But by no means does it follow that a commenter behaving that way must be a sockpuppet, astroturfer, shill, spy, foreign agent, etc. That's where the second guideline comes in: the one that asks users not to insinuate these things in HN threads, but rather to email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look for actual evidence. Accusing others without evidence is a serious breach of the rules, and a personal attack. When people do that, we ask them to stop as well. Example, from the same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20727420.
Does that mean that abuse doesn't exist, or that we don't take it seriously? No—it does and we do. But the way we take it seriously is by looking for evidence. So far, such evidence as we've found on HN nearly always indicates that the commenter is legit—they just hold a view that some other commenters find so wrong that they can't believe it's sincere. (Corporate astroturfing is a different can of worms, btw, and I'm not talking about that here.)
Here's the most remarkable case we've seen of a mass influx of new accounts angrily defending "pro-China" views: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20236444. Most users who are inclined to perceive astroturfing would have declared this an obvious case of manipulation. The only reason we didn't get an inundation of such accusations is that the wave of new accounts only showed up a day or two later, after most readers had stopped looking at the thread. But even this case, when we followed up on the evidence, turned out to be something quite different. I emailed every one of those commenters who had left an email address in their profile, and many responded. It turned out that the study under discussion had gone viral in China, someone had posted a link to the HN thread to the Chinese Quora-equivalent, and the new accounts were people who had found their way to HN from there and created accounts to speak their minds. I also posted in the thread asking the new accounts to explain how they'd come to HN, and several replied with the same story. Does that prove they weren't communist agents? No, nothing would prove that. But the null hypothesis—that people hold their views sincerely—was amply supported by the evidence. This was an extreme case, but over and over, the story we see is like that. Ornate machinations add zero explanatory power, but invoking them poisons the community; therefore we ask users not to invoke them.
Most people hold the views that they do because of their background. HN is a large, international community, orders of magnitude larger than your or my circle of acquaintances. What are the odds that in a group this large, quite a few people will have different backgrounds than you or I, and thus hold different views? The odds are basically 1. That means you're going to hear some "pro-China" views here, because there are users whose background connects them to China—by birthplace, family, education, work history, you name it—in ways that HN's Western audience mostly doesn't share.
Because this is happening, we have to decide what kind of community HN should be. Should we ban accounts, or allow them to be persecuted, for "pro-X" views where X is outside, say, a standard deviation of what most people here take for granted? Or do we want to be a pluralistic community that is strong enough to hold space for such views, and such people, even when most of us disagree? It's unclear which way HN is going to go about this—sctb and I can't control HN, only try to persuade—but I know that I'm only interested in participating in the latter. The other way leads to a community in which it's ok to smear others (such as a nation or ethnicity) and have mob attacks on innocent individuals: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403358 for one example that turned out ok; unfortunately there have been others which didn't, and users have been run out of town. I don't believe anyone here wants those things, but the tragedy of the commons will take us there if we don't all consciously resist it.
When those views are formed under the pressure and oppression of an increasingly influential authoritarian regime? Yes, you should. Otherwise there won't be much of a community left to protect. There is little reason to believe you can have it both ways as it isn't a level playing field. Ambivalence is one of the costs of democracy and it can't measure up to the adjusted views formed under a watchful eye.
This is why authoritarianism is on the rise all over the world. Because as people become afraid of the effects of global conflicts, economics, and politics all the establishment can offer are arguments of apathy and equivalence. Leaving the hardliners the only ones left standing with a message resembling anything close to common values.
I do believe you are writing in good faith, but I'm not sure you understand the situation. Facing undue pressure to confirm to certain views because of your background and thereby not being free to form your own _is_ what is damaging. That is what oppression is. Authoritarianism is there to achieve this result. The idea that these views are remotely equivalent is contradicted by all those facing the consequence of not wanting to conform to them and suggesting otherwise is a disservice to all parties.
I think another way of saying it is, any views coming from a country that doesn’t allow even a modicum of free speech should be discounted.
I think there’s two reasons: trust and reciprocity.
Trust - the fact that information in China is so heavily censored and moderated means that opinions are necessarily censored and moderated too. It’s as if somebody admitted that their single source of all political information was Alex Jones - it wouldn’t be unreasonable to treat their opinions with a high degree of suspicion.
Reciprocity - I don’t think China should be able to have its cake and eat it. ie. if your neighbor thinks you are too dirty to eat at their house, then they surely wouldn’t be welcome at yours whenever they please?
The answer is that we don't moderate HN that way because we want it to be a pluralistic site. What I hear you saying is that a pluralistic site is impossible ("there won't be much of a community left to protect"). I don't think that's correct. I think HN, for all its problems, is such a site, at least for the time being. I also think that HN's pluralism is mostly what people dislike about it, even though no one ever puts it that way—not because they're dishonest, but because that's not how it feels.
In practice, a large pluralistic internet forum feels like you are being invaded and besieged by hostile forces. (By "you" I mean all of us). Whatever segment of the spectrum here is most awful, most offensive to your values and experiences, that segment makes so strong an impression that it swells up in importance beyond everything else put together and becomes the image of the entire forum in your imagination. But if you think about it, that is just what one would expect from a genuine pluralism, where the spectrum is much wider than one is used to in daily life and on the siloed, sharded internet.
