Would you please quote the exact words that made you think the authors are inviting people to downvote people who speak in favour of RMS?
The message is clear: HN has a "bias" (according to them) and their readers must take action in order to discuss it.
It could be that readers here disagree with them, it could be that readers don't buy their attempt at character assassination, instead they play victims as if there was a grand conspiracy to keep a homeless old man with cancer at the head of a nonprofit.
It’s quite remarkable what kind of bullshit excuses people come up with when they feel the urge to defend their heroes. Nobody is denying his achievements or any other other things about him you claim (well, maybe except “homeless” – he definitely isn’t that). But he is still a person in a position of power who has been systematically abusing this power over the course of decades according to many credible witnesses, not all of them anonymous. Heck, some of it is even on video.
But don’t let me stop you and keep crying “character assassination.” I mean, what world would be we living in if we held powerful men responsible for their actions?
(In fact, one change desired by is for powerful men to stop reflexively responding to allegations like these by protecting each other and being more skeptical of unsubstantiated pleas of innocence, given the statistics that we know on the nature of sexual assault allegations).
They did in another post ask for people to "Don't necessarily upvote it -- just "vouch" for it if you think it's on-topic."
By the way the report is pretty solid.
Instant 100+ upvotes out of nowhere. A bunch of new accounts posting supportive messages that after checking about 20 of them had posted on the sub before and just magically appeared. Downvotes to anything asking questions.
There is one infamous mastodon troll "developer" that can't get enough of themselves and I would put money on them being involved in this, if you know you know.
This is telling. They don't want discourse, they want to silence and bully everyone who disagrees with them so only they are allowed to speak.
All they have is anonymous accusations with zero proof, an off-context quote regarding an MIT professor, off-color jokes made 50 years ago and a couple of (retracted) opinions that are no worse than the things being said by prominent philosophers like Michel Foucault and Simone de Beauvoir.