Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

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HN is not a bastion of free speech and it is not meant to be. Controversial topics are routinely flagged because they incite flame wars and downvoting because you disagree is considered acceptable.

However, in this particular case, I don't think it should be flagged unless the comment sections becomes unmanageable. It may be a political topic but it is seen from a technical angle, and indeed, a lot of the comments are technical in nature: the effect of different options, different engines, alternative wording, etc...

What I think is interesting is how artificial the censorship looks. If I see no results for such a simple phrase, I know something fishy is going on and that would encourage me to carry on.

From someone with several years of moderate volume online community moderation, the issue with post-hoc censorship is radicalization.

If something disappears, no one has bad feelings about it.

If something two people are arguing over disappears, then two people carry simmering resentment about it (ironically, likely more than if their verbal spat had reached a cathartic conclusion), that eventually manifests in their next comments, and which ultimately leads to an erosion of common decency and civility.

It's a fine line, but it's definitely a line rather than right vs wrong.

Is that really an issue? If the user makes more uncivil comments then you flag them again until they get the picture. There are plenty of other places on the internet that seem to welcome and encourage flame wars -- they can go there to work out their resentment and then come back when they're ready.

These were more topic-specific forums (people who did the thing hung on the forum), so it might be a bit different with HN.

As you note, why would they stay where they don't feel welcome?

FWIW, 'right to speech' != 'right to be heard' and 'freedom of speech' != 'freedom from consequences.'

Saying/posting something which quickly gets flagged into oblivion is freedom of speech working as intended. As is subsequent posts overcoming a flagging brigade...

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