That is the next hurdle, I think, that we need to overcome as a community. We need to grow in awareness that the presence of opposing views is mostly a function of the size and diversity of the forum, i.e. that there are many people here whose lived experience is very different from our own, who also have a need to speak and be heard. We need to grow in ability to hear their experience also—their story also—without snapping shut. By the way, that is also the answer to the objection people sometimes make, that we must be saying that all opinions and expressions are equally valid. That's not so. Not all expressions are valid, but as far as I can tell, all experiences are. The solution is for people to share more of their lived experience and not dress it up so much in secondary opinions and expressions, especially ones that demean or deny the experience of others.
That's how the container here needs to develop. I hope that if it gets stronger in that way, HN will be able to remain pluralistic even if there are external attempts to manipulate it. The healthy way to defeat those pathogens is via a stronger immune system. If the community can't do that, it will end up killing itself, by breeding its own pathogens—chief among which is users accusing fellow community members of being astroturfers, spies, or foreign invaders, not because they have any evidence for saying so, but because what those community members have to say is outside their window of tolerance, so they are unable to meet it calmly and must reach for an explanation of disingenuousness instead.
The best way to not succumb to pathogens is for the community culture to build up strength to handle them. The real enemy is not the pathogens, but our own weak immunity to them. The strength we need most right now is for HN users to resist the temptation to call others astroturfers or spies simply because they hold opposing views—and to explain to fellow users that the rules here ask us not to do that, no matter how wrong the opposing view may be or feel.
All this without having to be paid to do so, although that is possible as well.
Your information is 16 days out of date: https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com There's now a partial block where it can be accessed from some locations and not from others.
That's not necessarily going to prevent "pro-China" views from appearing. People who circumvent the Great Firewall e.g. to follow celebrities on Instagram may not like the censorship, but could be on the same page with the government on other issues.
In a way, though, we're talking about the same thing, because most of this follows from human loyalties—to family, tribe, country, etc.—that all of us have. It's true that some commenters are ideologically motivated, but even that is a second-order version of the same thing, since ideological commitment itself comes out of such loyalties.
- Most of immigrants from China after 2000 holds pro-China views, and there's strong tendency to become more pro-China after living in US for some time, after having full exposure to US media and getting to know how things really work in US.
- It's probably common to see HN accounts that comment mostly on China related issues. I don't have stats, but this is very likely, because when immigrants like us read HN comments upon these issues, it's usually as irritating as lots of you reading far-right pro Trump comments.
- When people question if an account is genuine just because they have pro-China voice, it's just confirming how hypocritical western "freedom of press" is, and pushing us towards more pro-China.
- HN is still fairly unpopular among Chinese tech immigrants, otherwise you'd be seeing a lot more sincere pro-China comments here.
Firstly, do you mean "freedom of speech"? Few people here are the press.
Secondly, can you elaborate on this view? I don't doubt that the situation is as you describe, but if true this shows a misunderstanding of the freedom of speech. It's not hypocritical(in general) to criticize speech one doesn't support, or to accuse the speaker of having ulterior motives, while supporting the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech doesn't give anyone the right to speak without being criticized.
It does not mean everyone likes everyone else's opinions. Just that we don't think governments should control what people say.
Just to make it clear, the most irritating part is that people's opions are clearly shaped by what they read from media, which you'd expect to be more neutral as "freedom of press" is "so great" but it's just not the case.
In China, at least people are generally aware of media censorship, and would take a grain of salt in what they read, but with independent press, people are generally less critical about their reports unless it directly contradictory with to what they know for a fact. As a result you got so many people commenting like they know more truth, even when the "truth" is so absurd. When they are presented a different side of the story, ok, that must be "government propaganda", and whoever supporting them need to be banned?
One aspect of American media that you are ignoring is the fact that it's often biased, often politically biased... but it is not controlled by the government. And it is not monolithic.
The biased western media has brought down presidents and many other powerful, connected people (most recently Jeffrey Epstein). They revealed the secret, illegal actions of the NSA. Etc. All of these journalists were biased in some way or another... but they were all biased in different ways. A lot of the truth eventually gets out.
Now you could make the argument that all of Western media is biased against the PRC, but that's going to be a very tough argument to make. Who are they all loyal to, to cause them to uniformly be biased against the PRC? We know it's not loyalty to the United States because of the usa-hostile reporting I reference above. It takes ultra conspiratorial thinking to arrive at the conclusion that all of Western media is biased against the PRC.
So you seem to be pulling a bait-and-switch. You seem to want to conclude <Western media is uniformly biased against the Chinese government>... But you argument is the very weak <no Western media entity is free from bias>. The conclusion doesn't follow.
I hope I haven't misconstrued your argument. Cheers!
Moreover, people immigrating to US from China tends to be more pro-democracy than average Chinese, but we got disillusioned after seeing how things worked out in American politics.
The life here is quite unsatisfactory for lots of Chinese, as there are many aspects of China making it a better place to live in compared to US. Can't speak for other people but frankly if I could have got a job with similar pay and similar workload in China, I wouldn't even hesitate for a second that I'd move back.
