
Ask HN: We're being censored. Why? - Sone7
This article (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16576569) was flagged and removed from the news pages.<p>Not even a flimsy excuse was given.<p>It is such an important topic - a person who ran a black site and destroyed the evidence before Congress could see it is now able to look at all our dick pics. This one shouldn&#x27;t be shoved down the memory hole.<p>My comment on it is permanently compressed (even when the thread is opened in an entirely different browser) and has been stuck on 11 points. It&#x27;s fucking weird, and I&#x27;ve never seen that on HN before.<p>As another commenter pointed out, informative and well sourced comments on the thread are flagged and grayed to oblivion. While most commenting has stopped since the page disappeared, there are a number of suspicious commenters still deflecting and inciting people in dumb directions.<p>Is this who you are HN?
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dang
Users flag stories that they don't think fit the site guidelines. That's all
that happened here.

I get that you disagree. People disagree about this all the time, often
strongly. I doubt there's a single story that every user agrees belongs on HN.

The only unusual thing in this case is the drama you've created about it. We
can debate whether a CIA director nomination belongs on HN, but there's no
question that the above submission and your comments are breaking the site
guidelines. Those are at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Please read them and follow them when posting here. They're written the way
they are for good reasons, based on over ten years of running this place.

No one's questioning the importance of major political stories, by the way. Of
course they're important—much more important than most of what gets posted
here. That's why we need flagging. Otherwise they would take over the site,
and HN would be a completely different place.

HN's mandate is to gratify intellectual curiosity. Not all political stories
are off topic, but the ones that only stir up outrage, however justifiably,
and don't also gratify intellectual curiosity, are not a good fit.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Not all political stories are off topic, but the ones that only stir up
outrage, however justifiably, and don't also gratify intellectual curiosity,
are not a good fit.

So does that mean I can flag anything that doesn’t gratify _my_ intellectual
curiosity?

Because I personally find it very intellectually curious what is currently
happening in the United States, but when those stories get buried by a few
overzealous people then I feel like I should do the same when someone else
posts a story about the latest JavaScript framework. Yet I feel like if I
started flagging them I would probably lose my privileges here.

~~~
dang
No, I definitely wouldn't say that that follows.

It sounds like you might want a different kind of forum than HN. If every
political outrage made the front page, that would change HN into a forum about
"what is currently happening in the United States". Such a site could be
valuable, but wouldn't be HN. HN has a different mandate, which it's our job
to stick to.

There's room for lots of kinds of website. I think a forum dedicated to
intellectual curiosity has a right to exist, among others; and if HN is to be
that, it has to be preserved actively, since the default forces all point the
other way. User flags are part of how HN preserves itself. Yes, there are
exceptions, but those need to be infrequent and have some unusual quality that
raises them out of the category of latest outrage.

The supply of outrages outweighs the capacity of this site to accommodate
them. Rather than calling that disgusting and despicable (as happened a lot
today), it would be better to find a different kind of site that _can_
accommodate them, or perhaps even to start one.

------
montrose
I don't know why people flagged that link, but I'll tell you why I'm flagging
this one: because you have to have flagging or crap takes over the site, and
if you also allow protest posts from people upset about things that got
flagged, then _those_ take over the site.

I don't complain in Ask HN posts when stuff I upvoted is flagged off the
frontpage. If you have a problem with moderation, email the moderators, like
everyone else.

~~~
snackpack
By flagging this thread you are effectively suppressing a very important
discussion about the tech community's roles and responsibilities in the social
and political worlds. As I mentioned in another comment, this industry tends
to eschew political awareness. Which is ironic, because that passivity enables
some of the biggest issues that we in the tech industry oppose (surveillance,
irresponsible data collection, etc). There is real, visible, connective tissue
between politics and technology and while ignoring may be the most comfortable
thing to do, it's also the most irresponsible.

~~~
Sone7
Thank you for your support.

I also believe this is a terribly important topic to discuss, with special
relevance for the HN community (not that I need to prove that, the number of
comments speaks for itself).

I have emailed the mods, and will update with the reply I get (if I don't end
up banned).

