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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

There is a relevant number of power users that also flag everything that is critical of big tech and won’t fit their frame as well, sending it into oblivion, regardless of the community rules and clear support from other voting members. But also calling that out is seen as negative and not constructive, and there goes any attempt at a discussion.

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IMHO industry is over represented in computing. Their $ contribute a lot but if all else could be equal (it can’t) I would prefer computing be purely academic.

* Commercial influence on computing has proven to be so problematic one wonders if the entire stack is a net negative, it shouldn’t even be a question.

How do you know who flags submissions?

How do you know who flags submissions?

I have seen people on HN publicly state that they flag anything they don't agree with, regardless of merit.

I guess they use it like some kind of super-down button.

i don’t, but I know certain users have a strong flagging penchant.

check my recent submission, the vitriol it received, and read this

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/youll-never-gue...

Your submission was earnest, but it’s also impossible to answer fairly, because your framing is not neutral.

Many people will argue that they do good at Meta, and that they strive to do good. Their results probably are good too - meta is vast so statistically you will find good work and good outcomes.

Those people are already painted as evil, so why would they engage with the question ? Even if you are genuine and earnest?

Your recent submission in my view absolutely merits flagging, because it's about booing a company you don't like and doesn't come across as charitable or asked in good faith.

And I agree with jakeydus: I'm not seeing anything I could call "vitriol" in the top-level comments. I do, however, see people resent having their way of life (and of making a living) called into question. The one particularly snide top-level comment I saw was agreeing with you.

Look, if criticizing Meta because they enabled genocide in Myanmar and induce depression in teenage girls (as per their own admission) is booing, I don’t know what to say. The question was clear: Meta has been proven beyond doubt to be a company led by people who couldn’t care less about their impact on society. Therefore, here’s the question, what makes you still work for them apart from money, if you have any sliver of ethics.

My comment was not an invitation for you to continue the same ideological warring here.

Did you read my comment, instead of framing it as ideological? Such a framing is a quite interesting way to dismiss the issue at hand isn't it? Do you share the aknowledged reality that Meta has fostered genocide in Myanmar, as per their own admission in front of Congress, and that Instagram has led teenage girls to depression, as per admitted by internal documents seen in discovery that prove how they weaponized those same mechanisms?

If YES, why do you think Meta is a normal company, with regular "contradictions", and why do you frame as ideological someone who just reminds people of what Meta and Zuckerberg do? If NO, how exactly do you justify your answer that negates what we know for a fact, and/or how do you justify Meta's behavior?

> Did you read my comment

Yes.

From Wikipedia:

> An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge,

You are passing judgment and using emotionally charged words (such as "weaponizing", which also implies intent and motivations not in evidence) to make a point about what you consider moral. And you use your judgement to set up a completely false dichotomy with incoherent terms (I have absolutely no idea what you think the phrase "normal company" means here), while completely ignoring my point.

That is ideology.

My opinion of Meta as a company is not relevant to anything I have said so far.

It does not matter whether you are right or wrong about any of this.

My objection is to your rhetorical style, and to the placement of your arguments in an inappropriate forum. These objections do not require that I agree or disagree with you about anything at all. I am not interested in debating morality with you. That is the point.

As far as I can tell, you did not even stop to question whether I work for Meta in the first place. (I do not.)

I am pointing at quite a big factual moon, but you prefer to dissect my rhethorical finger. If there is a rhetoric problem here, is how obfuscating this very clear ethical discourse in rhetoric disquisitions is just an elegant way to toss the ball off the field. A diversion, that only serves the perpetuation of the status quo.

You are not "pointing at" the moon; you are putting it somewhere it does not belong, and then getting defensive when people complain about the effect on the local change in gravity as if you can't understand why people would object to that.

I am tossing the ball off the field because this field is intended for a different sport entirely, and there is already a game in progress.

The actual data does not support Gruber's perception. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43494735

Calling the comments on the meta post ‘vitriol’ is a bit on the hyperbolic side don’t you think?

Luckily they are not the top comments, but there were some of the nastiest I’ve seen allowed on here. Some users went as far as creating throwaway accounts to post nasty comments. It never ever happened to me on HN, and it’s a Reddit-level toxicity that I’ve never seen displayed here. Clearly my post struck a nerve.

Can you point to a set of recent comments that are critical of big tech while also not breaking the guidelines and make good points, and are flagged anyway?

All of the anti-big-tech comments I've ever seen that are flagged are flagged because they blatantly break the guidelines and/or are contentless and don't contribute in any meaningful sense aside from trying to incite outrage.

And those should be flagged.

Can you point to a set of recent comments that are critical of big tech while also not breaking the guidelines and make good points, and are flagged anyway?

They show up in the HN Active section quite regularly.

And virtually anything even remotely related to Twitter or most Elon Musk-related companies almost instantly get the hook.

The request was for examples of comments, not article submissions.

Flagging seems so odd to me. Your interpretation of rules is not the same as others. Downvote it sure, but i dont like the idea of disappearing no matter how lame it is.

I explicitly enable flagged and dead because sometimes there are nuggets in there which provide interesting context to what people think.

I will never flag anything. I dont get it.

I show flagged and show dead too.

Disappearing OT/ads/extreme ad hominems is a positive thing imo.

I vouch for things that I disagree with if they make good points. I have flagged things.

IMO the worst thing pg ever did for this site is to say that downvoting could be used for disagreement. I still bemoan the removal of downvote scores, and still wish for Slashdot-style voting, meta-moderation, and personalition of content scores.

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