What parts of American politics disillusion you? And why do you think the USA should necessarily be the example? Do the criticisms you have of the USA also apply to other democracies, like the Democratic socialist countries in Europe? If not, why do you think they would constitute an effective argument against Democracy? "The USA has problems" is not an argument against Democracy.
Many Americans, Brits, HKers and other nationalities usually find people are supportive of some aspects of their country but openly criticise other aspects, sometimes vocally, sometimes by demonstrations. Unless you step over into hate speech and incitement that comes without consequence. Even America, which often seems from the outside to be one of the more blindly patriotic nations, has a good and healthy proportion who will criticise. Then there's us cynical Brit's who, at times, seem to have a majority criticising most things about Britain and reserve pride and flags for very special occasions. :)
I would be careful though, as the culture of thoughtful inquiry that HN has managed to cultivate in these past few years, could easily end up being destroyed and end up going the way of Reddit.
The only reason it hasn’t, at least in my opinion, is because of the largely technical/engineering focused user base that HN caters to. There’s only a limited number of us in the world though, and if moderation from your side doesn’t keep up, it’s pretty much inevitable that the site will get overrun as it becomes more and more mainstream.
The #1 way for us all to be careful is to follow the guideline against insinuating astroturfing or bad faith in comments, and to encourage other community members to follow it. I hope the users who have been reading my posts about this (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for plenty more) will start doing more such encouragement. Because you're right: we can't keep up. Only the community can.
This is a pretty valuable place, and I would hate to see it fall because of a lack of resources/support. I’m not sure how Paul Graham or YC in general views it, but surely there’s enough inherent value in the existence of something like Hacker News even from a purely business standpoint to support having more funds allocated or it?
Why should mass commenting be different?
I think an analogy might be drawn to corporate representatives. If they want to advertise and market their products, that may be acceptable, if they are otherwise contributing to the community, outside of their narrow product. If they only post links to their website, they will be banned with great haste. Similarly, if pro-China users want to legitimately contribute to the discussion, they should be free to do so as legitimate members, participating in all elements of the site, not only via pro-China comments.
In general, though, you're right that users here should be using the site as intended, and that means not using it primarily for arguing about politics or nation.
Now you have people truly believing those blatant lies, taking the same stance as the party and start spreading it, does it matter whether they truly believe it? Instead of politics, we're talking about basic human values here.
I do think letting disinformation pollute the stance itself naturally is the proper fix. Without that, do true believer of rather good character have he incentive to voice their concern, as one of the driving force to shape decision makers in the party? It's fixing the root cause, not the symptom. Such that disinformation, as a latest major threat to democracy works contrary to its intent thus stopped.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/technology/hong-kong-prot...
But that’s the moral hazard of being on the side of an entity that makes extensive use of astro-turfing. Its sincere supporters are more likely to be perceived as sock puppets.
There’s another discussion to be had about whether one should discount the opinions of those who live under a state of pervasive censorship, but that’s a lot more nuanced since we all have our own filter bubbles.
If, say, eight out of ten people haven't heard of hn then why even bother? just put more resources into spamming twitter or whatsapp or whatever they use in china
Can I ask for an account deletion and removal of all posted content? Thanks!
I asked for that once and was refused with the reasoning:
> I’m sorry to disappoint, but Hacker News doesn’t delete entire accounts because that would gut the threads it participated in. We do sometimes remove specific comments if users are worried they’ll get in trouble, and we’re also working on the ability to rename accounts. Would either of those help?
I can't say I agree with it.
Well, then they can remove comments that doesn't receive any reply. Do they?
If the least thing they could do is renaming, then please rename my account to `chairmanmao`, so it won't contain my name anymore. I will ditch this account after everything is done.
Funny since your priority on HN is to push your far-left social justice agenda, shadowbanning people who say anything that can be remotely construed as not agreeing with your worldview.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20725773
Although I can understand the admonition (for using the wrong medium to call out those accounts), I simply can't understand how those 2 accounts are still active, given their obvious purpose that goes againt HN guidelines in a more serious way.
When concerns about abuse come up, we have to look for evidence. Otherwise the policy becomes "ban anybody who disagrees with me", which is mob rule. Nobody would advocate that in principle, but in practice I'm afraid that's the direction that emotions tend to point in, and they're much stronger and swifter than most people seem to realize.
When it comes to a topic like should protesters in Hong Kong be allowed to continue and make requests for freedom, generally the only opponents are going to be state sponsored. I think you need to draw your moral lines not just at preventing someone who supports outright genocide, but probably at those supporting the extinguishing of others freedom.
I think dang answered this eloquently and you're merely prompting him to repeat himself: "Someone simply disagreeing with me is not evidence that they are an "information operation" or "commentary from a totalitarian state"
HN is an immensely popular community and most likely is facing similar assaults. If you have not found state sponsored attacks, it may be because you haven't looked hard enough yet. Dang, I know you are a talented programmer and with full access to the database, I think you could build tools to unearth this sort of behavior.
> I think you could build tools to unearth this sort of behavior.
