4 ms·

While composing a reply to a comment throwing tons of shade on American AI, I took some time to check out the commenter’s HN profile. Their comment history was

While composing a reply to a comment throwing tons of shade on American AI, I took some time to check out the commenter’s HN profile. Their comment history was about 50% such comments. Their submission history started with an article about how Russia was unfairly blamed for some hacking campaign. It’s entirely possible that this is not a foreign influence campaign. Perhaps there’s a group here that is simply anti-American as its primary interest, and passionately so to upvote each other. On the other hand, one should not discount the value of HN as tastemaker and trendsetter. Also, it would be fairly easy to run bots here. I wouldn’t be surprised if HN were a field of combat for many parallel influence campaigns, foreign and domestic.

logicchains 2mo ago
There's literally a Chinese-funded influence campaign against American AI: https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-data-center-bandwagon/ https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-dat...
- throwaw12 2mo ago
  As if US labs don't lobby politicians to get regulatory capture. It's much easier to buy politicians in US, e.g. Elon bought POTUS for ~200M, Anthropic revenue is 40B, imagine what they can do
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- PaulHoule 2mo ago
  ... and I think it's a big mistake to say, as some people are, that people are opposed to data centers in their backyard because of a Chinese influence campaign. There is also reason to think that some "foreign agents" are doing it for the money https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/10/indonesia-clicks-for-cash-facebook-one-nation-us-politics-meta-creator-program-payments-ntwnfb https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/10/indonesia-clic... https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/political-post-real-or-money-making-scam https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/political-post-real-or-m...
- zapataband1 2mo ago
  lol you believe this bullshit? "likely PRC-origin cluster" what an awesome amount of proof corporations need to convince the gullible. Why not "OpenAI used simplified chinese to create a fake prc-origin campaign and media buzz to convince the public they actually love data-centers and anti-datacenter sentiment is a psyop" there's an equal amount of proof provided for either scenario.
jkl5xx 2mo ago
Would be nice if there were a hn feature, userscript, or plugin to just filter comments from new accounts. Bonus if there was some sentiment analysis or llm-based analysis to filter out unsubstantiated inflammatory comments too.
- Fricken 2mo ago
  [flagged]
- schappim 2mo ago
  Old accounts can suffer takeovers too!
- HDBaseT 2mo ago
  The account we're discussing is from 2014. How much earlier do you want?
  - jkl5xx 2mo ago
    Oof, was just replying to the comment above and didn’t check the age. There’s no silver bullet, unfortunately
semiquaver 2mo ago
> wouldn’t be surprised if HN were a field of combat for many parallel influence campaigns, foreign and domestic. I would be shocked if it weren’t.
soperj 2mo ago
> Perhaps there’s a group here that is simply anti-American as its primary interest, and passionately so to upvote each other. Considering this site has international users, it's not hard to find this, especially right now. Hell, Canada is in this group currently.
- georgemcbay 2mo ago
  I'm a 52 year old natural born US citizen whose ancestors have been here for generations and I'm currently anti-American. Why wouldn't I be? We've never been the shining beacon of light we would claim to be, but we're so fucking awful now.
  - ericmay 2mo ago
    When you say you are anti-American, what do you mean by that? Are you, for example, wishing for the demise of the United States? Do you want to tear down the 1st Amendment and the Statue of Liberty? Are you against democracy? Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Are you cheering against our athletes? Could you expand on what you mean by being "currently anti-American"?
    - georgemcbay 2mo ago
      > Are you, for example, wishing for the demise of the United States? Do you want to tear down the 1st Amendment and the Statue of Liberty? Are you against democracy? Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Are you cheering against our athletes? I am very pro the "dream" of America, in terms of liberty, democracy, etc. According to every "democracy index" I'm aware of we're not doing so hot in that regard, generally rating as a flawed/deficient democracy and the trends are going in the wrong direction, fast. > Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Generally, no, but this is way too open-ended of a question. I want good economic opportunity for everyone, including every US citizen. But relevant to the OP if Meta got snapped out of existence I think it would be a net positive for the world. > Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Nope. But across our entire history ask yourself how many foreign countries have attacked the US? Now ask yourself how many the US has attacked. With those numbers in mind, does the US seem like "the good guys"? really? ...really? > Are you cheering against our athletes? Nope, but I'm not cheering for them either just because they are American, I'm not a tribalist.
snowwrestler 2mo ago
> On the other hand, one should not discount the value of HN as tastemaker and trendsetter. I would encourage dedicated readers here to aggressively and persistently discount the value of HN as a tastemaker and trendsetter. HN is actually a trailing indicator on tastes and trends, essentially by design. Things only make it to the front page if they get submitted and voted upward by a large number of people. That means it’s all stuff that is public and seems cool to a bunch of random people browsing a website. Not exactly cutting edge. Basically every community, online or not, over-indexes on its own importance. Like how random small towns can get so worried about international terrorists targeting them. To folks who love HN, of course the great forces of the world would be attracted to compete here. Look how obviously awesome it is, right? Paul Graham said HN was set up on the theory that it would efficiently surface great ideas and entrepreneurs for Ycombinator. Needless to say, that did not pan out. (How often do you see PG or any YC leadership here anymore?) Honestly I am mystified as to why YC continues to operate it at all.
- ghshephard 2mo ago
  So - presumably you have another site in mind that is better. I'd be intrigued to know which one you would recommend.
  - seemack 2mo ago
    Sounds like something a bot would say!
    - seizethecheese 2mo ago
      Which reply? Because both seem like nothing a bot would say honestly.
    - ghshephard 2mo ago
      Holdonasec - I can list roughly (looking through my bookmarks and counting) - about 20sh different forum type sites with discussion (reddit, anand, verge, slashdot, ars, strachery, etc...) - None of them I like as much as HN. Why would trying to find a site that is better (given the OP didn't like HN) make me sound like a Bot? And if the answer was, "Well, there is nothing better than HN" - kind of makes me wonder what his original point actually was.

