Hacker News Reader

This is dang disgusting as it proves that backchannels really are at work here. There are comments denying Palestinians the right to live but they never get dang attention. HN moderation is declining fast.

View on HN

I understand the fear, but that's not the case. There have been plenty of times when I've scolded and/or banned accounts for posting slurs in the opposite direction. Btw this has been true—in both directions—for many years, and will continue to be true.

It may surprise some people, but this isn't one of the harder parts of moderating. There are borderline cases, but fewer than you might suppose, and asking people to make their substantive points without slurs (and/or banning the egregious cases) is usually fairly clear-cut and fairly accepted by the community, regardless of who the slur is directed against.

In this case, for example, I can't imagine that fair-minded advocates for Palestinians would have any problem with us moderating an obviously trollish comment referring to "jew tunnels". On the contrary, they'd surely be happy to have that cleared off HN so there is no chance of being associated with it.

p.s. there were no backchannels here. I ran across the comment randomly and it was a straightforward moderation call. I gave the user a path to get unbanned, if they want to, because they weren't a brand new account.

> There are comments denying Palestinians the right to live but they never get dang attention

If such comments exist, I certainly want to see them. Keep in mind that we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).

I know it feels like the mods are against you—everyone with strong feelings feels that way—but it's not true. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... We all seem to be hard-wired to jump to such conclusions, though, when strong feelings are active. For a long series of comments attempting to explain why, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

I really appreciate that you take the time to explain moderation decisions. I wish this were a bigger trend on other platforms. Thanks!

I appreciate the moderation work and the patience to explain your perspective in this matter although I continue to think that HN is biased in this and other cases - if more users flag any comment related to the Palestine perspective but not as many flag the comments calling Palestinians terrorists the moderation work becomes a backchannel for that cause by design.

I think backchannel has a pretty clear definition.

That's an ongoing issue on a lot of topics. We're willing to, and sometimes do, turn off flags when it feels like an article can provide a basis for a substantive discussion and (<-- note that 'and') the topic has had relatively little coverage on HN lately. When it comes to Israel/Gaza, we've done that several times so far:

Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38745673 - Dec 2023 (751 comments)

'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550 - Dec 2023 (1308 comments)

The pro-Israel information war - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572675 - Dec 2023 (1675 comments)

I'm open to others. Possibly there will be a good article about the ICJ hearing tomorrow.

I hope you find some others because so far it's been 2 articles with claims that Jews control the media, and 1 article from an unreliable source.

(The unreliable source has lines saying, for example, that Israel beat Palestinians for not understanding Hebrew which is extraordinarily unlikely - Israel has plenty of Arab speakers. That newspaper is simply not a reliable source, and it should never have been allowed to become a post on HN.)

> The unreliable source has lines saying, for example, that Israel beat Palestinians for not understanding Hebrew

Israel calls 10 years kids terrorists, jail and kill them. Are you really saying that it is extraordinarily unlikely that some soldiers beat those kids because they couldn't understand Hebrew? There are many humor sketches coming from Israel making fun of palestinians in an horrendous way. Beating kids for not understanding hebrew is almost nothing compared with what we have videos of israeli soldiers doing and saying.

The Israeli extremist right-wing and its supporters and lobby groups aren't "the Jews".

Would you deny that, say, the Russian or US government are messing with social media, or media in general? Does that mean they "control" the media? Of course not.

In my experience HN does have biases, but many of them can be very dependent on time of day, topic or article. Sometimes you'll see one bias in a new thread but by the end of the day it will have reversed.

"Backchannel" means something different from the way you are using it here.

My understanding of 'backchannel' in this context is that when a comment or post provokes a certain group within this forum, they have a method to influence the moderation. This is done through the backchannel by flagging the comment and then guiding people on appropriate or inappropriate behavior beyond the main discussion.

Isn't this flagged thread a backchannel?

Voting isn't an alternative method, it's a primary signal.

Thank you for your effort in keeping the discussion healthy.

However my impression is that this thread is lower in the HN rankings compared to what I usually see for something this new and with this score and discussion.

Am I wrong in perceiving this? Can you please help me understand?

It set off the flamewar detector. I've turned that off now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com