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Comment by DarkCrusader2 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the problem is with twitter here. Let people have opinions, even if you think they are useless. They are opinions after all. Your issue should be with the maintainers who will remove any content on the slightest objection to it in a bid to do the "right" thing by whatever group of people got offended by it.

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Aren't you engaging in victim-blaming here? Shouldn't you be blaming the mob, not the individual maintainer giving in to the mob?

I think we should be blaming anyone who complies with the mob, since that is the only thing that gives the mob power. If everyone just ignored them, this phenomenon would peter out quite fast.

Don't underestimate the power of a mob, even an internet mob. They can and have done a lot of damage to people, even those who don't directly engage with them (especially when they attack those who don't have a lot of individual power: ironically while those who participate in them seem to have a sense of 'punching up', they can only hurt those for which they are as a collective punching down).

But they can only do damage as long as HR departments and conference organizers and whatnot bow to the demands of people on twitter. Of course they have done a lot of damage but almost all of it indirectly. The people who actually execute on it in meatspace are at least as much to blame, IMO.

I mean the whole thing is a total non-issue. Someone writes a silly screed in docs, someone notices it and points it out, maintainers of a project that wants some semblance of professionalism remove dumb screed.

As a maintainer I wouldn’t even remove it for content but just because it’s clearly a detriment to the document.

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