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Comment by harperlee | Hacker News Reader

Millions of people in Catalonia have very vocally, and sometimes, violently, expressed their opinion on independence without any restriction to their freedom. Some politicians have been convicted for more subtle charges, that include misuse of public funds, and not obeying previous court orders.

The proindependence propaganda is very strong, and very focused on biasing international and english-spoken media; I'd ask you to at least please read topics from both sides if you want to be informed and have a balanced opinion.

The submitter account, tsunamid, shares the name ot the violent revolts from the last days, and most probably was created just for spamming this forum (0 comments, 2 proindependence submissions, 6 karma).

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Unless amnesty international has been bought by the Catalan separatist movement, we can probably go without "Beware: Propaganda" warnings on every nonagreeing opinion.

There are two sides here, both made up of real people. Further, it's perfectly reasonable (much like in Scotland, and also in Chile where the demand to rewrite a dictator-era constitution draws parallels) that the independentistas might have some coherent arguments. Let's let the reader decide without overtly trying to prime them. I promise they don't need to go far to find pro unionist opinions.

The Catalan separatist movement is not some Russian-made antivax Facebook group.

I just commented first on the assertion of the title and article, and then separately commented on the fact that this is a topic where people tend to have strong biases, and the poster looked more fishy than usual.

A caveat emptor, for me, is not priming negatively, in my view - and I explicitly called for taking both sides in consideration. So I guess we both agree.

I agree that it is a fascinating topic, but there have been several discussions here with plain wrong information being spread. Enriquto below already pointed out below, before you answered, funny changes in tone and content among different translations of the article. So yeah, reader beware.

Thank you for your comment. Yes I am new to Hacker News but I am very excited to contribute with discussion about technology and citizen engagement. I hope that your reference to that I only have 6 karma is not an effort to discriminate me or my opinions. Instead of describing a movement of millions of people as propaganda and biasing media I would encourage you to participate in the discussion with links.

Fair point, sorry for mentioning karma: it was taken out of view from comments for a reason.

Nonetheless I think it is fair that we take into account the name, novelty and activity of your account when ascertaining whether you have more intent than talking here about Catalonia. Couple of days before, and HN itself would have alerted it with your name in green.

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