I fail to see why every platform has to become a fucking idealogical battleground. If I’m in the market for a social network myself (HN notwithstanding) I’d probably choose a politics-free one if possible.
On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted until it becomes unreadable. It doesn’t matter if the view was free from strong language, it will be treated like it contains strong language.
At least on Reddit you can find a subreddit that aligns with your political and ideological views. Unlike here where you have to understand that your political views will be suppressed if it doesn’t align to the majority.
Every social network has a political agenda. If you don’t notice that agenda, know that it is because it aligns with your own political agenda.
I don’t think he did, at least what he wrote makes no judgement either way
What I like on HN is that, unlike some other communities I've observed, you can still gain votes when reasonably arguing on either side of the issue. The hive mind isn't as strong yet to defy all reason.
Are those downvoters expressing a reasoned belief that Chinese people aren't people? Or are they just reduced to a set of tribal motor reflexes with up and down arrows?
I'm actually kinda hoping it's the 2nd one rather than the first.
Either it's the most mild, milquetoast statement possible or it's a declaration of war against Human Rights, Mom and Apple Pie.
I've noticed that anything indicating a negative regarding China is squashed hard anymore on HN.
A few years ago I felt that I can speak freely, and in the worst case I wasn't upvoted.
Nowdays I feel much more like I need to choose my words very carefully.
If it's against the rules, flag it. If it's against your view of the facts, refute it.
Comments on most topics skew negative. If you agree with something, that's not much reason to comment, but if you disagree, one angry comment coming straight up. That's not limited to the geographical regions you list; most threads on those have a subthread devolve into a discussion of US politics at some point.
> and any dissenting view will be downvoted until it becomes unreadable.
The comments that get downvoted until they become unreadable are mostly dissenting, but that doesn't mean dissenting views collect more downvotes than upvotes on average. When dang bans someone for making a single-purpose account for ideological battle, they usually have positive karma, often in the hundreds: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
The subreddit tyranny of anonymous moderators and punishingly overwrought hivemind is a less pleasant experience. Combine that with more extreme content in general than HN and it feels fundamentally less trustworthy and more manipulative.
IMHO that makes Reddit worse for politics, not better.
I agree that downvoting for disagreement is bad, but have you considered you might simply be wrong? I strain to believe that anybody attacked you simply for being from Russia/China/Africa/whatever. They are attacking the regimes of those countries, not their population. These are two distinct things, and it's ridiculous to think that disliking a dictatorial government somehow means hostility towards the people themselves.
You don't have to be wrong to be downvoted, most of HN just has to feel you're wrong, and boy oh boy - can the HN group-think be wrong (even on facts)
With regard to african countries, it kinda matters which ones you're talking about: there's a world of difference between the DRC and Ghana.
My comment is "new" in that, in this thread, what I've said was not yet said in response to this specific complaint. My comment is related to the thread, and not generic (it mentions the characters introduced by the parent thread [China, Africa, criticism thereof] by name). My basic point is that it's not surprising that HNers recall an apparent genocide in progress when talking about its location.
I have read those guidelines front to back at least ten times, Dan. I still can't predict how to predict what passes and what doesn't.
When people hurl personal abuse at me; they emerge unscathed.
When I criticize a political party's policy of genocidal prison camps, without criticizing any nation/people; it's deemed to contribute to "nationalistic flamewar". I take special care not to make a value judgement about any nations, and it's deemed to contribute to "nationalistic flamewar".
Strictly speaking, given that most things that people do occur inside, or relating to, nations: what criticism or affirmation of anything doesn't contribute to "nationalistic flamewar"?
In what universe does those views not mean hostility towards the people themselves. If you say that to any Native Chinese they’ll tell you it’s bullshit.
Maybe I'm seeing different things than you are, but when I see "alternative" view points being downvoted, it's not because their viewpoints are "wrong" it's cause the comment is pure shit, and contains logical fallacies and personal attacks out the wazoo.
This particular comment wags a finger at the community, and is essentially making the point that "nobody here listens to alternative viewpoints, and if you disagree with my comment, it's cause your own political agenda is biasing you." It basically dismisses offhand anyone who isn't completely on board with its ideology:
>Unlike here where you have to understand that your political views will be suppressed if it doesn’t align to the majority... If you don’t notice that agenda, know that it is because it aligns with your own political agenda.
I mean look at how the comment starts:
>Did you just call Hacker News apolitical?
Yes. We all read it. This whole, "your comment is so absurd that I have to question it," is condescending bullshit. Not everyone comes into the discussion with the same context as you, and condescending to people who may not see the world the same as you in this way turns off a lot of people here who are trying to be open minded to other view points.
You definitely get dinged a _point or two_ of karma when you have radical viewpoints (anyone who comments here knows this). But huge downvotes turning the comment invisible come when the comment is trash, not when the message is just so offensive to the community that everyone has to silence it.
