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Comment by mariusor | Hacker News Reader

You call it petty dictatorship, I call it the best moderated subreddit of the whole platform.

You just happen to be lucky enough to be within the very narrow overton window. Or at least a) believe what's being curated for you and b) never cared to look at what's not being said.

You should hope that your views (or more accurately, their views) never stray from it and the information that a tiny group of people are controlling is good for the entire population.

You could say just use another subreddit. But this isn't limited to one.

Is the window really that narrow, or do you just happen to fall outside it/identify as having fallen outside of it for personal identity reasons?

It's narrower than you might think. For example, I've recently been paying attention to the trans issue because some are saying that pro-trans groups are equating words with violence [1] [2]. Apparently the pro-trans groups have been saying that only 1% detransition, but there are youth speaking out saying that number is likely far greater [3] [4] [5].

It's hard for me to believe these are made up stories. And, it appears that such stories are currently only being told via conservative media. Please correct me if I am wrong.

This is of interest to me because the US holds that words are not equal to violence, with the only exception being the emergency principle. According to Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU from 1991-2008, the emergency test says speech may be punishable "if, in context, it directly causes specific imminent serious harm." [6] If groups are successfully convincing people otherwise, then it may mean we are forgetting what free speech is. Free speech, the US version anyway, draws the line at violence, not words.

[1] https://archive.ph/1NeiV#selection-1513.7-1513.57

[2] https://corinnacohn.substack.com/p/the-world-should-not-need...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tQr6WZXHSQ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdSKBVHrizo

[5] https://youtu.be/STE1pmCjULQ?t=2047

[6] https://books.google.com/books?&hl=en&id=whBQDwAAQBAJ&q=in+c...

That's a _VERY_ selective set of sources ([3][4][5]), which you are in bad faith using a representation of the "youth"

"There are youth speaking out" should not be taken to mean "all youth". It means "some youth".

It's another point of view on an issue that I'd only previously seen presented from one perspective. That's why I found it to be so interesting. I was shocked to hear it because I had no prior understanding that anything untoward was going on. Question for you, what do you think about Keira Bell's story?

Views are a currency, and not one I wish to give to GBnews.

I'm sure you can find her story elsewhere.

'Bad faith' is the modern authoritarian's favourite excuse for censorship or dismissing comments. Just like 'problematic' it's a vague enough term that it can be easily abused ('dog whistle' and 'gaslighting' are other favourites). You don't have to openly challenge the source material, just question the motives for even asking the question.

Perfect for when you don't have the balls to directly call what the person is saying wrong or bad. Ad hominem 101.

I hope the irony of your comment isn’t lost on you

It took a long time for you to get around to it, but was the reason your comments keep getting moderated because you show up in every gender / transgender thread dropping links and "just asking questions"?

More important than the content of speech in social media moderation is the behavior. You demonstrate bad behavior here.

> It took a long time for you to get around to it, but was the reason your comments keep getting moderated because you show up in every gender / transgender thread dropping links and "just asking questions"?

No, this is only the second time I've discussed the gender/trans issue. My comments generally get moderated for containing links to Reveddit.

> More important than the content of speech in social media moderation is the behavior. You demonstrate bad behavior here.

What is the bad behavior to which you are referring?

To be fair, tolerating transgender people's existence at all used to fall outside the Overton window. Having a small cabal of unimpeachable shadow lords ruling all discourse with an iron fist doesn't seem healthy for society to me.

Particularly when there's some circumstantial evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell used to be one of those mods: https://old.reddit.com/r/TopMindsOfReddit/comments/rrldd9/to... (skeptical link, but even here you can see that it's plausible)

I find it a little sad that in order to disagree with me you have to be mean about it.

There are plenty of reasons why a subreddit like r/science is fine for people, not just the fact that they have a "very narrow Overton window". Maybe it's because we understand that this particular subreddit does not conform to the usual agora of discussion that reddit is known for and just shows a list of maybe interesting science papers/articles and clarifications on them from people in the domain. I may disagree with some of the ideas put forward but I can be an adult about it and not jump to the conclusion that there's a cabal of "big science" that is trying to brainwash me.

> I find it a little sad that in order to disagree with me you have to be mean about it.

I didn't find what was written to be mean. Eleanor Roosevelt said,

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

If you feel sad, that's fine, I just want to point out that this is a choice we all make. Sometimes there is wide agreement on what constitutes offense, and we use this to justify the secret removal of other people's content. But offense is inherently subjective, and such secretive removals rob us of chances to sharpen our counter speech. Rather than trying to make perceived hateful conversations secretly disappear, I think we are better off allowing each other to prepare counter arguments to offensive speech.

Being mean? Jeez, I was hardly being mean. Being easily offended and being pro-censorship are two intersecting circles on the venn diagram.

Wait until your view becomes the one attacked. Regardless of scientific merit.

I think you and the other posters decrying my "oh so narrow" point of view forget that the subreddit is nothing more than a place to see interesting news about science and the clarifications that people in science can bring on those news.

What it is not is a place where laymen like me and (probably you) can debate the veracity of said science. I don't give a toss about which science articles are posted there and if they agree with my world view as long as the curation and moderation is consistent with the principles described in the subreddit's rules. In my opinion is fine to not have an opinion or comment even if someone on the internet is wrong - present time excluded. :P

Check out this talk from Jonathan Rauch [1]. He goes through how both the left and right censor, and how that ends up being good for nobody, even if it starts out happening only in the private sector.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0T9XSG73kY&t=1774s

Until the day you fail the purity test and have your IP and all accounts permabanned due to a disagreement with a mod in disguise.

Luckily, moderators can't IP ban anyone. :)

They just use the internal tools and create a ticket to have an admin ban your IP and all current and future accounts. Wow, such a hurdle!

Even more awesome to have this happen with a dormitory IP. /s

Yes, they can. If you piss off a moderator they'll just ask an admin to ban you, assuming it's not an admin's alt in the first place (admins have sockpuppet mod accounts on every major sub)

There's no purity test in the subreddit except being an acknowledged scientist in the domain the submission is about. Forgive me the snark, but it's like you don't even know what we're talking about.

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