Hacker News Reader

> I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship, or racist policies not racist policies, or rewriting history anything but something straight out of 1984.

> "We are not in the business of rewriting the past, but we want to update the record" - stuff like this just oozes doublespeak.

Man, that word, "censorship," is really getting abused lately. It's almost like everyone's forgotten what it actually means, or can't be bothered to actually take the time to understand what they're using it to describe. As far as I can tell, the Boston Globe is not deleting anything (not that that would be censorship, either), just appending corrections/updates and maybe de-indexing some stories:

From the OP:

> What actions does this initiative involve? Will you delete stories? Will you remove names? What about Google?

> We have a number of options, including updating a story with new information and removing a story from search engine results. We consider every case on its own merits, and take the action appropriate based on the individual circumstances.

> Are you concerned about erasing history?

> We’re considering these on a case-by-case basis but we think the value of giving someone a fresh start often outweighs the historic value of keeping a story widely accessible long after an incident occurred. People’s lives aren’t static, they’re dynamic.

If this is censorship, so is the corrections page and new & updated editions of books.

Can you please speak more plainly? "[T]hat half of the political sphere"? "[D]eplatforming and dehumanizing half the population"? You seem to be using coded language to refer to a hodge-podge of unrelated things and blowing them up into some sort of strawman.

I don't see any intent to do any censorship or rewriting history here. It looks like the Boston Globe wants to make sure their past coverage doesn't produce unintended consequences from naive searches of people's names on the Internet. What do you think they're trying to do?

Seriously, it has been a while since I have seen a comment as uncharitable as that one at the top of the HN comments.

This move is simply a recognition that many of these stories about minor crimes can have a long lasting impact because of the SEO of a site like The Boston Globe's and the power of Google. That negative impact likely does a net harm to society as a whole as it actively works against rehabilitation efforts by serving as a scarlet letter for this person's entire life. Working to reduce that by removing these pages when they are no longer newsworthy isn't censorship, affirmative action, or anything else that OP it stating or hinting at. I truly don't understand being against a decision like this on the merits.

> "Yes, it's treating people differently based on the color of their skin again, but it's for a good reason!"

People never stopped being treated differently for the colour of their skin.

But yes, however I'd say it's an exaggeration to say "half of the political sphere" fits that straw man you've just given. Now half of twitter, maybe...

Is updating a story censorship?

If you had a headline "Bob Smith accused of arson in the Big Factory fire, but later all charges are dropped" - how exactly is it rewriting history to say "A man charged of arson in the Big Factory fire, but later all charges are dropped"?

give them an inch.

edit: Ok let me try and be clearer. I'm sure Bob Smith is a great guy who didn't deserve to be wrongly accused. But what about Rich Jackson who used his political clout to have his story reversed through this same process? And what if Rich Jackson then runs for office? What if he has all stories about him just harmlessly modified? What if you know the truth about Rich Jackson but nobody listens to you because there's literally no history of him? What if Rich comes after you next?

So random nobody Bob Smith who got railroaded by the system needs to keep getting railroaded, just in case someone powerful entirely unrelated to Bob tries to pull a fast one. Doesn't seem like a great system.

I think the problem to be solved there is that the charges against Rich were dropped due to "clout".

As someone who is very critical of fighting racism with racism and other similarly ill-conceived ideas, I don’t think this is censorship in any meaningful sense of the word and this certainly isn’t the right hill to die on with respect to wonky left wing policies. In fact, I don’t see how this policy is left wing at all... They mention that they’re doing it to avoid perpetuating racism or something, but the actual meat of the article doesn’t suggest that they’re doing any sort of progressive race testing with respect to whose records will be altered and whose won’t. The racial prelude seems to be empty virtue signaling, and the actual policy doesn’t seem to be very progressive at all; rather it appears to be perfectly egalitarian.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

> I don't care how much "good reason" you think you have, it doesn't make censorship not censorship

Agreed. The problem isn't censorship, it's that people have this idea that censorship is inherently evil. I guess this stems from gross ignorance about how fucking stupid people in general are, and how they're taken advantage of by charlatans, to the detriment of society as a whole.

Watch these two (short, 2min) clips showing an interview of the darling of the GOP:

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1353144128188542977 https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1353147167523782657

This is a video of a man who lied to get into office (about being a small businessman, about his accident derailing a Naval career, about being a constitutional expert, etc) and then used that platform to spread lies that led to insurrection and deaths.

It's simply irresponsible to let such filth continue to mislead people, and censoring him would be better for USA, and better for the planet.

Well said. Racism and discrimination based on physical and protected traits is now somehow good again. What a world we live in.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. The cheering on of censorship is something that haunts me more daily, and will be remembered as a great failing of our civilization for hundreds of years if things get worse.

There's already numerous cases of censorship cheerleaders getting de-platformed themselves for some minute infraction, so at least while the world witch hunts itself we can enjoy watching these people get a taste of the politics they preach.