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It is extraordinary to me how easily 'politically incorrect' stories have been suppressed on HN. I've always found this site over the top in its support of fre

It is extraordinary to me how easily 'politically incorrect' stories have been suppressed on HN. I've always found this site over the top in its support of free speech. Posters angrily railed against hate speech laws. Any attempt to regulate sites with immoral or illegal content was considered a attack on our fundamental rights. Now we have a sizable contingent of posters who have decided that some stories are too dangerous for open discussion. This surprises me is that there is no large scale effort to fight back against these 'flagged' topics. Where have our free speech fighters gone? Let us be honest in that they really only believed "free speech more me but not for thee".

init2null 1y ago
You'll see the Grok genocide story got posted five times... so they ended up getting one flag and four dups. People are trying, but oppression is easy on here, and the power to prevent a flagging is concentrated. People comment on flagging only to be ignored by the management, and repost those suppressed stories to no effect. It's probably best to give up with the website and use an RSS reader. I also turn on hidden comments. The censorship can be mostly avoided.
- nineplay 1y ago
  I could hide my head in the sand and imaging that the 'flaggers' are taking advantage of a loophole in the HN moderating system but I don't believe that anymore. > People comment on flagging only to be ignored by the management This still PG's site and I have no illusions about where his allegiances lie. The whole lot of them care for nothing but their own power and wealth.
  - tomhow 1y ago
    You just have to read pg's tweets and essays to see where his allegiances lie. It's not what you're asserting or implying in this thread.
    - computerthings 1y ago
      [dead]
gxnxcxcx 1y ago
> there is no large scale effort to fight back against these 'flagged' topics. The Wiggum insight: "My cat's breath smells like cat food."
dang 1y ago
You need only look at the low quality of the current thread to understand why users flag these posts.
- trust_bt_verify 1y ago
  Seems like _everyone_ has lots of feelings on this post. What an interesting comment!
  - tomhow 1y ago
    The main purpose of HN is to be a place for discussing things that appeal to intellectual curiosity. This is pretty much the opposite of topics that “everyone has lots of feelings” about. Moderators and longtime top contributors to HN come to recognise that these regular dramas about politics and culture wars bring out the worst in people, and lead to the very worst discussion threads we see on HN, precisely because “everyone has lots of feelings” about them. It’s not wrong for people to have strong feelings about these topics. They're important issues, we get that, and that's why we try to be at least somewhat accommodating of discussions about them. But when they routinely turn out to be the worst discussions we ever see on HN, and start to turn HN into something very different from what it is intended to be, we think that maybe these discussions should happen on the many other places that want to attract and encourage them, and not so much on this little corner of the web that’s trying to be something different.
    - trust_bt_verify 1y ago
      Can you elaborate on how feelings about a subject and intellectual curiosity are mutually exclusive in your world view? This is an article about a conservative tech company producing an AI that pushes their conservative talking points. The only common trait in these so called ‘low quality’ threads that the HN staff feel the _need_ to call out is that conservative look really bad. The tech is still just as interesting to discuss.
      - tomhow 1y ago

init2null 1y ago

You'll see the Grok genocide story got posted five times... so they ended up getting one flag and four dups. People are trying, but oppression is easy on here, and the power to prevent a flagging is concentrated. People comment on flagging only to be ignored by the management, and repost those suppressed stories to no effect. It's probably best to give up with the website and use an RSS reader. I also turn on hidden comments. The censorship can be mostly avoided.

nineplay 1y ago
I could hide my head in the sand and imaging that the 'flaggers' are taking advantage of a loophole in the HN moderating system but I don't believe that anymore. > People comment on flagging only to be ignored by the management This still PG's site and I have no illusions about where his allegiances lie. The whole lot of them care for nothing but their own power and wealth.
- tomhow 1y ago
  You just have to read pg's tweets and essays to see where his allegiances lie. It's not what you're asserting or implying in this thread.
  - computerthings 1y ago
    [dead]

gxnxcxcx 1y ago

> there is no large scale effort to fight back against these 'flagged' topics. The Wiggum insight: "My cat's breath smells like cat food."

dang 1y ago

You need only look at the low quality of the current thread to understand why users flag these posts.

trust_bt_verify 1y ago
Seems like _everyone_ has lots of feelings on this post. What an interesting comment!
- tomhow 1y ago
  The main purpose of HN is to be a place for discussing things that appeal to intellectual curiosity. This is pretty much the opposite of topics that “everyone has lots of feelings” about. Moderators and longtime top contributors to HN come to recognise that these regular dramas about politics and culture wars bring out the worst in people, and lead to the very worst discussion threads we see on HN, precisely because “everyone has lots of feelings” about them. It’s not wrong for people to have strong feelings about these topics. They're important issues, we get that, and that's why we try to be at least somewhat accommodating of discussions about them. But when they routinely turn out to be the worst discussions we ever see on HN, and start to turn HN into something very different from what it is intended to be, we think that maybe these discussions should happen on the many other places that want to attract and encourage them, and not so much on this little corner of the web that’s trying to be something different.
  - trust_bt_verify 1y ago
    Can you elaborate on how feelings about a subject and intellectual curiosity are mutually exclusive in your world view? This is an article about a conservative tech company producing an AI that pushes their conservative talking points. The only common trait in these so called ‘low quality’ threads that the HN staff feel the _need_ to call out is that conservative look really bad. The tech is still just as interesting to discuss.
    - tomhow 1y ago