Ask HN: HN Blocks Sites Like Fox News? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: HN Blocks Sites Like Fox News?

6 pointssilexia20 comments

I have noticed that I very rarely see Fox News on HN. I commonly see sites with similar middle brow journalism quality from the left on here, especially The Guardian and NY Times (which used to be high brow but has fallen way off).

HN used to be mostly libertarian entrepreneurs, but the far left has made major inroads. I guess it could be users just not submitting or upvoting Fox News and right wing websites?

@Dang are there any algorithmic blocks against sites like Fox News or is it just user upvoting behavior?

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These baiting questions and resulting wasteful discussions are just uninteresting. Submissions should be qualified on their own merit instead of needlessly litigating the source of their publication. I say "should" instead of "must" because this is not a public forum, but a private one, and as such, the rules of moderation are not at our discretion. My advice is to accept them and participate productively within the norms, or start your own community which is devoid of any perceived bias, in your own vision of what is reasonable.

> Submissions should be qualified on their own merit instead of needlessly litigating the source

They are: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=foxnews.com

HN posters generally prefer reporting that contains at least a kernel of truth. Not even Fox News says that you should believe anything they produce.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-...

Even vouching for the response to you is not enough to bring it back from the dead so I can not reply to it, so I reply to you. Fox news is no more to blame than CNN or NPR, they all just play the game and try to get on the front page. Blaming Fox News or NPR or HN is ridiculous.

At least 90% of HN flags any submission that is remotely political. It is rare that the the cable news networks are not at least remotely political. Most of the internet is dedicated to politics and consumerism, let us have our corner.

Clearly it's not blocked[1].

As a Norwegian, which stories do you think Fox News report better on than other sources? As in, which stories do you think people should submit Fox News as a source for rather than some other source?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=foxnews.com

You even have to ask this?

As a European, I always get a giggle from American conservatives describing CNN as ‘far left’. There’s so much more spectrum to explore. Like, even your Democrats are our center-right.

It's a blatant Christian Zionist rag.

I downvote you but I don't flag OP, despite feeling the same about both of your posts. OP is at the very least trying to understand, even if they feel it is unfair, they leave the space for difference of opinion, not being right.

I accept your downvote. All I ask, if you want to determine who is acting in good faith here, is that you click through OP's submission history: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=silexia

We are not supposed to use past posting as proof on HN, we are supposed to respond to what was said. One of those unwritten rules which most get. Do you really believe that I can't find something in all of your posting history that does not conflict with what you say here?

Edit: Your editing your original post proves my point.

I perfectly well trust that you can. In this instance, there is ample proof that the poster does not adhere to HN's submission guidelines. If that's an uncouth judgement, please exercise the downvote.

Why did you edit your post? It had some worth, but you edited into something of no worth, limp partisan bullshit.

I clicked into OP's submission history and remembered that they were not a good-faith user, so it was more intellectually honest to cut to the chase.

So you decided to act in bad faith to make my response look like bad faith?

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I don't believe I did. Your first comment narrowly avoided my original draft, and the subsequent edit wasn't related to your disagreement.

I don't consider it a tacit rule that submission history is off-limits. dang can clearly make it private if that's a concern, but cross-referencing users to keep them honest is an ordinary forum tactic for determining good-faith. It's beneficial to moderators when they're judging patterns of behavior, and it's beneficial to users for the same purpose.

You're not going to bully me into editing my original post back, and I definitely can't delete it once you leave a comment below it complaining. I think my stance was principled and I'm willing to hear you out if you think that my edited accusation is off-base. Otherwise, we have nothing constructive to discuss here.

Your edit of your original post happened after my second reply to you, hence my edit of my second reply and not my first. Using old posts as proof is against the rules, it is part of the rule I quoted, the strongest interpretation is not the one which requires you to dig through a posters history. The mods will call you out on this if they see you doing such things.

I am not trying to bully you into anything, I only asked because I found it curious. But your original post reflects better on you than your edit does. OPs posting history could just as easily prove that they never read the submission guidelines, which is fairly common; so, they made this thread to ask why and a quick glance at their posting history strongly suggests they never read the submission guidelines.

Why do you think it’s bad faith? It’s mostly political, but some people here are too and not all posts involve politics (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41195641).

OP definitely appears conservative. But how do you know they’re intentionally trying to stir trouble, vs. being naive (...maybe, hence conservative...) but genuine?

And do you think it’s a net benefit for posts like these to be flagged vs. visible, when the comments provide direct evidence contradicting OP's assumptions (Fox News is not blocked on HN)? It's always hard to change people's assumptions, and sometimes impossible, but why not try?

> But how do you know they’re intentionally trying to stir trouble, vs. being naive

This is not a Hanlon's razor situation. HN has pretty clear guidelines about what a good submission is:

  Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities

This will disqualify lots of CNN/FOX/The Sun/The Critic/Whosit/Whatever tabloid/opinion column content that isn't tailored for HN's audience (putting it nicely). We might disagree with the rules, but those are what they are.

> And do you think it’s a net benefit for posts like these to be flagged vs. visible

No opinion, I consider flagging to be one of HN's most poorly-implemented features. I leave showdead on at all times.

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