Dang has said they already look for this sort of behaviour and ban accounts if discovered. You're implying that nothing is done at all. You're implying that dang hasn't looked at the database and tried to sort this, and that it's an easily solvable problem. If it were, I'm sure dang would have automated it. Twitter and Facebook struggle with this, so the problem is not solved.
We must acknowledge that HN carries a substantial degree of influence, and consider how to responsibly wield that influence. The readers here are a lucractive demographic - generally we are an educated, wealthy, and politically engaged group. As propaganda becomes more sophisticated, it's likely - if not inevitable - that it will target us. It's the responsibility of the moderators of our online spaces to protect us from propaganda, else Hacker News is used as a weapon, to ill or to good - a possibility that you must be aware of.
Distinguishing between propaganda and genuinely held positions is difficult, and approaches impossible as propaganda technology becomes more sophisticated. For this reason, I think it's reasonable to suggest that certain viewpoints are simply not welcome on Hacker News. There are some easy examples: racist or sexist views being one of them. I presume that someone expressing racist viewpoints, no matter how eloquently stated, is not welcome to do so on Hacker News. Then there are more difficult problems, which stem from a complex web of related judgements. To address these, I suggest reflecting on your own moral principles, and considering what ideals are worth protecting in the face of propaganda. In the case of Hong Kong, the ideals at risk here are the right to self governance. And there's little question that the alternative Hong Kong faces would be tragic - China is demonstrably a country with little freedoms afforded to its people and large-scale human rights violations being carried out all the time. The demonstrators in Hong Kong will not be let off easy for the risks they're taking, should they fail.
In short: like it or not, HN is a tool which will be wielded by oppressors, and will likely be an effective tool at that. Identifying oppressors is difficult but identifying the values of oppressors is easier.
Also worth note: HN is inextricably linked to YC, which has financial investments in China. If you don't want to be views as having a pro-China bias, you need to put in extra work to remove the foot from your mouth.
American here using a VPN from China, not an operative. My view after 10 years in China with businesses in China and Hong Kong, is that it is useful to think about Hong Kong similarly to a USA state. It's a state where the people inside can exit into China at will, while all the other people in all the other states in China must get permission to enter Hong Kong. So, its a state where the people living inside have all the benefits of being Chinese, with few of the downsides. But from a bigger picture, Hong Kong is not anymore entitled to complete self-governance apart from China's oversight than California is entitled to act against the US federal government. Very few Americans would support any US State in the Union to exit the Union. And, Chinese nationals do not support it for their own Country's territories.
About your extra thoughts that China is "is demonstrably a country with little freedoms afforded to its people". Every place has its majority and minority viewpoint, and what you are saying here is at best a fringe minority viewpoint in China. On the whole, the Chinese majority does not welcome your pity in regards to their systems. They are amazed at the shitshow they see about USA violence and political machinations. They see marches on Portland Oregon with Antifa on the left and whoever on the far right and think, China has it good, and in many ways, they are correct.
Violent crime as measured in murders per 100K of population in the USA is a magnitude worse than in China, the murder rate is literally 10x worse in the USA. I've walked down dark streets at night all over working class neighborhoods in Guangdong province and never once felt unsafe. At nighttime, there are huge crowds in public squares, sometimes with hundreds of women dancing coordinated to music, and there is no fear. I've done the same in large cities like Shanghai, going where I please at midnight, with no feeling of danger. That's what they value here and it brings a type of freedom that you can't enjoy in the USA.
Chinese do not share the same values as you, and from my view, that's OK.
This is not 100% true. Setting aside the fact that not all permanent residents in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals, there have been many cases where people have been denied entry into mainland China. But this is a minor point compared to the next point you make:
> So, its a state where the people living inside have all the benefits of being Chinese, with few of the downsides.
As a native HKer this sounds very weird. I'm not sure how the previous point leads to this.
Anyways, I know this is how it's portrayed in mainland China, but the current movement is not about creating an independent Hong Kong separated from China. Sadly, most mainland Chinese people have already made up their mind and let their patriotism fuel their hatred towards Hong Kong.
I also don't agree with that point but probably for different reasons. Hong Kong was simply straddled with a half oligarchic system nominally democratic but in actuality structurally setup to be unconcerned with the livelihood of the middle class.
While the CCP is at least nominally held to be the steward of the common people's wellbeing, most of the functional constituencies in the legco have no 'fiduciary' responsibility towards the average Hong Kong person. Seats like Insurance and Financial Services aren't even voted on by the insurance or fintech workers but by the corresponding corporate monopolies in the unregulated market. These oligarchs also have no interest in any of Tung Chee-hwa's economic reforms that might have helped Hong Kong's workers bridge though China's declining need for Hong Kong as a trade funnel and the present social stagnation and 20% poverty rate. That's 20 times the poverty rate of mainland China.
I've only lived in HK for a short amount of time so this might be unfounded. But I would opine that it's not the people of Hong Kong that have drunk the neoliberal kool-aid but that that's the intent of the colonial political control design.
