Not sure why HN moderation changed the original title, which was "I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media." to its current form.
I also took care to use representative language from the article itself, describing what it is about. That's also standard moderation practice: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
Whenever we do any moderation on any divisive topic there's a strong tendency to leap to the conclusion that it signifies some political agenda, secret opposition to one side, secret support for the other, and so on. I understand that that's how the internet works. But it's deeply untrue. We're simply doing what we always do, as even-handedly as we're able.
Unfortunately, to the extent that one is even-handed (and I'm not saying we do that perfectly, just to an extent), passionate partisans on every side of every divisive topic end up feeling like the mods are secretly against them. Why? Because by definition even-handedness means they all have some data points to object to, and that's all they need to jump to such conclusions (actually, even just one data point, or maybe two, is enough to produce this conclusion). There doesn't seem to be any way around that, much as I wish there were.
Censorship in social media is definitely on topic for HN.
This isn’t a political flamewar. It’s a discussion on how technology is used for censorship and oppression. 100% on topic for HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
The current post was obviously submitted because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638871 got flagged. I'm currently trying to decide whether to restore the earlier submission instead of this one, which is what we'd normally do, or whether that thread is unsalvageable. Not clear. Edit: that thread looks pretty unsalvageable.
Thank you (again), dang. I really appreciate your work.
This is the sort of internet cheap shot that passionate partisans come up with. If you multiply all the moderation actions you agree with by 0% and all the ones you disagree with by 100%, yes, you're going to end up with quite a picture of bias. But it's a picture you've generated yourself by weighting the variables that way.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
For example, I specifically turned off the flags on this submission. That's a moderation action you presumably support, since you submitted it. But you overlook that, while a title edit is "very telling". Meanwhile there's someone on the opposite side of the question who's weighting the same two actions in the opposite way and coming up with the opposite conclusion, which they no doubt also consider "very telling".
More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27646015.