like flamewars or behaviour that is conductive to them - that doesn't mean we're not free to make our point. That's a different thing than behaving with a more or less absolute disregard for the space you're in though, which is probably the part that dang focusses on.

ryandrake 5y ago
I have many times clicked "reply", typed in a long post, looked at it again and re-read it, and then closed the browser tab rather than post it. I probably do that more often than I actually post, nowadays. I do this not because I suddenly decide I don't believe in what I wrote, or that I think the post has no value or will start a flamewar. I do this because I'm pretty sure the downvoters (and possibly even mods) will come down on me like a ton of bricks for the content of the post. It just doesn't seem worth it to put a counter-narrative post out there that's just going to get buried into low-contrast purgatory pretty much immediately. This seems to be "Working As Designed" given the rules here. I wouldn't call it censorship or even heavy moderation. It's something else--self moderation? groupthink? I don't know. But it's likely the reason the place hasn't devolved into a sewer. I totally believe great-grandparent post's take: "Any platform that embraces free speech will gradually become /b/." I think this is pretty hard to refute. Look at what happens every time someone gets banned from Platform X and tries to create "The Free Speech Version Of Platform X." The new platform gets populated by the latest batch of Platform X's cast-offs, and eventually and inevitably turns into a toxic stew of antisemitism, conspiracies, and bigotry.
- hans1729 5y ago
  >Look at what happens every time someone gets banned from Platform X and tries to create "The Free Speech Version Of Platform X. Ask yourself wether the audience drawn to the new platform has culture. I don’t think it has, they are usually the subset of platform Xs original users who are simply not able to get their point across without having the rest of Xs audience reacting emotionally negative (because the rest of the audience also has no culture). It’s a social problem, not a technical one. 80% of people seek identity and peer confirmation, _because they have no culture_. In the case of US-audience, this effect gets accelerated because part of US-culture IS the “Wild West/I ignore anything that’s not my gut”-madness. If you view that as the default, sure, we wont get anywhere. I do not view this as the default. The self censorship that you describe on HN in a way is, you probably guess what I’m about to write, culture. Culture includes to restrict yourself in order to fit your content and your expressions to the space you’re in. Whole heartedly: please don’t censor yourself. Please don’t care about downvotes. Cultivate your thought and formulate it adequately, and there should be no moderation-incentive. Just don’t shove strong opinions (which are categorically dull) down an audience that’s not interested in them. Instead be curious and get the point across as questions, etc. it’s all a matter of form. You can explain the problem of cancel culture even to the most stubborn filter bubble-stuck dim person, you just have to use wording that lets them see through your eyes. That’s hard, but culture HAS to be hard. The alternative will always converge on /b/, because the alternative always converges in the absence of culture.
MrMan 5y ago
you are much more censored here than twitter. I dont understand why all the free speech people are happy to complain here about it when the moderation is much more stringent here than twitter. go there and complain.

ryandrake 5y ago

I have many times clicked "reply", typed in a long post, looked at it again and re-read it, and then closed the browser tab rather than post it. I probably do that more often than I actually post, nowadays. I do this not because I suddenly decide I don't believe in what I wrote, or that I think the post has no value or will start a flamewar. I do this because I'm pretty sure the downvoters (and possibly even mods) will come down on me like a ton of bricks for the content of the post. It just doesn't seem worth it to put a counter-narrative post out there that's just going to get buried into low-contrast purgatory pretty much immediately. This seems to be "Working As Designed" given the rules here. I wouldn't call it censorship or even heavy moderation. It's something else--self moderation? groupthink? I don't know. But it's likely the reason the place hasn't devolved into a sewer. I totally believe great-grandparent post's take: "Any platform that embraces free speech will gradually become /b/." I think this is pretty hard to refute. Look at what happens every time someone gets banned from Platform X and tries to create "The Free Speech Version Of Platform X." The new platform gets populated by the latest batch of Platform X's cast-offs, and eventually and inevitably turns into a toxic stew of antisemitism, conspiracies, and bigotry.

hans1729 5y ago
>Look at what happens every time someone gets banned from Platform X and tries to create "The Free Speech Version Of Platform X. Ask yourself wether the audience drawn to the new platform has culture. I don’t think it has, they are usually the subset of platform Xs original users who are simply not able to get their point across without having the rest of Xs audience reacting emotionally negative (because the rest of the audience also has no culture). It’s a social problem, not a technical one. 80% of people seek identity and peer confirmation, _because they have no culture_. In the case of US-audience, this effect gets accelerated because part of US-culture IS the “Wild West/I ignore anything that’s not my gut”-madness. If you view that as the default, sure, we wont get anywhere. I do not view this as the default. The self censorship that you describe on HN in a way is, you probably guess what I’m about to write, culture. Culture includes to restrict yourself in order to fit your content and your expressions to the space you’re in. Whole heartedly: please don’t censor yourself. Please don’t care about downvotes. Cultivate your thought and formulate it adequately, and there should be no moderation-incentive. Just don’t shove strong opinions (which are categorically dull) down an audience that’s not interested in them. Instead be curious and get the point across as questions, etc. it’s all a matter of form. You can explain the problem of cancel culture even to the most stubborn filter bubble-stuck dim person, you just have to use wording that lets them see through your eyes. That’s hard, but culture HAS to be hard. The alternative will always converge on /b/, because the alternative always converges in the absence of culture.

MrMan 5y ago

you are much more censored here than twitter. I dont understand why all the free speech people are happy to complain here about it when the moderation is much more stringent here than twitter. go there and complain.