I’ve definitely seen people trying to share context, and they are called government-sponsored trolls by some and downvoted to oblivion. Then they get frustrated and make more sour/coarse comments and now they’re accused of not sharing context. It’s a negative feedback loop.
Just because you may not have engaged in it doesn’t mean certain opinions aren’t suppressed. (Now some will tell me those opinions are simply wrong and deserve to be suppressed. To which I have no answer. You can’t convince someone who’s already made up their mind.)
Ferrets are a weirdly political issue in some areas of the USA.
It's pretty hard to have anything be politics free when the world we live in is political
They're not political except for a select group people who want to make it political. They should not be encouraged or appreciated for trying to push that outlook on others.
You could replace [ferrets are] with [gay marriage is] and get the description for any political argument ever. People argue X is political, others argue it isn't political and create a political argument trying to argue it is/is not political. Repeat as nauseam for topic of your choice.
Saying this is on the same level as protest videos or political commentary is absurd.
Now, I don’t deny that some people would try to make political statements with plausible deniability. However, if it’s not their intent and their one video gets shadow banned, who cares? If it is, well, they deserved it.
Unless you believe in the bullshit that is the absence of X == automatically siding what whatever X considers its opponent (usually “the establishment” or “the status quo”) at that moment in time.
What happens when a prominent user experiences something negative? Like for example they die, or face harassment from people either inside or outside the community. Do you ban them for breaking the cardinal rule, or allow your forum to become political?
It's not at all easy to create a forum that bans all off topic discussion. I've ran smaller forums before. If you honestly think you can do better then by all means, give it a try. You'll quickly realize that your users are human, and you'll be forced to make decisions that are intrinsically political.
Thee is no such thing as a forum that can avoid political discussion. Just one that aligns with your beliefs.
You can disagree with having cats as pets and still post pictures of cats standing up
> they die, or face harassment from people either inside or outside the community.
I fail to see why some online admins can stop any of these.
Every single forum is going to grow a culture around it consisting of memes, ways of talking, interacting with others etc which are all very political in nature. The fact that you've seen conflicts and have had to resolve them is proof of this. It's just human nature and fits the very definition of politics.
Yeah, we select users who can stay on topic and who can contain anger and resolve conflicts like adults (or rather, like decent human beings; we did have teenage users). Not a tough ask, and neither outrageous nor outlandish for a topical forum.
And the definition of politics is the art or science of governing. Forums operate much like miniature societies with their own laws and best conduct. Forums might be entities targetted towards very specific subjects but that doesn't free them from being political. It just means that the forum is aligned to your specific beliefs.
> It just means that the forum is aligned to your specific beliefs.
Those two statements are using different definitions of the word politics. Carefully enforcing a reasonably bland and objective set of rules is not political by any definition of the term in use by the people you're arguing with here. It only becomes political if the rules themselves take a stance on current social issues.
Of course, using the other definition, the rules themselves are political because somebody could debate them and that would be a form of political action. So you could claim it's not politics free under that definition. But that's not what was actually being discussed here, so it isn't useful in this context.
But what you're doing is conflating 'political' with 'current social issues'. Those are two entirely separate things and while current social issues are political, not everything political relates to current social issues. Forums fit the use of the word political to a tee no matter the definition you use.
Which is really the greater issue I see here on HN and across the various tech communities. As I've mentioned it is impossible for your group to be apolitical because at best that just means you agree with the status quo which is a political stance in itself.
Many food related discussions on reddit ignore both health and animal rights considerations. Would it be appropriate to bring these topics up each time someone posts their burger? Likely not
Control will always exist, so I think it just needs to be integrated into a small order that can be managed, rather than jump into one of the always/never/any categories to stonewall it.
IMO if you have rules that current politics is off topic and moderators that can enforce the rules, a community that respects the rules and polices them themselves you can get a clean , on topic, meme free forum.
To expound: everything is political in the sense that any action we take or decision we make or conclusion we reach rests on assumptions, norms, and values not everyone would affirm. That is, everything we do is rooted in a contestable point of origin; and since the realm of the contestable is the realm of politics, everything is political.
The theory that everything is political may be right on a global scale but it only works locally if you let it: Have house rules that ban contesting and the contestable realm is elsewhere (even if it might debate what's going on at your place) and with it the political.
Seems like TikTok is aiming for precisely that. Let's see how it goes.
But creating a general virtual spaces for people to "live" in while banning discussing on one of the most important aspect of coexisting? This will hardly result in a free society of equally empowered individuals.
The only thing I am against is if a group creates a forum and they ban of topic and inflammatory topics to be accused of censorship if we down vote or ban off topic politics comments.
Think of it this way: under this view, McDonald's is supporting the status quo on $whatever-issue, because it does not give out political pamphlets with Big Macs. Sitting in a toilet alone and thinking is supporting the status quo, because it does not enable others to voice their view. Etc.
