Comment by survirtual | Hacker News Reader

Comment by survirtual | Hacker News Reader

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This is not true.

When I was active on reddit, I advocated for nuclear energy using math and physics. One time, I wrote a comment calculating energy vs used land vs used infrastructure, including mining and logistics, to show how radically more efficient nuclear is than any other power source. It got little / no engagement.

That comment triggered me to check pushshift and see if I was banned for some reason. Turns out, every comment I had ever made about nuclear technology was shadow banned, even relatively innocuous ones. This was universally across all of reddit.

They don't allow advocating for nuclear energy, what else don't they allow?

One time, I wrote a historical warning about how the rich don't generally do well with massive wealth inequality during times of revolution. This was flag as violent content and I got a warning saying I would be banned if I did it again.

This was roughly ~5 years ago. How much do you think the noose has tightened since then?

Keep in mind, my comments were well thought out, posted in good faith, and respectful. I was not trying to hurt people or prove them wrong, just truth seeking and truth sharing.

It became clear to me truth is no longer allowed on mass platforms.

Is it possible your entire account got shadow banned, due to unrelated reasons? Afaik it's not even possible to shadow ban a single post, but they do that to entire accounts.

EDIT: Also that's a really pessimistic leap, "my account got shadow banned (on one platform, and you don't know it was the nuclear)" to "truth is no longer allowed on (implied all!) mass platforms"

EDIT2: Also, how the saying goes, shit happens. I got banned on so many servers and forums, for random reasons. And I moved on?? Create another account if you have to, it's not like they can enforce the no multiple accounts rule well

>Is it possible your entire account got shadow banned, due to unrelated reasons? Afaik it's not even possible to shadow ban a single post, but they do that to entire accounts.

AFAIK you can do subreddit "shadowbans" by setting automod to send all posts to modqueue, and then using another rule to approve every post except the ones you want banned.

You generally only get targetted like that (anywhere in life) if you both have wrong opinions and you have a sophisticated and persuasive holistic argument that wins people over. If they can prove you wrong they'll be happy to leave it displayed for all so everyone can see what an idiot you are and mission accomplished. And they already have prepared rebuttals for anything in the books or talks by prominent proponents/opponents, so you have to have innate and original thoughts to get to the point they can't use those attacks and you start persuading others. If you're just espousing what the 'greatest' thinkers of your persuasion argue, even if it's Hitler, you are generally safe because they already know how to defeat that using whatever their own greatest thinkers told them.

This is actually a very rare trait in the general populace so it makes targeting such persons fairly narrow pursuit while simultaneously if you explain it happened most people will think you are crazy.

Except in the case of the arguments I make about nuclear, they were verifiably and very obviously correct. I would talk about the energy density of u235 nuclear reactions vs burning coal, the energy of a neutron vs the energy of photons, things like intermittent generators and baseload, etc. it is not controversial, and anyone with some basic background in physics or chemistry could verify it.

Yes and the red pill moment is when you realize this is exactly why your speech was banned.

They will leave provably wrong stuff up as a head on pike to show you're an idiot. They will let correct but unpersuasive stuff up, because who cares. They will let correct (or just controversial) stuff already stated by someone prominent up (even if by kkk or nazis), because they already have a rebuttal canned for that to make you look bad.

What they won't let stand is a correct, holistically persuasive original argument for the wrong opinion. They have no defense for that but banning. And thus doesn't apply only to reddit.

Just to clarify, by wrong opinion, you are speaking to the "authority's" opinion of what right and wrong is, as opposed to the universe's objectively right and wrong?

As in, anything that can realistically challenge an entity with power (say, energy companies using non-renewable systems like oil vs infinite / abundant systems like nuclear) is deemed "wrong"?

There's a meme going around which takes a metaphorically-similar quote: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The meme answers the rhetorical question with an outlier example: "children with leukemia." The joke here is that although the quote could often have merit it certainly does not apply to all cases.

There are plenty of ideas which people want to censor for reasons other than that the ideas are strictly correct. Particularly when it comes to politics, a lot of ideas just speak to opinion or disposition, and there is no strictly right or wrong answer. But of course, people want to censor opinions with disconcerting frequency.

My comments here shouldn't be taken as pro-censorship. I consider myself nearly a free-speech absolutist, but the desire to censor is much more about politics and tribalism than it is about anything else.

There must be some method to remove posts without informing a user and making it appear to them it is still visible, while making it invisible to everyone else (shadow removal), because that was the state all my posts related to nuclear power were in.

My posts that were humor or otherwise "low-impact" were unaffected. I had many submissions with well over 1,000 karma, but only the submissions that had no economic or political impact were ever seen.

This isn't conjecture or paranoia, it is verified, and I traced it back years once I realized it was happening. I wrote a lot about nuclear energy and I was writing to the void. That is a very cruel thing to do to someone.

5 years ago was when it became totally unusable and I stopped trying to find a way to use it. COVID gave a lot of people with a half ounce of power the green light to trump up 'misinformation' as murderous/violent, which was applied writ large.

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