logicchains 2mo ago

There's literally a Chinese-funded influence campaign against American AI: https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-data-center-bandwagon/ https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-dat...

throwaw12 2mo ago
As if US labs don't lobby politicians to get regulatory capture. It's much easier to buy politicians in US, e.g. Elon bought POTUS for ~200M, Anthropic revenue is 40B, imagine what they can do
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
PaulHoule 2mo ago
... and I think it's a big mistake to say, as some people are, that people are opposed to data centers in their backyard because of a Chinese influence campaign. There is also reason to think that some "foreign agents" are doing it for the money https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/10/indonesia-clicks-for-cash-facebook-one-nation-us-politics-meta-creator-program-payments-ntwnfb https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/10/indonesia-clic... https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/political-post-real-or-money-making-scam https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/political-post-real-or-m...
zapataband1 2mo ago
lol you believe this bullshit? "likely PRC-origin cluster" what an awesome amount of proof corporations need to convince the gullible. Why not "OpenAI used simplified chinese to create a fake prc-origin campaign and media buzz to convince the public they actually love data-centers and anti-datacenter sentiment is a psyop" there's an equal amount of proof provided for either scenario.

jkl5xx 2mo ago

Would be nice if there were a hn feature, userscript, or plugin to just filter comments from new accounts. Bonus if there was some sentiment analysis or llm-based analysis to filter out unsubstantiated inflammatory comments too.

Fricken 2mo ago
[flagged]
schappim 2mo ago
Old accounts can suffer takeovers too!
HDBaseT 2mo ago
The account we're discussing is from 2014. How much earlier do you want?
- jkl5xx 2mo ago
  Oof, was just replying to the comment above and didn’t check the age. There’s no silver bullet, unfortunately

semiquaver 2mo ago

> wouldn’t be surprised if HN were a field of combat for many parallel influence campaigns, foreign and domestic. I would be shocked if it weren’t.

soperj 2mo ago

> Perhaps there’s a group here that is simply anti-American as its primary interest, and passionately so to upvote each other. Considering this site has international users, it's not hard to find this, especially right now. Hell, Canada is in this group currently.

georgemcbay 2mo ago
I'm a 52 year old natural born US citizen whose ancestors have been here for generations and I'm currently anti-American. Why wouldn't I be? We've never been the shining beacon of light we would claim to be, but we're so fucking awful now.
- ericmay 2mo ago
  When you say you are anti-American, what do you mean by that? Are you, for example, wishing for the demise of the United States? Do you want to tear down the 1st Amendment and the Statue of Liberty? Are you against democracy? Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Are you cheering against our athletes? Could you expand on what you mean by being "currently anti-American"?
  - georgemcbay 2mo ago
    > Are you, for example, wishing for the demise of the United States? Do you want to tear down the 1st Amendment and the Statue of Liberty? Are you against democracy? Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Are you cheering against our athletes? I am very pro the "dream" of America, in terms of liberty, democracy, etc. According to every "democracy index" I'm aware of we're not doing so hot in that regard, generally rating as a flawed/deficient democracy and the trends are going in the wrong direction, fast. > Do you want our businesses and factories to shut down and go out of business? Generally, no, but this is way too open-ended of a question. I want good economic opportunity for everyone, including every US citizen. But relevant to the OP if Meta got snapped out of existence I think it would be a net positive for the world. > Are you willing or would you support foreign countries attacking our military at home and abroad? Nope. But across our entire history ask yourself how many foreign countries have attacked the US? Now ask yourself how many the US has attacked. With those numbers in mind, does the US seem like "the good guys"? really? ...really? > Are you cheering against our athletes? Nope, but I'm not cheering for them either just because they are American, I'm not a tribalist.

snowwrestler 2mo ago

> On the other hand, one should not discount the value of HN as tastemaker and trendsetter. I would encourage dedicated readers here to aggressively and persistently discount the value of HN as a tastemaker and trendsetter. HN is actually a trailing indicator on tastes and trends, essentially by design. Things only make it to the front page if they get submitted and voted upward by a large number of people. That means it’s all stuff that is public and seems cool to a bunch of random people browsing a website. Not exactly cutting edge. Basically every community, online or not, over-indexes on its own importance. Like how random small towns can get so worried about international terrorists targeting them. To folks who love HN, of course the great forces of the world would be attracted to compete here. Look how obviously awesome it is, right? Paul Graham said HN was set up on the theory that it would efficiently surface great ideas and entrepreneurs for Ycombinator. Needless to say, that did not pan out. (How often do you see PG or any YC leadership here anymore?) Honestly I am mystified as to why YC continues to operate it at all.

ghshephard 2mo ago
So - presumably you have another site in mind that is better. I'd be intrigued to know which one you would recommend.
- seemack 2mo ago
  Sounds like something a bot would say!
  - seizethecheese 2mo ago
    Which reply? Because both seem like nothing a bot would say honestly.
  - ghshephard 2mo ago
    Holdonasec - I can list roughly (looking through my bookmarks and counting) - about 20sh different forum type sites with discussion (reddit, anand, verge, slashdot, ars, strachery, etc...) - None of them I like as much as HN. Why would trying to find a site that is better (given the OP didn't like HN) make me sound like a Bot? And if the answer was, "Well, there is nothing better than HN" - kind of makes me wonder what his original point actually was.