On HN, you're not allowed to accuse people of this without evidence, and an opposing opinion is not evidence.

If you suspect abuse, you can email us at [email protected], but invoking this kind of thing as a rhetorical device in an argument is both uncivil and a low-quality (because formulaic) addition to a thread. Please don't do it here.

I was honestly curious. I still am. It wasn't meant as a rhetorical device.

The extent to which China does (or doesn't) employ ringers on the foreign, as well as domestic, internet seems like a worthy discussion topic.

Ok, I believe you. You might have satisfied your curiosity by looking at the comment history of the users in question. I did, and found comments debating the relative merit of Github and Gitlab. Presumably the Chinese government has no moles that deep on HN.

It's not a worthy discussion topic without evidence. Opposing opinions are emphatically not evidence. When people allow their own strong opinions to skew their view of others in that direction, civility and discussion quality suffer terribly. So this is not something you can just raise casually, even if your curiosity is pure. Flamethrowers aren't welcome at public gatherings for pure curiosity either.

I'm trying to find where tptacek defends Cisco on this page. Not seeing it. Can you provide links?

I didn't intend to imply that he did, apologies. I realize my original post was poorly phrased, so I edited out that part. It's the people saying either that Cisco couldn't have possibly known what China would do with tech designed specifically to track a suppressed religious group, or else doing the Werner von Braun defense[1], that I'm referring to.

[1] "'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Werner von Braun." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

Does anyone have a specific objection to my post? If not, all the comment-free downvotes aren't doing much to allay my suspicions.