Hacker News Reader

Comment by simiones | Hacker News Reader

How are so many people on this forum of all places advocating for unaccountable opaque private entities to almost cut off access to the internet for organizations that have not been convicted of any crime?

View on HN

Lol. I know, right? But there aren't many of us old-school "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" types left anymore. And sometimes it feels like we're getting run outta town. We always knew this day would come, and Kiwi Farms is kind of a perfect litmus test for whether legal controversial speech can actually persist on the Internet. It's almost the only one left. 8chan is pretty dead. 4chan sold out years ago.

It's honestly pretty scary to me. Feels like a corporate <-> academic <-> government synthesis around an ideology that's extremely unpopular to purge any dissent. That's a big deal, even if you despise (like I do) the 8chan crowd.

I know. I see it. And I don't know anymore how to tell people the emperor has no clothes. On odd numbered days I think the culture is going in a dangerous direction that will lead to unintended consequences. On even numbered days I think I'm just an old man yelling about the cloud, and if Gen Z really thinks all this is good and normal then fuck it. It's your world.

The old programmers had a left leaning liberterian trend, but today's programmers are a product of institutions that teach and support censorship for their cause etc and will happily support that sort of thing against their political enemies.

It shouldn't surprise you. The companies involved aren't doing censorship from the top down, it's censorship being demanded by their employees.

It's partially what turned me off of getting into certain industries which heavily involve programming.

My own willingness to learn the skills was a large part, don't get me wrong lol - but I'm happier making little scripts and tools/toys for me and a few others to use to make their day to day lives easier.

I would never want to work for a larger company like a FAANG outlet, nor any other media-based tech company like game developers. Too many politics have been injected into the identity of a typical programmer, when it should just be about the code.

While I’ll agree that things have gotten too political for my tastes, don’t you want a say in how your company operates, what products it builds, and how the products you build are used? For me it’s definitely not just about the code.

I would advise you to join and continue to be apathetic toward political issues. The vast majority of us don’t care. We just want a massive paycheck. Don’t let political activists prevent you from pursuing your career goals.

It's easy to support the creation of a monster when you're absolutely sure the monster will love you and tear your enemies to bits. But monsters aren't known for their loyalty.

Because speech has real consequences, especially misinformation?

If I go through your post history I am sure I could find misinformation. Should you be cut off from various services?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com