
Ask HN: Is Google infiltrating HN? - lewisj489
I have seen a bunch of articles to do with Google products created with accounts just a few hours&#x2F;days old.<p>e.g The dozens upon dozens of Flutter articles<p>I have also seen lots of slandering of Google&#x27;s competitors and praise of Google (Even if they weren&#x27;t directly referenced previously) in comments. Also created by accounts fresh accounts.<p>Do you think they could be doing PR on HN? Or am I just noticing it because I think they might be doing it?
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dang
If you (or anyone) see something on HN that excites suspicion of abuse, let us
know at hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate.

We occasionally see accounts that appear to be doing corporate propaganda, and
we ban those. Unfortunately, it's much more common for users to perceive other
users as astroturfers or shills when they're simply expressing an opposing
viewpoint. These are two different problems that need to be dealt with
separately. That's why the site guidelines ask users not to accuse each other
of astroturfing in the threads:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

If you're interested in the underlying bias that causes people to assume that
someone else couldn't possibly be holding an opposing view in good faith and
therefore must be a shill, I think it's related to the Hostile Media Effect.
That is the finding that people with strong views tend to experience the
platform as being biased against their side:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%22&sort=byD...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

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mettamage
Confirmation bias is a well-studied bias [1].

With that said, there are people who try to game HN for whatever reason. Maybe
FAANG is doing it? Why just Google?

This question reminds me of a game of Maffia or Werewolf, the following is a
bit of a stretch but: if you play that game a lot you might have some
intuition about it. At least it might be a new fun game you could try!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

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otras
Interestingly there was a Ask HN about Amazon using HN for advertising its
product recently as well:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18553815).
It was around the time of reinvent, which makes sense, but it also made some
people suspicious.

Disclaimer: I work at Google but do not post on behalf of my company.

Edit: Removed facetious comment about potentially enjoying being on HN as part
of my job.

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partisan
Wouldn’t that type of job make you really cynical about every other comment
you read online? If your posts are hidden ads then what about the others?

There is a difference between an advertisement that is labeled as one and a
disingenuous post on a site like this one where that type of activity is
nonexistent.

While you might derive some short-term pleasure from the challenge of
infiltrating people’s trust boundaries, it can’t be something to be proud of.

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otras
My apologies, I was trying to include a facetious comment about enjoying
spending time here as part of my job, not that I would enjoy being an
anonymous shill. That wasn't clear, and I've updated the GP to reflect that.

I greatly enjoy and value the discussion here. Being a part of the community
in an open and clear role would be compelling, and I absolutely agree that
subterfuge hurts the community.

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detaro
If you have examples of suspect submissions or accounts, e-mail the mods and
ask them to take a look.

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paulcole
No. Further reading:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

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lewisj489
Only because confirmation bias is a thing, doesn't mean it's always the
reason.

~~~
paulcole
Well if you knew you weren't being affected by bias, why'd you ask the
question in the first place?