For example, selling a hamburger would have been an obviously political act in the Soviet Union. We don't see it as such because vanishingly few people believe that commercial transactions between private parties should be forbidden. But whenever someone advertises a hamburger, depicts the purchase of one, or leaves a review of one on a website, they are engaging in an act that we only view as apolitical because of the status quo that we inhabit.
RE your hamburger example, yes, it's apolitical within the context of society where hamburgers aren't political. Free trade or democracy isn't required, a hypothetical restaurant in the Soviet Union wouldn't have a problem selling grilled chicken breast. And if ever the Party decided that grilled chicken is a symbol of capitalism and therefore banned, the restaurant would just switch to serving fried chicken, or something else. Living in the status quo is not the same as endorsing it.
To me, the "not fighting status quo = supporting status quo" view is anathema to civilization. It's the peace-time equivalent of treating civilians as enemy combatants just because they live in the country you're at war with. It's an attempt to get other people to fight in your war, and suffer the collateral damage for you, and most people rightfully oppose it. If you want someone to support your cause, your strategy should be arguing that your cause is just - and not trying to get them to switch by making them believe not supporting you means supporting the enemy.
Yes, being politically active all the time is not something we generally expect from most people / companies. Especially of the latter, since after all, their primary reason of existence is to make money for the investors.
> don't care which side wins
This is a valid political position. Probably the one I'd take for most realpolitik of small incremental changes based on occurring issues. But also one hard to justify in divisive times with diametrically opposed sides becoming highly popular, thus those extremes having an increasing chance to actually & drastically affect our lives.
That is, obviously, only if you live in a democracy were shaping politics is one of our civic duties. By the way, that doesn't mean everyone has to become experts in lots of topics. Delegating this is quite the responsibility as well.
I think it's especially easy to justify in our times, and it's arguably the sane position to take. Polarization and extremism we see in politics today is dangerous to society and democracy itself. Disengaging from various small changes that are orthogonal to you and your community is advisable, because the cost of engaging is increasingly the deterioration of individual relations with people. It's blowing up your own country from the inside.
A lot of political disengagement, including my own, boils down to this: we don't want to fight someone else's war, and we'd preferably like they didn't fight that war, because all this fighting claims a lot of collateral damage.
> By the way, that doesn't mean everyone has to become experts in lots of topics. Delegating this is quite the responsibility as well.
Delegating in modern democracies is actually one of the reasons people disengage even when they do have a stake or opinion on the topic. It's very hard to make any impact on an individual issue (not "it takes some effort hard", but closer to "winning gold on national championship" hard).
Say, for example, that I want my country to invest in nuclear power, or institute carbon taxes (both are things I currently believe in, and to make it less difficult, I'll use "or" in this example, even though I want "and"). There's literally no party in my country I could in good conscience vote for, or work to support. Not a single one. With the one party that seems to share my views on those two topics I have enough disagreements on other things that I feel reluctant to vote for them. And even if I were to put aside our differences for the sake of pushing the two issues I care about, and even if they magically won the next election, I'm very sure (based on historical experience) that they'd successfully change one or two things for the worse (from my POV), while making exactly zero headway on the issues I voted on them for.
I think more people realize this than not, hence the bad election turnouts in most established democracies worldwide. People don't believe their voices will be heard, because there's enough distortion in the middle.
Sure, we can hope this will all blow over, but I don't see reliable mechanisms encouraging this outcome while I really don't want to risk another 1930s germany to repeat itself. Thus I don't see any other way than fighting for (the important parts of) the status quo. Even if it won't be easy.
> Delegating in modern democracies is actually one of the reasons people disengage even when they do have a stake or opinion on the topic.
I was rather talking about using appeals to authority/expertise when forming & defending your opinion. "I'm a for Positions A, B & C cause Person X I respect on some podcast is for it" is fine as defense. You now only have to defend choosing X instead of A, B & C individually.
Yeah, the US two party system seems especially bad. But I'd also look for other factors, since divisiveness seems to generally be on the rise. At least here in germany, with a fresh neo-nazi party worryingly drastically, even with more options available, some of them fitting e.g. your position a lot better than just "left vs right" of the US. Non the less do people still feel ignored and left behind.
Though while looking for more direct counter-examples, the 2019 swiss election does look very similar to their 2007 one. I don't feel confident to form an opinion on that datum alone without knowing the broader context. At the same time, articles about "these places manage to keep their divisiveness in check" would probably not do very well in current media and thus I'd probably not notice them in the first place.
If you don't want to take a stand, make something yourself.
That is, itself, a political stance (and arguably a rather dangerous one; low political engagement tends to be a sign of sick democracies).
99% of what I tweet is completely technical. 1% gets me banned, no matter how reasonable or unemotional language is used.
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw