CmdrTacoLives

And there's a big difference between pseudonymous and an email address. The first permits anonymity which promotes free expression, while the second tends to inhibit, even if the email is not visible to other users. Enforced verification via email provides a heavy trackable target for those with access to these things. Real journalists know this well.

You can always start your own message board and control all users and comments yourself. That's the only way to try to ensure that you won't be annoyed, but even then some old friend can come along and mess up your day.

Never saw a swastika there, but if that's not being moderated, then the "moderators," if any, clearly don't care to have anyone reading nor posting legitimate comments. The site owners just want PR space for rah-rah about new tech. I don't care to bother with researching the history, but maybe someone can confirm whether Slashdot was "purchased" or something.

Thanks.

There's always chaff in every message board. Slashdot comments used to bring occasional kernels of truth, which were worth it to me. My attention waned when Anonymous Cowards were no longer allowed. Email sign-in has a chilling effect on "free speech" and that, along with getting flagged for posting facts, is always the signal for me to stop wasting time with anything even slightly controversial on a message board.

Thanks

My post above has lasted for five minutes without being flagged. But is anyone else seeing it?

When I recently posted replies to an HN thread that the Internet had been originally created by DARPA, and that the current controllers had no interest in free speech, e.g. Twitter and Facebook, my posts were immediately flagged. Since both facts are obvious and freely available, my posts were flagged because they contained ideas that either the HN moderators did not like, or did not want anyone to consider, or both.

Looks like HN is tending toward Slashdot's heavy censorship program. The golden days of CmdrTaco are over. That program has ruined open expression at Slashdot and it now reads like bald PR and advertising, which is why I don't bother with it anymore.

Too bad for Slashdot, and too bad for HN.