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Personally that Brave Browser article a few days ago looked quite strange (to me, at least). A lot of top-level comments positive about the browser within a re

Personally that Brave Browser article a few days ago looked quite strange (to me, at least). A lot of top-level comments positive about the browser within a relatively short period of time after posting. Not a lot of commentary about the company itself and related controversies. That only happened after the post hit the front page.

kbelder 4y ago
I made a positive comment in maybe that thread, and I'm a human, and sadly enough nobody has ever even offered to pay me money in return for an internet post. Seriously, I found myself thinking that most of the criticism against Brave is done by... not an organized group, but a group that is predisposed to loudly criticize it regardless of any actual failing or problem. But that kind of thinking is unfair to the vast majority of posters, pro OR con, who are honestly expressing their opinions. It's probably best to assume good faith, as the good lord and HN guidelines dictate.
- qzx_pierri 4y ago
  Brave fans are relentless in their pursuit to shill the browser to others. It’s why the browser has such a stigma. The browser has a shady reputation due to the fact that every comment section attached to a Brave topic is filled with “Brave is perfect and if you disagree, then you’re wrong” level responses.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    By that metric, rust must be the worst programming language ever ;)
    - bombcar 4y ago
    - Carp 4y ago
      Well you're not wrong. A big reason why I've never checked out rust is because of how rabid the fanbase was for a while. Seems to have simmered down within the past ~6 months though which is nice.
lamontcg 4y ago
- cocoricamo 4y ago
  probably posted when people stop being busy and browse before bed?
polygamous_bat 4y ago
tptacek 4y ago
The guidelines ask you not to post stuff like this. If you're actually worried that a story was gamed onto the front page, mail hn@yc and tell Dan & co. Otherwise, everyone's got a set of front page stories they don't like, and the game where people pick their least favorite stories and claim they're gamed is corrosive to the site. Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lamontcg 4y ago
  Problem is that we know for certain that it happens and we know dang runs some kind of heuristics to try to identify it, so that creates a weird situation where we know it positively happens, but we can't talk about the ones that we suspect slip through. And the title article is all about astroturfing and foreign agents and the like, so it seems like if you don't want to read that discussion you shouldn't really be reading this comment section. It should be pretty obvious what the content is going to be like from the title. Flag the post if you don't like it and want it all gone.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    There isn't a kind of story on HN where we just suspend the guidelines.
bawolff 4y ago
Lots of HN folks like underdogs who are sticking it to FAANG companies, which is the image that Brave is trying to present. Whether or not they are actually sticking it to anyone is debatable, but i really dont think its surprising that Brave fans hang out at hn.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Brave is a bit of a political football because the CEO is Brendan Eich, who left Mozilla after a very short tenure as CEO due to controversy about his opposition to same sex marriage. So that makes him a hero-by-default to a variety of conservatives - some who think his political views unfairly eclipsed his technical achievements, some who feel his free speech was curtailed, some who are just homophobes. Eich hasn't talked much about the issue since so it's hard to say how much of this support is rooted in people projecting their own feelings onto him. Brave also appeals to the crypto crowd because it has its own token with which you can earn and/or redistribute 'Brave Attention Tokens.' I don't know that the behavior around Brave is any sort of astroturfing in the sense of being coordinated; it could just be organic behavior by people who happen to have similarly narrow reasons for preferring it.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I think attributing it all to the circumstances of Eich's tenure as mozilla ceo is probably missing a large part of the story. Don't get me wrong, i am sure there exists people who are motivated by that, but except in the early days of brave, i have not really seen brave evangelists talk about that at all. The talking points mostly seem to be anti-google, anti-big advertisers, anti-chrome monoply and pro-privacy stuff. And i think the amount of people motivated by those talking points far eclipse the other drama, which at this point feels like a historical footnote. Especially because as far as i know Eich hasn't continued to publicly express these views.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      That's actually in line with what I said. There are other browsers with similar aspirations, but Brave happened with a broader political current, so it ended up with a dominant position in that particular market, which became self-reinforcing. Once people feel loyal to a brand (or anything really) the original reasons don't have to stay top of mind for very long, and the loyalty symbol becomes a sort of in-group signal in its own right. It's not very different from fashion signatures in music subcultures.

