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Comment by drowsspa | Hacker News Reader

Case in point: we're discussing this on Hacker News, a very well moderated website.

Libertarian tech bros love the idea of technical solutions for political problems. What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation.

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If you think this place is well moderated, try having a civil discussion on DNI initiatives or anything at all that gets the tech-bro SV hate culture engine fired up.

You will be downvoted, flagged and throttled before the hour is up.

I see many comments here every day that would get anyone instantly banned from most of the biggest subreddits. However, I think that most people would agree that this place is a lot less toxic than reddit. Smaller subreddits are somewhat better, but at this point this behavior has become pervasive in site, and users are expected to respond aggressively to any disagreement. As a result, any discussion becomes impossible and most comment sections are filled with users mindlessly agreeing with each other. Moderation is important but the way it is implemented in reddit has only managed to turn the site into an extremely toxic echochamber.

Reddit admins only set some very basic guardrails, typically around things like hate speech. Everything else is controlled by the mods. There are subs that are toxic and many that are not. Which you subscribe to is up to you and will determine your experience. The example often used here is /r/AskHistorians.

You should consider that HN is just a different bubble with a different overton window, and that neither actually reflect reality

> What they don't realize is the real service platforms offer is moderation.

I'd rephrase this as "the real service platforms offer is better signal-to-noise ratio in the information one seeks". Moderation is not in itself the selling point, but merely one lever or device operating in collusion with some methods to increase SNR and in contraposition to others.

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