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Comment by garciasn | Hacker News Reader

He’s been “deplatformed” by HackerNews and now apparently other big sites. Why? Is this guy some sort of nut job they are trying to ignore or is he playing nefarious games that might catch the ire of ad platforms for misbehavior?

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From his post back in Feb ‘21:

“A few weeks ago, my account on Hacker News, a Reddit like aggregation site for technology links, was banned. My five-year old account received zero warnings before I got a comment from a moderator. Recently, I also discovered from a friend that this website, BattlePenguin.com, has been shadow banned on Hacker News. To any user submitting one of my posts, the submission will look as if it’s successful and appear on the new page. However, if one switches to a private browser, they’ll find that the submission does not appear.”

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> Why? Is this guy some sort of nut job they are trying to ignore or is he playing nefarious games that might catch the ire of ad platforms for misbehavior?

Neither. Here's 'dang's comment when 'djsumdog was banned:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25743498

There's some classic anti-vax posts on BattlePenguin. Including the anti-vax talking point that HIPPA somehow applies to requiring proof of vaccination to enter a business (spoiler: it doesn't. at all)

I don't really care about the topic or person, but I dislike it when people claim that somebody else said X and Y and Z, without then linking to the posts or pages. Bad style and easily abused.

They said it. From the BattlePenguin site (I’m not going to link as it may get shadowbanned):

“In the United States, health privacy is one of the many things covered under legislation know as HIPPA. However, all the rules seem to have changed in the reaction to COVID-19. Now, people are not only proclaiming their medical information to everyone, but venues and employers are requiring disclosures of experimental medication in order to enter their premises. Whether you believe this is a justified request or not is irrelevant. It’s the end of medical privacy as we know it, and opens up an entirely new class of discrimination based on an individual’s choice to take a medication.”

Basically, this author is clueless. It's HIPAA not HIPPA, and it only applies to a very limited number of orgs, not a typical employer. HIPAA doesn't even really give you medical privacy- it's a law literally written to make it easier to move data around (the "portability" part) and hold covered entities (like health care orgs) liable if they disclose certain types of data, or business associates, if they signed a particular type of agreement.

That said, nearly everybody gets the law wrong, I've had to explain to lawyers why the law didn't apply to my startup (a biotech that was neither a covered entity, nor a business associate).

This attitude gives them cover. It takes them 5 seconds to toss an accusation but like Matt Taibbi they insist on perfect mirroring as you carefully take their argument apart and will fight if you skip one quarter of a step. It's how they wear you down and win simply by the emotional tone they broadcast.

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