For example I have posted and debated a little about my counter-narrative opinions on "the covid response" here before and had them stay and even gather the occasional upvote, to their credit. But it is also extremely easy to get moderated when walking that line, and likely highly dependent on whether or not the users participating or reading the comments become upset by what they see. This is not just a case of covid in general being an off topic or controversial issue, because you could post until the cows come home about the Covid response if you were cheerleading and parroting the schizophrenic and ever-changing position of western governments and media.
I give them credit at least, I think what they have is better than a lot of places for such debate. You just have to know your place and be extremely careful and polite and factual when you deviate, and you have to be prepared at some point the conversation will be shut down if it is upsetting and angering other users.
I also like that deleted comments can be made visible, another really good transparent part about the moderation. I do agree there is a lot of junk, but it's nice to see what's verboten. I assume posts can be nuked entirely with no trace , I give the benefit of the doubt and hope that's used sparingly.
My biggest issue is the unavoidable US centrism. Again, much better than what's out there, but it's absolutely real. Real talk gets stuck down immediately for being inflammatory
I've noticed that I have to shy away from certain ways of expression when I say things critical of a US-positive narrative. I have to avoid "real talk" as it were. It's kinda frustrating because that's how I prefer to speak but I can also see a difference in the discussion that ensues.
I feel you though. It can be pretty tough when you say something genuinely concerning, which people don't like thinking about, only to have it dismissed with the downvote button. Still, oftentimes such things gain more points while I'm sleeping and seemingly people in other parts of the world view my comments (which I think is kinda telling; it's what it is).
(For context, I am a born US citizen.)
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=whataboutism%20by:dang&dateRan...
Whataboutism […] denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque [1] pattern, which is a subtype of the ad-hominem [2] argument.
[1] Attacking the arguer for hypocrisy.
[2] Attacking the arguer rather than the argument.
If you find yourself accused of whataboutism it tends to mean you’re engaged in political rhetoric rather than intelligent focussed debate - which is fine, but not (as far as I understand it) what HNs is for.
What I'm saying is that accusations of "whataboutism" are the sort of canned argument we want to avoid on HN, as well as an internet trope (which we also want to avoid), a shallow dismissal (which the site guidelines ask to avoid) and a form of name-calling (ditto).
It's also a logical fallacy, since pointing out a contradiction via a comparable situation is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. No doubt people do sometimes bring up comparable situations in unhelpful, irrelevant ways, but if so, it needs to be explained how—not met with a lazy label like "whataboutism", which is a blanket that can smother a good argument just as well as a bad one.
Btw, internet users are orders-of-magnitude too quick to jump to the conclusion that they're dealing with "disinformation campaigns" and that sort of thing. As far as I can tell, most of the time they're just encountering other, equally disgruntled internet users who happen to have the opposing view of a topic and feel just as strongly about it. But even if it's a sinister campaigner masquerading as a disgruntled internet user, the solution is still what I described in the previous paragraph. That's the only thing that can work in the long run.
There's another, highly underrated and effective way to respond, though, and that is to simply ignore it and walk away. Responding to these things feeds them. If people would simply starve bad information/arguments of attention, they would fizzle out.
The firehose of bullshit makes responding to every bad argument untenable. It's a DDoS of online discussion. Making a counterargument is one strategy against toxic and harmful online content, but it's not the only one and not always an effective or appropriate one.
>That's the only thing that can work in the long run.
The only thing that works in the long run is removing and banning those who engage (knowingly or otherwise) in disinformation distribution.
> There's another, highly underrated and effective way to respond, though, and that is to simply ignore it and walk away. Responding to these things feeds them.
This is demonstrably false. As a particularly bad example, Rwanda learned this one the hard way. Russia wants Ukraine to lose popular support - if that happens many more innocent people will die than would otherwise. Ignoring the guy on the radio who tries to make others question you and wants to cause you harm will not prevent the machete from slicing you open.
>If people would simply starve bad information/arguments of attention, they would fizzle out.
They get even less attention when the material is removed and the user reasonable prevented from spreading more of it. This isn't high school debate club, it's a nation-state that wants to kill its neighbor's civilians.
People highlight instances of whataboutism to inform others and to point it out to moderators. Punishing them for doing that is clearly the objectively wrong thing to do.
Usually when people post things that they know are against the majority view, they compensate by adding extra invective or vitriol into their post. Then the post gets flagged or moderated, but because of the invective/vitriol, not because it's a minority view. It's not easy to find a way out of this dynamic but I think it's the most common case.
Past explanations about this:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
That leaves me the option of not saying anything, getting modded down/flagged for pointing out blatant hypocrisy, or spending an hour crafting a long-winded comment that is either murky enough to confuse possible down votes, or clearly boils down to the simple controversial statement that many don't like, at which point it bites the dust anyway. So, where's the incentive to do better?
In my experience, the "vitriol" usually comes the above dynamic plays for the nth time, which is the opposite of what you are saying.
Maybe you are unable to recognise this because it appeals to your own biases. Or maybe you do but it simply suits you. Either way, I am not entirely convinced that I should take your opinions at face value and assume good faith no matter what.
I believe a word was missed out at a crucial point so I'm also struggling with the point. (The caps are for clarity with my request, not some kind of slap down! I'm genuinely interested).
Not always but mostly, I'd say.
But with topics where there is a media and government wide push against ‘desinformation’ like during COVID, a statement like ‘two weeks to stop the spread doesn’t work’ or ‘the vaccines will not end the pandemic’ the hivemind medical science parrots will very swiftly act to kill and bury this dissent under the proscribed talking points. And yes, that is frustrating and causes crass reactions.
Especially the pandemic really has opened my eyes to a very significant weakness in our society, media, governance and scientific institutions and in the general common sense of the population and its willingness to be manipulated. And it reflects in this site. And it’s not limited to COVID, there are many topics that are just untouchable like most of Woke.
That is not a criticism of the moderation team, it’s on the people who vote on comments and I don’t have a solution either. Personally I just don’t care about the points and try to remain reasonably distant to avoid becoming toxic.
Unless, of course, the topic at hand happens to be a hot issue in the US. At which point anything outside the established narratives (the propaganda) bites the dust almost immediately.