Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay silent".
It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules. Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the conversation constructively.
qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a common use case of ytdl: to watch a video without being explicitly tracked by Youtube; although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too.
1. They have betrayed user trust in the past and continue to do so.
2. They have been sued by the FTC, paid millions in settlements, and failed to prove that they did not break the law.
3. They are currently being sued by the DOJ and many states attorney general.
4. They have made numerous settlements in private privacy-related litigation as opposed to proving they were not liable, despite having enormous cash reserves available for legal costs.
If someone were to suspect Google was "probably" breaking the law, this does not seem like an unreasonable suspicion.
A little while back I posted something about how I found the right wing response to tech censorship funny, given that most sources on the right don't consider it real censorship. I then provided an example. I made no statement of opinion outside of saying I found it funny. The comment itself spent all day flipping between [-2, 2] points. What I found the most odd was that I never even said I agreed with the perspective in the example I cited!
I see the pattern has repeated itself here, how odd.
I don't think it's odd, tbh. People downvote stuff they do not agree with, even though the downvoted statement contains no opinion nor attack. That's just how people behave online.
Normally, there is no issue with people downvoting stuff on the Internet. But on HN, voting results in karma, which results in rights. Downvoting is therefore taking away rights, and as seen, on the basis of just opinions. Since downvoting itself is a right, opinions on HN are shaped by those that hold power with this right over others. HN is, more than any other place, enforcing its own filter bubble.
Not sure if people care about this point on HN. I mean if downvoting someone cost 10 of your own karma, then you bet people would use it more judiciously.