Like most colonial extraction-based political structures like post-Roldos Ecuador, post-Allende Chile or Colombia today, the oligarchy of local ruling families benefited from the monopolistic political structure, then with their vested interest in the colonial institution and with the elite powers they hold (in monopolies in media and control of functional constituency, for instance), they put the broader public deeper and deeper in the hole while directing the general public discontent towards... less intellectually complex conflicts like mainlanders pissing in the subway.
This is fine while doesn't need to demonstrate economic self-sufficiency when they can simultaneously monopolize China's trade but it would be very self-destructive to think that Hong Kong staying afloat has anything to do with Hong Kong's own industry (at least not since the last wave of Shanghai émigré-bootstrapped textile industries in the 60s) or policies.
Which is where the problem is, even from an American living inside China believes HK is talking all the advantages without any downside. And just like you said this is how it is portrayed in China, and how majority thinks like this.
That was the the view [1] as shown in previous HN article.
Except that California has "act[ed] against the US federal government" for years, regarding marijuana. As have several other states.
I do agree, however, that Hong Kong represents a far stranger situation. From a traditional Chinese perspective, it likely appears that Hong Kong was "corrupted" by years of British governance. And I can appreciate how that shows up as British occupation. Just as it did in India etc.
Assuming you believe the State statistics that could be true. However, their is plenty of evidence many official numbers are manipulated and this is likely to be one of them.
Which is the issue, even people living in China really have no idea what the Chinese populous thinks about most things. When people fear to speak the truth, what you hear has little to do with what they think. Private comments are frequently at odds with public statements.
For example, the things being done to Chinese people by the government in places like Xin Jiang right now. You might not personally be seeing it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
I don’t mean to disparage you or the choices that you’ve made as I’m sure there are many complex reasons for why you’ve ended up where you are currently. I would urge you though, to think more deeply and consider your actions with the perspective that as someone with the privilege and ability to be able to freely leave the country and speak out against the government without being silenced/jailed, you are in a unique position to make an impact that a native Chinese citizen might not necessarily have.
Personally, as an American with parents that originally grew up in China, I know that I have a great amount of privilege in being able to freely talk about these issues that many of my international student peers in college are unable to express for fear of the consequences they might incur. That’s why for me, I feel like my privilege comes with a certain amount of responsibility to speak out. Your status as an expat puts you in a similar level/position to be able to provide a voice for those that otherwise might never be able to freely express themselves.
> Is your perspective that as long as you aren’t personally targeted and can make money, it doesn’t really matter what the government does?
[Bob]: No. My perspective is that of a person who spent their first 32-years in America, who one day about a decade ago during the depths of the economic downturn, decided to try to eat the dogfood of living and operating a bootstrapped business in China so that I could better understand it and the world I live in.
> You talk a lot about how nice/safe it is for you personally as you enjoy the benefits of living in China as an expat, but at the same time, you do have to realize that your current situation is one of extraordinary privilege and not necessarily representative of the reality for vast swathes of people in China today right?
[Bob]: I'm not claiming it is particularly safe for me alone. The feeling is one of an environment of general safety. As in, lack of violent crime. A Country where, on innumerable local blocks across its many cities, there are instances of thousands of people in public squares at night, enjoying things like group song and dance. You don't see that everywhere in the USA. I do realize, there may be many non-Han Chinese communities I'm not exposed to where the freedom to express themselves is not so great.
> Your status as an expat puts you in a similar level/position to be able to provide a voice for those that otherwise might never be able to freely express themselves.
[Bob]: No, unfortunately, my status as an expat doesn't give me any particular right to speak for its citizens, nor impune myself in the business of China's governance of its citizens. I'm here as a guest in China. China reminds me of that every year when I go through the month-long process to renew my resident and work permit. Anyway, guests don't go to someone else's house and tell them how to run it. But, I fully support your own free speech rights to say anything you want about China or the governance of its peoples.
That said, there are plenty of things I don't like about being in China. Being here has led me to change my views on many issues, versus my views from a decade ago. Previously, I was far left in viewpoint for the times. Such as, I held the view America should nationalize the banking system. While that still may have been the right call, overall, after a decade of bureaucracy, I'm no fan of big government.
And now, I'm a much more rabid proponent of American's protecting their free speech and privacy, at all costs. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to end up with what they've got here in China.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly by virtue signaling here. Can you highlight what parts of my comment you feel like weren’t genuine?
> My perspective is that of a person who spent their first 32-years in America, who one day about a decade ago during the depths of the economic downturn, decided to try to eat the dogfood of living and operating a bootstrapped business in China so that I could better understand it and the world I live in.
From my original comment, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not trying to attack you as an individual or the path you ended up taking to get where you are today. I realize now after more careful consideration and reading your response, your ability to freely speak on certain aspects might be constrained due to existing attachments to your business and marriage in China. You have every right to make sure that those things you currently have are safe and protected, and if that precludes you from being able to fully express yourself I totally understand.
I’m sure you’re doing the best you can right now with what you have to work with, and I’m not trying to saddle you with obligations to try and reform deeply entrenched systems of governance by yourself. Small consistent steps taken over time can lead to a surprising amount of meaningful impact and change though.
