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Comment by offtop5 | Hacker News Reader

But you're not chastising me, or my physical appearance. Having people call you ugly all day is probably one of the worst parts of Instagram.

You're merely chastising a few of my opinions. There's so much detachment from the rest of me.

In the early days of Facebook I actually screwed up a relationship as I was worried my first girlfriend would post the wrong thing on my wall, and oh no all my friends would see.

Hacker News isn't really a social media site since there's no concept of followers or friends here.

If in any case you decide to go through my post history to make fun of me, I can just create a new handle. I can do this without even adding an email address.

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> Having people call you ugly all day is probably one of the worst parts of Instagram.

That’s not at all typical for Instagram. In fact, anyone being called “ugly” would do well to block whoever is making those comments, which is very easy on the platform.

> Hacker News isn't really a social media site since there's no concept of followers or friends here.

Hacker News is absolutely a social media. The comments section is all about social discussion and we have upvotes and downvotes.

You may like it more than other forms of social media because it lacks pictures, allows usernames instead of real names, and replaces likes with upvotes (and downvotes, arguably more toxic than likes). However, it’s still social media.

Upvotes and downvotes on HN only give you hint about the popularity (or lack thereof) of the views that you have expressed as an anonymous commentator. This can never be interpreted as a popularity rating of your physical appearance, lifestyle or of your worth as a human being, whereas in other social media this is often the case.

I disagree with the part on the ugly comments. It is very typical and blocking every single nasty comment on your appearance can be a mentally taxing effort that you can’t quite put under a « just block them off it’s easy » assertion.

> Hacker News isn't really a social media site since there's no concept of followers or friends here.

I'm not sure that matters all that much, it's just one way of doing things.

Would HackerNews be a different beast if it gave you the option of viewing the most recent 40 comments from your 10 favourite commenters? I don't think so. Someone could even build this as a third-party UI if they wanted to.

> If in any case you decide to go through my post history to make fun of me, I can just create a new handle.

HackerNews is well moderated. I imagine the mods would view that kind of thing as harassment and put a stop to it, especially if you contacted them about it.

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