kbelder 4y ago

I made a positive comment in maybe that thread, and I'm a human, and sadly enough nobody has ever even offered to pay me money in return for an internet post. Seriously, I found myself thinking that most of the criticism against Brave is done by... not an organized group, but a group that is predisposed to loudly criticize it regardless of any actual failing or problem. But that kind of thinking is unfair to the vast majority of posters, pro OR con, who are honestly expressing their opinions. It's probably best to assume good faith, as the good lord and HN guidelines dictate.

qzx_pierri 4y ago
Brave fans are relentless in their pursuit to shill the browser to others. It’s why the browser has such a stigma. The browser has a shady reputation due to the fact that every comment section attached to a Brave topic is filled with “Brave is perfect and if you disagree, then you’re wrong” level responses.
- bawolff 4y ago
  By that metric, rust must be the worst programming language ever ;)
  - bombcar 4y ago
  - Carp 4y ago
    Well you're not wrong. A big reason why I've never checked out rust is because of how rabid the fanbase was for a while. Seems to have simmered down within the past ~6 months though which is nice.

lamontcg 4y ago

cocoricamo 4y ago
probably posted when people stop being busy and browse before bed?

polygamous_bat 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

The guidelines ask you not to post stuff like this. If you're actually worried that a story was gamed onto the front page, mail hn@yc and tell Dan & co. Otherwise, everyone's got a set of front page stories they don't like, and the game where people pick their least favorite stories and claim they're gamed is corrosive to the site. Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lamontcg 4y ago
Problem is that we know for certain that it happens and we know dang runs some kind of heuristics to try to identify it, so that creates a weird situation where we know it positively happens, but we can't talk about the ones that we suspect slip through. And the title article is all about astroturfing and foreign agents and the like, so it seems like if you don't want to read that discussion you shouldn't really be reading this comment section. It should be pretty obvious what the content is going to be like from the title. Flag the post if you don't like it and want it all gone.
- tptacek 4y ago
  There isn't a kind of story on HN where we just suspend the guidelines.

bawolff 4y ago

Lots of HN folks like underdogs who are sticking it to FAANG companies, which is the image that Brave is trying to present. Whether or not they are actually sticking it to anyone is debatable, but i really dont think its surprising that Brave fans hang out at hn.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Brave is a bit of a political football because the CEO is Brendan Eich, who left Mozilla after a very short tenure as CEO due to controversy about his opposition to same sex marriage. So that makes him a hero-by-default to a variety of conservatives - some who think his political views unfairly eclipsed his technical achievements, some who feel his free speech was curtailed, some who are just homophobes. Eich hasn't talked much about the issue since so it's hard to say how much of this support is rooted in people projecting their own feelings onto him. Brave also appeals to the crypto crowd because it has its own token with which you can earn and/or redistribute 'Brave Attention Tokens.' I don't know that the behavior around Brave is any sort of astroturfing in the sense of being coordinated; it could just be organic behavior by people who happen to have similarly narrow reasons for preferring it.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I think attributing it all to the circumstances of Eich's tenure as mozilla ceo is probably missing a large part of the story. Don't get me wrong, i am sure there exists people who are motivated by that, but except in the early days of brave, i have not really seen brave evangelists talk about that at all. The talking points mostly seem to be anti-google, anti-big advertisers, anti-chrome monoply and pro-privacy stuff. And i think the amount of people motivated by those talking points far eclipse the other drama, which at this point feels like a historical footnote. Especially because as far as i know Eich hasn't continued to publicly express these views.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    That's actually in line with what I said. There are other browsers with similar aspirations, but Brave happened with a broader political current, so it ended up with a dominant position in that particular market, which became self-reinforcing. Once people feel loyal to a brand (or anything really) the original reasons don't have to stay top of mind for very long, and the loyalty symbol becomes a sort of in-group signal in its own right. It's not very different from fashion signatures in music subcultures.