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Comment by PSZD | Hacker News Reader

> while betraying which way you, personally, are "polarized" on abortion

I'm curious what side you think I fall on, seems to me it could be argued either way. I have no strong opinion on it and picked it purely because it's an evocative example. Perhaps too evocative!

Some other examples might be terrorism, animal rights activism, transgender-as-mental-illness. Including both sides can be legitimately and understandably very upsetting for some people; in other cases we demand equal representation.

Are situations like OP's an inevitable product of the tyranny of an algorithm, one that errs to the safer side of excluding results?

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> I'm curious what side you think I fall on

That abortion is not murder, as you made the example of the presentation of such an argument in opposition to the presentation of something "useful". I realize, of course, that the word could have been meant more narrowly (such as "strictly pragmatic"), but that tends be less likely, even on here.

> legitimately and understandably very upsetting for some people; in other cases we demand equal representation. [...] > errs to the safer side of excluding results?

That's the the thing, though, I don't believe in a "right not to be offended" or a "right not to be upset" (legitimately, understandably, or otherwise). As such, I don't believe that these divisive cases ought to be treated any differently than the other cases you mention.

None of this is to say that controversial topics don't attract a distinct problem. They do: trolls (for various definitions of the term). However, I believe that's more an issue with the quality of the content rather than the content itself, since a troll could (sometimes just as easily) take either side.

I do agree with this, but think there's enough societal pressure these days that it's very hard for a for-profit company to do.

I'm not sure being for-profit has that much to do with societal pressure as being ad-revenue-driven.

However, this profit (or revenue) above all else model is something Google's unusual stock voting structure was supposed to address.

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