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points by bigyabai 1 day ago | 0 comments
Moderators don't flag these comments, nor do they comb through flagged comments to vouch for them. This website is funded by Y Combinator, so if anything the ownership is steered by centrist/pro-right rules and decisionmaking.

Looking at your comment history, it looks like your comments were flagged for Holocaust denial, white supremacist sentiments and uncouth conduct in general. The parent comment was flagged for being low-effort and factually incorrect. If HN didn't flag these comments, the website would be indistinct from /pol/.

[–] hagbard_c 1 day ago
I have no idea whether the parent poster is guilty of the things you accuse him of and it is actually hard to know what it actually takes to be accused of white supremacist sentiments [1] nowadays since that term has been bandied around by the usual suspects so much. The problem I see is that this site has started to look like /pol/ more or less since Trump 1 when the 'ban' on political posts was seemingly lifted as long as those posts were aimed against the orange man and his ilk. Either bring the ban hammer down on all posts political or keep it only for those few occasions where someone really goes over the line. The mentioned holocaust denial would be one as far as I'm concerned, same for the denial or glorification of other atrocities like the Holodomor/killing fields/Chinese cultural revolution/etc. Political dissent should never be a reason for flagging but unfortunately I've seen this too many times. The Athenians used to debate politics (among other things) on the 'agora' or 'meeting place'. They generally did not do this by kicking anyone who dissented off the square, they debated them. Sites like HN are the modern versions of that meeting place and kicking people off them because they happen to voice dissent does not do anyone any good.

[1] Here's a nice read-up on the subject: https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-white-supremacy/ ... and please don't tell me that James Lindsay is a white supremacist to avoid ending up in an endless loop. He isn't, not even when he says something you don't agree with, see https://www.itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2019/07/maybe-we-sh...

[–] bigyabai 1 day ago
> I have no idea whether the parent poster is guilty of the things you accuse him of

It takes 15 seconds to check. HN isn't an anonymous messageboard.

> when the 'ban' on political posts was seemingly lifted as long as those posts were aimed against the orange man and his ilk.

That "seemingly" is doing all your heavy lifting, there. Read my last comment again; users are the ones who enforce flags on those posts, in the vast majority of cases.

It can lead to scenarios where apolitical submissions are flagged, or where flamebait slips through. There is almost never a moderator with their finger on the button waiting to flag something on /new, much less in the comment section. The only exception is banned users and banned domains, both of which prevent repeat offenders and disingenuous content from reaching the front page.

Just about every social media site is privately-owned, and protected by Section 230 from most political blowback. If you want to discuss white supremacy and Holocaust denial, you'll have to do it on federal honeypot sites like /pol/, not here. The OP thread is on-topic, intellectually gratifying, high-quality and relevant to HN as it mentions a YC 2020 batch company (Fly.io).

[–] hagbard_c 18 hours ago
> It takes 15 seconds to check. HN isn't an anonymous messageboard.

t is not the time it takes which is relevant, it is the interpretation of what is white supremacy and similar labels which I'm talking about. I checked his history and noticed a number of what I interpret as trollish comments from a number of years ago. That's not white supremacy but trolling - not something I prefer to see on this site but also not something I'm too upset about since those comments are easily ignored.

https://www.itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2019/07/maybe-we-sh...

Did you read that page? If not, do so, I think you'll learn something.

[–] bigyabai 13 hours ago
"White supremacist sentiment" and "trollish comment" are not mutually exclusive in any way. Many online influencers promote white supremacy with facetious trolling (see: Elon Musk).

In any case, that type of trolling has no place on HN, white supremacist or otherwise. It's direspectful and a net-negative contribution to the discussion, not just a freedom-of-speech annoyance. It's flag-on-sight for these comments, and for a good reason.

> Did you read that page?

Yes, did you read his "trollish comments" at all?

  "It's's about time White people realize that the holocaust is used as a mind fuck"

  "Archive link to not give anti-white Vice ad money"

  "[...] against the best interest of White rightists."
Even HN's mods agree that this is ideologically motivated and unsuitable in any way for HN discussion. We are not mistakenly lumping him in with anyone.