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Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

I want to be clear about three aspects of this:

1. Any views expressed here or elsewhere on HN are purely my own and not representative of the United States government or any other entity.

2. This is not about one individual act of violence. It is symptomatic of a culture created by the types of technology we discuss and implement. I happen to know many people within various spheres that do read HN, and are influenced by it.

3. This comment was flagged, which seems contrary to the purpose of inviting a public discussion, particularly on the thread regarding the appropriateness of such discussions on this site.

If we can't even express dissent that we can't express dissent, that is a problem.

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Your comment was rightly flagged because it broke the rules, and in the thread about the rules to boot.

If you want to discuss whether this experiment is a good idea for HN, that's fine, but you need to do it without fighting a specific political fight at the same time. "The new National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, endorsed the totally false rumors that led to this shooting" is the very thing we're asking you not to post this week.

The community was asked whether there were specific concerns regarding the timing of the experiment. I expressed a particular, relevant, and time sensitive issue, which yes, happened to deal with a particular individual.

These issues can't be discussed in a vacuum. This is the person who is openly promoting a Muslim registry, and intends to use the technology we have built to do it. There is no ground to be apolitical in that context, particularly when you have just seen first hand evidence of the violence it portends.

I submit that, if people were firing assault rifles into pizza places in your neighborhood because of "politics," you might feel differently.

The controls on the usage of national security programs, as we know, are today largely governed by the discretion of the people in charge, much like your discretion governs comments here.

It's fine if you don't consider that acceptable discourse anymore. It's your sandbox. But if that's the case, I'm taking taking my toys and going home. I know what censorship looks like when I see it.

Worst of all dang, I though I could trust you guys to be better than this...

> Have at this in the thread

What rule was broken?

You can't have a discussion about these issues without getting to brass tacks at some point.

Even setting aside how this effectively encourages the status quo: you are functionally telling women and minorities not to relate their own experiences for fear of being branded as "political" and getting flagged for it. That's bad. That's real bad. When somebody like 'tptacek says he's on-board with this because he thinks that 97.99% of politics on HN are alt-right trolling...maybe there's a problem here that isn't "politics".

I generally regard the proprietorship here with good faith even when I disagree 'cause you have always been fair and straight with concerns I've thrown your way, but this is an unmistakably dark message you're sending to your community--a message that works very much to the favor of the white supremacists who are actively pissing in your pool around here.

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