Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

> Any comment can trigger the Chinese

Not only the Chinese, I assure you.

Nationalistic flamebait like this is a bannable offense on HN—not to mention racial/national slurs. The users who upvoted and (later) vouched for this comment have abused this site by doing so.

People routinely accuse us of being somehow pro-China or secret communists for moderating HN this way, but that's not true at all. We don't like bullies or mobs, and any time that dynamic springs up here—which unfortunately is all the time, this being the internet—we instinctively take the opposite side. What's surprising to me is how so many users, who I'm sure are decent people, engage in that kind of thing. I know it's largely a matter of their background but users with the opposite background also belong here, and deserve better.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21188577.

View on HN

Isn't it common to refer to the "US" or "EU" when posters mean the administration and not the people? It's up to the interpretation of the reader probably. Curious to get perspective if readers indeed were offended by that comment from the poster? I'm normally not offended if someone says Americans do this or that.

I'm honestly not sure which meaning the poster intended. Either way, that sort of vagueness should probably be against the rules regardless of what they meant, to prevent ambiguous situations like these.

what about bullies that bully bullies?

It's a good question. The answer seems to me that they're equally at fault, first because they're the same as what they're attacking, but also because everyone who bullies feels that way. No one ever sees themselves as the aggressor, so if you make an exception for bullies of bullies, you end up with the status quo.

The solution is to be aware of our own aggression and contain it. That's a long, slow process. I'm sure there is still aggression in what I wrote as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

I have sent an email requesting clarification.

Relax, he was clearly talking about the Chinese government, not Chinese people in general.

Your bias predisposes you to read it that way. Were you responsible for a community with a wide spectrum of backgrounds and views, you'd quickly learn how unreliable that sense of "clearly" can be.

HN users who are Chinese or of Chinese background have a right to come here and not see comments like that one, just the same as all HN users do.

Edit: actually, once I read the context of the thread, I see your point. The parent comments were talking about the Chinese government, so it's reasonable to see that as having been in scope.

I'm a little confused by this exchange here dang so I'd like some clarification if possible.

If the user above had said "the Chinese government", "The Communist Party of China" or simply "the party" then their comment would have been acceptable to you?

It would still have been flamebait and against the site guidelines, but it wouldn't have been a slur.

So, HN is officially a safe space? Strange, because I see all the time comments targeting (all) men or some particular ethnicities that aren’t moderated.

No. It isn't possible for any large open internet forum to be a 'safe space', not that I know what that means.

I think we need to be really clear when we talk about these things.

When we write “the Chinese” there is bound to be at least some subset of readers who see that and assume the write meant all Chinese.

I don’t believe we can be certain of the writers intent until the writer makes it clear.

Even if the writers clearly make this distinction, Chinese people, driven by Chinese propaganda, will often conflate the two. Indeed, Chinese people, even in a non political context will sometimes treat a comment about a single Chinese individual as a statement about all Chinese people.

That's a separate issue. It's enough to clearly make this distinction oneself.

What you're saying about "Chinese people" seems to me true of all people.

Surely you see the irony in defending the Chinese government in a discussion about how the Chinese government routinely censors businesses and individuals. Does Ycombinator have any important Chinese business interests?

That isn't bullying and surely you can see how it would be alarming to see you jump to defense in this way, threatening to ban a user over that benign and relevant comment, including criticizing everyone who has supported that user.

Not wanting to take ANY sides in this discussion, but:

> Does Ycombinator have any important Chinese business interests? Yes, https://blog.ycombinator.com/category/china/

That does not constitute as proof of moderator's bias, though.

I haven't defended the Chinese government.

YC was doing something in China for a while but I have no idea how important it was. Knowledge about it hasn't trickled into our corner. HN commenters seem to know more about it than we do.

It's worth remembering that HN has editorial independence within YC: https://venturebeat.com/2015/09/29/y-combinator-spins-out-ha...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com