~~~
snackpack
Do you know where to find their emails? I'd like to weigh in as well.

~~~
dang
Our email address is all over the place but the best way to find it is via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html),
so you get a refresher on the site rules before you email us. Sometimes a
question will answer itself along the way.

------
hashmal
I think (but don't take my word for it) it's because it has nothing with
tech/startups/whatever AND is related to politics/trump.

Back during the US election, HN became mostly news like this, and if I
remember correctly it was decided it wasn't the purpose of HN to link to such
news. It does not mean that these news are considered false, or not important,
it does not mean censorship, it just means that HN is for a rather specific
kind of stories.

~~~
Sone7
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363)

This story from 3 months ago is as tech-related (Google changing their
algorithm) as you can get. It wasn't visibly flagged, but was almost certainly
de-ranked, and it wasn't just me who commented about it.

Even if you can buy the excuse that this isn't related to tech or start-ups,
and ignore the very active commenting on it, you're still left with the utter
refusal to allow any transparency about what is flagged and de-ranked. Why
shouldn't we demand better?

------
mchannon
In a word, yes.

Many of us (including me) find this matter interesting, but HN is designed to
allow a tiny minority to flag content. Whether that's wise or not is another
topic. It's always been HN's design.

You can't do much about other commenters, even if they are professional trolls
paid by the post. Nonetheless, political matters (which this arguably is) are
considered by many to be off-topic. That's why you're getting squelched.

~~~
Sone7
There were plenty of active commenters, most of them considering this a very
serious issue.

And no one has been able to offer any explanation why my comment is
permanently collapsed even when opened on a different browser, despite no
obvious flag and a healthy amount of positive votes.

Finally, as I've said elsewhere here, there appears to be evidence of "silent
de-ranking" where stories like the one about Google's censorship are not
flagged in any way but won't show up on the front pages.

As a community HN deserves better, by far. Normalising this behaviour will
lead to dark and bad places.

------
Exuma
I go to HN to read tech related things, not more political drivel. I'm glad it
got removed.

~~~
snackpack
To call this drivel is specious. It's not a political cartoon, it's about
illegal torture methods. The tech industry, with its tremendous growth and
influence, has a responsibility to pay attention to these things.

~~~
pliftkl
What other things do we, as an industry, have a responsibility to pay
attention to? Environment? Health and sanitation in developing countries? The
civil war in Syria? HIV? There are a variety of areas where tech could play an
important role in changing the lives of (b|m)illions of people. How do you
draw the line? What makes torture (which I would argue is completely unethical
but directly affects few people) more important than hunger (which isn't an
ethical issue but which clearly affects millions)?

------
johnmaguire2013
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

From the guidelines.
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html))

~~~
existencebox
I often find this response in threads like this, and often see it as both a
cop-out, and unfortunately "cherry-pick-able" as a guideline.

Spectre/Meltdown showed up on the news. Does that mean it's not relevant? Same
goes for the Broadcomm purchase blocking. Same goes for whatever statement
Elon Musk made this week, or the current SF housing policy. (I chose examples
intentionally in "Decreasing-tech-relevancy" order, and could probably go even
further and still be picking recurrently front-paging-topics.)

I would also argue that openly placing someone with such a history in charge
of an agency we're all under the purview of, one with already such iffy
history, is both interesting and new, and to echo my post from the thread in
question, the prevalence of corporate governing boards to take members with
iffy track records on these subjects to my eyes links the relevance directly
with our purview as tech entrepreneurs. (see: Uber Board) I do not believe we
(members of the tech community) can abscond the responsibility of involvement
that our position affords us.

The "hide" button exists as well, and I've become somewhat saddened by the
extent to which HN seems to lean on "flag" for topics which, in an
interconnected world, I consider very worth discussing in a tech context. I
have a fundamental mental dissonance with the pattern this enables, that "I
don't want to see this topic discussed" turns into "I don't want others to
see/discuss this topic." HN (and the startup/tech community as a whole) is not
a monolith, and if the mechanisms of voting try to structure it that way, I
see that as highly unfortunate.

(I don't mean to "complain about points" but it's rather absurd to look at the
wild swings from +8 to -8 and back again for any of my posts on this topic. It
speaks to me that there are at least two "factions" with very polarizing
opinions on this, and the context has turned less from discussion into
silencing vs vouching. I certainly don't remember seeing these patterns as
strongly 5+ years ago.)

~~~
merb
> Spectre/Meltdown showed up on the news.

well it didn't at the beginning. hn readers at least had one or two days in
advance.

------
thisisit
IMO HN should stick to tech. And even if there is an argument over between
Python or GO, I am fine with it.

Politics shouldn't be discussed at all.

It has been understood that thing don't go as smooth as in a community like
these. I personally think that the story about Trump and Broadcom or endless
parade of bitcoin at $x price shouldn't be voted up at all. But, somehow
people feel value in those. I tend to skip those stories.