> I do realize, there may be many non-Han Chinese communities I'm not exposed to where the freedom to express themselves is not so great.
I appreciate that you can see that your experience might not necessarily be entirely representative of what it’s like to live in China.
> And now, I'm a much more rabid proponent of American's protecting their free speech and privacy, at all costs. Otherwise, it's a slippery slope to end up with what they've got here in China.
I completely agree with you here. Having to constantly be careful of what you say for fear of being silenced or jailed, is a reality for the vast majority of Chinese citizens. My parents directly experienced the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 back when they were going to college. I know better than most, that I enjoy a great deal of privilege in being able to have the freedoms I do today that my parents didn’t necessarily get to have at the same age. That’s personally why I’m such a strong proponent of voting and political participation for myself and my peers. From my perspective, young people in America are becoming far more politically active, and I think you’ll see the effects of it in the upcoming 2020 elections next year.
I'm not questioning that your comments were not genuine. But, it can be quite off-putting to lead your logic by explaining to someone you don't even know, how privileged they are, making many assumptions about that person and their reality. You used the word "privilege" four times in four sentences. There are other more rational and thought-provoking ways to structure your logic to engage and convince people of your views. Otherwise, you seem like a very thoughtful person, passionate about standing up for those who may not have a strong voice or representation. Those are very commendable attributes and I wish you the best.
Isn't that the point of a discussion forum such as HN?
> I think it's reasonable to suggest that certain viewpoints are simply not welcome on Hacker News
I disagree that contrary viewpoints "no matter how eloquently stated" should be purged. Let them stand or fall on their merits.
Some people make it easier - on many occasions you'll see someone discussing a subject but first disclosing their relationship, such as an ex-Google employee commenting on a Google-critical article. If a Chinese party official came to HN to express their views and disclosed themselves as such, I would welcome them to express their opinion here. What I'm concerned about is commenters with undisclosed affiliations writing manipulative comments which help prop up an oppressive state.
How do you propose to do that? Clearly one must look for evidence. When evidence shows such abuse, we ban the account. Far more often, though (and I'm understating things when I put it that way), evidence shows the opposite: the user was expressing their genuinely held beliefs. Should others be allowed to denounce them as astroturfers, shills, or spies, based on nothing but how strongly they disagree? On HN the answer is no. That follows from the values of this site, and we have a rule in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html saying so.
While I'm generally an admirer of dang and sctb, a variation of this is my criticism, as well:
They tend to overemphasize "manners", while being blind to anti-social and trollish behaviour.
It's fine to chide me for blowing off steam, I shouldn't do that. But when it is because "the other guy" has behaved and "discussed" very dishonestly, I don't think he should get a pass.
At least the whole sub-thread should be deleted, but usually my (wrong, but still rather slight) reaction (like "I find your way of responding dishonest" – not even "I find you dishonest", mind you) is deleted and the dreck that I was subjected to remains.
Because he did not use the words "asshole" or "dishonest" and rather cleverly expressed the same in a "clean" way.
It just incentivises commenters to get more sneaky, back-handed and dog-whistly. And that is already destroying this community, I feel.
It just incentivises commenters to get more sneaky, back-handed and dog-whistly
I can't express how surprised I am (in a good way) to see this finally addressed and vocalized, because I myself have struggled with a way of putting it to words, and wishing to see others communicating it publicly.
Among women and people of color this site has a VERY unfavorable reputation for how our opinions and thoughts are moderated rather strongly because of the frustration we express with dog-whistle arguments that are delicately delivered with kid gloves, while the harbingers of opinions and principles that dehumanize, otherwise, minimize, de-legitimize and/or otherwise ostracize our lived experiences as women and minorities in tech are left alone and allowed to promulgate throughout the rest of the community unmolested.
Thank you both to the two previous commenters for giving my frustrations with this moderation style a voice.
And further, frankly:
If you're going to accuse us of something so awful, you should supply links to cases where you think we did this.
No, I don't think I will because believe it or not (which you probably wont, but again: don't much care), you and I have interacted on this very topic before via a different account, you and other individuals have interacted on this topic before. I've watched those interactions happen.
This isn't the first time HN has been called out on this Dan, and it's not the first time you've responded to people levying them, so I'm not entirely convinced you need help finding such examples.
If you want "cases", I'm pretty sure you know the correct hashtag on twitter to go looking for because I and many others catalogue these events quite actively and quite publicly.
But I'm not holding your hand finding them.
Be well.
Edit:
I'd be remiss not mentioning this: Just because I'm calling out the HN moderation tactics does not mean I'm laying down accusations on the HN moderators as individuals or what your individual beliefs on this topic are. I-like the two commenters above me have done-am pointing out what I feel to be a glaring blind spot in the moderation styles as experienced by a member of a specific social group. A group I would also feel remiss not mentioning is not represented in the moderation ranks. Take this however you will, feel about it however you want, consider my peace on the matter spoken.
What I wrote was narrowly scoped and is mostly an empirical claim: in the majority of cases when users invoke astroturfing/shillage/spying against others in arguments, there is no evidence to support the accusation and usually evidence to refute it. Because this comes up so frequently, it seems there's some sort of bias (probably a universal one, because I don't think we're wired so differently) that causes users to reach for this mud and throw it at other users, even though they have no basis for it other than that person having an opposing view—which is to say, no basis for it at all.
