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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

I believe that accusing someone of being a shill is against HN rules.

@phist_mcgee Here's my read of the same comment:

- The commenter is skeptical of the quality of Western media

- Commenter provides an anecdotal data point, which is by definition not reliable but provides some grounds for skepticism

- Human rights abuses have been and still are an issue in the United States. I would argue here that the comparison to China is facile at best but I understand the point being made.

You may have some strong counter arguments but starting off by accusing the commenter of being a "PLA" or "CCP" agent is undermining them.

Here is a reference for when this last came up https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24382203

Yet actually being a shill is not? That's quite the lopsided rule set.

Of course it is. How on earth did you get to that conclusion?

I don't think you get it. Where does this person explicitly say they are being paid or otherwise being compensated for their opinion? You don't just get to decide that someone is a shill because you dislike their opinion.

I sure do get to decide that they are a shill based upon my perception of their post, their post history, and the manner in which they post. My opinion is that this person is part of china's disinformation campaign against western criticism of that country's policies. If that person is not a paid or unpaid shill, they are still serving the purpose to shill china and their framing of the debate.

Not on HN, please. Some people have different backgrounds than you and it leads them to have different views than you and different post histories than you. HN is a much more diverse site than readers assume it is. This is often a perfectly legit thing, and you don't get to harass someone merely because of your perception. Innocent users have been hounded off this site that way—which is mob behavior, and something that none of us wants. I'm sure you don't want it, either, so please follow the rules in the future.

The rule is that you can't make insinuations about astroturfing or shillage without some sort of evidence. Another user having different views than yours—even when you find them wrong, or even perversely wrong—does not count as evidence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...

I get accused of all sorts of things because we enforce this policy straight down the middle. Guess what: I'm not a secret communist agent. I just don't like mobs.

Thanks dang. I do not think you are a chinese shill. But I do think your neutrality makes this site suffer, and I do think that there is a right and wrong side of this debate. You may think you are honourable in choosing neutrality, but I think in the end, you are enabling policies that hurt human beings under the guise of free speech.

I'd also like to thank dang for upholding the values of evidence, logic, diversity and respect that distinguishes HN from the mob mentality, flame wars and general toxicity that is social media.

I'm not "choosing neutrality". That's not the issue nor how we think about it.

The issue is that HN has guidelines that people need to adhere to. It's not ok to break those, no matter how right your side is or you feel it is. Moreover, there's no need to, because you can make a much better case for your side by following them.

I'm extremely glad they are not willing to censor speech for political reasons. There are dozens of other topics at least as controversial as the Xinjiang issue. Should we censor particular opinions on those as well? It's not tenable or healthy.

Read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

You can believe what you want, obviously. But understand without evidence, your claims are baseless.

The correct procedure is to email the mods if someone is suspected of being a shill.

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