~~~
Sone7
The CIA employ what percentage of the tech community again? Maybe this
shouldn't be considered an entirely political story, given the ramifications
it has for all of us.

~~~
thisisit
I am sorry but no one is stopping you from discussing the ramifications on
other platforms like Reddit etc, or messaging like whatsapp or on phone with
friends or family. What you are currently asking is HN to enforce you
viewpoint on what should be discussed.

------
rdtsc
> My comment on it is permanently compressed (even when the thread is opened
> in an entirely different browser) and has been stuck on 11 points.

You pointed an inconvenient fact about Obama and a lot of people are not going
to like that. They could discuss it or flag and run away quickly. Flag and run
away is too easy, so that's what ends up happening.

One time I criticized the obsession with Russians. A user went and start
digging through my comments to determine that I speak Russian (which I do) and
that meant proof I was a Russian shill, paid by Putin presumably to subvert
Democracy right here on HN. Which is doubly creepy given that the Russian
government deported and persecuted members of my family in the past.

~~~
dang
Didn't we specifically tell that other user this was a bannable offense on HN?
I vaguely remember this.

~~~
rdtsc
Remember the warning and thanks for keeping an eye on things. HN is a rare
phenomenon these days compared to other sites. People including me, mostly
complain, and not much said when things work well, but everything is working
very well. As for banning, I don't necessary would want them banned, hopefully
they can continue participating, sometimes people have bad days and such.

~~~
dang
Yes, that's why we put it that way. "Bannable offense" is more "please don't
do this so we don't have to ban you" than "we'll ban you".

------
Larrikin
Any topic mentioning negative aspects of the tech community related to race
are also usually flag bombed to death. Mistreatment of women in the tech
community still get flagged pretty regularly but they seem to be getting
vouched for more regularly now.

------
c8d3f7b49897918
Maybe it is off topic? But, on the other hand, this unflagged:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16576865](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16576865)

Seems pretty arbitrary to me. That's the internet, I guess.

------
rdtsc
... And everything flagged and downvoted for asking a question.

------
NicoJuicy
I understand what you mean, but political content is just not allowed.

Perhaps for the good ;)

Ps. I posted it

------
Sone7
Update, 52 mins in:

This thread is not appearing anywhere on the front pages. With 31 points and
18 comments in less than hour.

What the Fuck?

------
peterwwillis
You have to understand that HN is an artificial environment, specifically
curated to dictate the behavior and thought processes of its users. It is a
safe space for nerds who don't want to think about scary things like politics.
If it causes heated "uncivil" conversation, it's off-limits here. Especially
if the conversation is about civics.

~~~
nathanaldensr
I reject your condescending characterization of HN readership as "nerds who
don't want to think about scary things like politics." I think about "scary"
politics all the time, thank you, but I still don't want these discussions on
HN.

HN is not Reddit. HN is not Twitter. HN is not Facebook. HN's readership is
making it clear through the site's moderation tools that they, to some
critical degree, do not want content such as this on HN. There are plenty of
other forums for the politically-minded to be activists.

------
snackpack
This type of behavior should have been expected from the day HN announced they
weren't allowing political news on their site, just over a year ago.

It's pretty irresponsible: Primary news outlet for an industry that is already
noticeably lacking in social and political responsibility decides to put up
another set of blinders.

Low EQ Silicon Valley refuses to use its influence to affect political change
in any meaningful way. Or even just political awareness. Ironic when you
consider this political/social passiveness enables the same surveillance
capitalism that this community is constantly complaining about.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"No politics" was an experiment that lasted less than a week. It was clearly
labeled as an experiment at the time. I don't think that it's current HN
policy.

~~~
snackpack
Is the experiment really over when politically-adjacent threads are still
getting flagbombed and removed? Just because it's not in the site guidelines
doesn't mean it's not being actively enforced.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Is the experiment really over when politically-adjacent threads are still
> getting flagbombed and removed?

Yes; that was happening before the experiment, too. Most general political
news has been officially OT on HN long before the experiment, and remains so
under the general guidelines. The experiment was effectively a ban on that
small subset of political content that would otherwise be generally within the
guidelines.