Since there's usually no evidence and yet these accusations are so common and so damaging, the site guidelines ask users not to post them in the threads. At the same time, real abuses exist, so concerned users are invited to email hn@ycombinator.com with links so we can look for evidence.
That was the gist of my comment. The rest was an attempt to plead for tolerance by offering an explanation of how HN ends up with so many posts that can seem disingenuous: it follows from the size and diversity of the community. Humans are not wired for anything that big, and HN is an intimate-seeming place that doesn't feel as large or diverse as it really is, so when views show up that are more than an arm's length away from what one is comfortable with, it activates the circuitry for perceiving enemies and invaders.
If HN is to thrive in accordance with its value of intellectual curiosity, we all need to work on managing that circuitry in ourselves, and not simply jump to where the limbic system would take us. That's really what the call for evidence is getting at. It requires a person to stop, interrupt the mechanical reaction, invoke the slower and more reflective circuits, and then look more closely at what might really be happening. If we could learn to do that as a community, 99% of the accusations of astroturfing, shilling, and spying against other users would vanish. That would make HN a better place, and would also help clarify which cases really do need investigating and taking care of.
Based on your examples, what you're really concerned about is morality and rules. What are the moral values of HN, and what rules should be imposed to enforce them? What morals are ok, and what aren't, by which people?
> Identifying oppressors is difficult but identifying the values of oppressors is easier.
Well, let's examine that. On the one hand, you probably disagree with the Chinese Communist Party using this site to try to gain sympathy for its doctrine. On the other hand, you might think it's OK for millennial Americans (who for whatever reason have culturally decided that capitalism sucks, and that some form of ism is the only alternative, if perhaps half-jokingly) to share articles with a similar message. They both may preach communism, or denounce capitalism. Which is OK, and why?
Basically, you want to know where the red line is. And that's the problem with moderation: there is no red line. There's a whole lot of blurred colors. You start with a very sensible, good, popular moral position like "no racism or sexism", and then you end up fighting weird angry splinter groups who have decent arguments about what it means to be racist or sexist; maybe you would be to them, or maybe they are to you, but neither of you believe you yourselves are. (Try to explain to the average nerdy fan of The Big Bang Theory that it's probably the most toxically misogynistic show on television, and you might find a heated argument; but is TBBT banned from HN?)
The only easy solution is to make a site which is literally dedicated to the morality of a single person - an autocracy. The rules are whatever that person says they are. But since some people don't like that idea (!) what you end up with is a benevolent oligarchy. A few people run things and try to be nice to the users, but basically it's those few people whose morals and values become the de facto rules. Those rules are intentionally fluid and based on interpretation and guidelines, to encourage as many users to use the site as possible, yet provide enough of a LART to keep Eternal September at bay.
The end result is that there aren't any definitive morals running the ship, by design. Go look - there is no explicit rule against sexism or racism. That would be too easy to argue. The vagaries of human morality are too loose, so you can't just eliminate what seems simple. You can only plumb the depths, interpret what feels bad, and chip away at it.
No, I think that debating ideologies is fine, and even healthy. I have no love for capitalism and no hatred for communism. But that's not the only thing China represents: communism does not imply the brutality China lays upon its people.
>The only easy solution is to make a site which is literally dedicated to the morality of a single person - an autocracy. The rules are whatever that person says they are. But since some people don't like that idea (!) what you end up with is a benevolent oligarchy. A few people run things and try to be nice to the users, but basically it's those few people whose morals and values become the de facto rules. Those rules are intentionally fluid and based on interpretation and guidelines, to encourage as many users to use the site as possible, yet provide enough of a LART to keep Eternal September at bay.
I'm not opposed to HN taking such an approach (in fact, I reckon I'm in favor of it), but the mods should be bolder in drawing moral lines (blurred though they may be). They already do this regardless - so they should do it with confidence in their own moral compass. And assuming they do so, then we can use their action (or inaction) as a lens to evaluate our moderators with and so decide whether or not we wish to cast our lot with HN.
You need to up the Karma req for downvotes.
@Dang, Look at my current comment hist... I provide a valuable perspective. Even if others disagree with me.
YC as a greater community is greater than the sum of its (unicorn) parts.
Stop fucking censoring people for some lame idealogical moral standard which you dont even meet yourselves.
We are here to learn, to teach, to expand one fucking thing "KNOWLEDGE" stop knowBlocking (just coined that haha)
It is much more difficult to ask someone to stop doing something than to encourage them to do an alternative thing. Suggest how the alternative activity would bring them greater success.
While they may still disagree, at least they'll see that you're on the same team.
Ona lighter note.
I made some amazing flower arrangements today.
And I appreciate your comment and you. Thank you.
I don't really like to read political posts on Hacker News, I am mostly interested in technology, but those posts with China in their title are just a click bait for me because I knew they are probably biased.
Edit: yeah, a downvote when I am just expressing myself. you want me to shut up and leave, right?
The way to fix this is to use HN as intended, which means posting on an diverse range of topics for reasons of intellectual curiosity. Would you please do that instead?
More explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
Suppose for a moment that all the front page China articles are other 'tech news' such as "Israel creates novel way of demolishing buildings in settlements".
Not that I have anything concrete to suggest but consider the possibility that sometimes, half of the work is already done before anyone writes the first comment 'for political battle' or not.
[0] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/past-is-past-tibet-not-seeki...
> "The past is past. We now have to look into the future," he said.
> "We are not seeking independence... We want to stay with China. We want more development," the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people said.
I am been told by the moderator not to comment on political issues, mainly because although I use Hacker News for tech news, I do mostly comment on China issues (not many though), apparently it is against the community guideline. so I will not comment any more. For me, I have lost wills to read news, and Hacker News is the only thing I read in the morning before work, it is unfortunately there are more and more political topics here.
Tibet was a slavery society under his ruling 70 years ago, unfortunately. People do change, but there are certain historical bagagges cannot be nullified.
So on the one hand there was a lot of realpolitik in Tibetan theocracy; on the other hand the Chinese government had no qualms about continuing the system so long as it served their own purposes.
Part of the system was kept (namingly the Lama leadership was kept symbolically), but the slavery is a history.
BTW, in the original post, I mentioned "70 years ago" as a way to suggest HHDL has a long and complicated life. His historical baggage by no way limits to Tibet before CCP though. It took him a long time to get his message what is today.
First, as much as I think the internet is a great knowledge spreader, it's not an amazing medium for mutual understanding. Me not paying the cost of time and money to get to a cafe to talk with you and the extreme ease of lobbing self-satisfying, snarky sound bites and closing the tab makes it really hard to talk about politics. It's really shaped by the accumulation of everything you experienced and everything you read as a person so not starting from the beginning is a disservice to communication. But alas, we can't.
FWIW, I align more with Buddhism than any other spiritual thought system. I'm sympathetic to his journey and think he and his followers are thrown into, and nominally became figureheads in a bigger clash that he can't control nor (I think) care very much about.
I don't think he himself, for instance, championed or was very fond of the CIA operation to take 2,000 Tibetans to be armed and trained in Colorado and then paradropped back into China for guerrilla warfare [1] (he was also just 20 back then). While I do think theocracy and political control [2] shouldn't mix, I don't think their social structure is anyone's business and I think he would be right to fight for self-determination. So it is unfortunate that he's stuck between having no means of opposing China vs taking US backing [3], which forces China's hands further (when China just very much finished fighting a hot war with the US).
If the world were in a vacuum, I very much believe in self-determination of all groups as Woodrow Wilson would define it. Anyone should be able to split off and do as they'd like. But as optimistic as he was going into the war, Wilson himself ultimately didn't persevere through the old world colonial powers to demonstrate that he believed it himself enough to even back a member of the victor side for self-determination [4]. Given the historical context (and the contemporary US overthrow of Albania 1949 [5], Iran 1953 [6], Guatemala 1954 [7], Greece [8], Indonesia 1958 [9], all of which decidedly did not end up with any 'self-determination' [10]), I wouldn't see China concluding that giving up Tibet in 1960 would somehow translate into Tibetan 'self-determination' rather than colonization [11].
That isn't to say though that China should be accepted for descending into absolute savage levels in the following decades of destruction. I absolutely do wish that the residents at Dharamshala could return to China if they choose so. But unfortunately I don't think the world of geopolitics is sterile enough to let it be a simple 2-party bilateral discussion.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/02/world/world-news-briefs-d...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandong_Problem
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Subversion
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Indonesia
[10] https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistanc...
[11] https://www.jstor.org/stable/24572145?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...
That being said, I do agree with keeping politics off HN and wish it was enforced a bit more strictly.
Let's not silence ourselves.
I’m not advocating for constant political discussions on hacker news. But to pretend that technology can be separated from politics is to hold a false belief about reality.
Politics is fundamentally about social groups, power, and the ethical beliefs and norms of groups of people.
I believe that cultivating civility, genuine listening, and self-doubt in our hacker news community would ultimately be more constructive than pretending that our action or inaction - especially as technologists in this day and age - has no effect on our fellow human beings.
That's extremist talk. HN is just one of many online communities, many of which encourage political debate. Technology can often be separated from politics as demonstrated by the majority of submissions here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
"Humans uniquely use such systems of symbolic communication as language and art to express themselves and exchange ideas, and also organize themselves into purposeful groups. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states."
To say that all human communities will have politics, is not extremist - it's simply language:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
"Politics is a set of activities associated with the governance of a country or an area. It involves making decisions that apply to members of a group."
Politics, as in the process of group decision-making, is part of what it means to be human.
You could even say that you and I are engaging in a political discussion right now ;).
I would actually love to be wrong, but the explanation given was just that it has been looked into, not anything in depth or addressing the patterns being brought up. Similar disinformation and fast bulk downvoting against the general trend happens when talking about reddit's /r/bitcoin and the company Blockstream that runs it.
At least there is a dialog here and everyone generally wants the same thing (actual opinions and explanations from reasonable people with no astroturfing).