Personally I fall more on the former side. Whatever your stance, the tech industry is going through a deep existential moment right now
I still have Facebook but even then, over the holidays I saw the feeds of some older relatives and it was unlike anything I’ve seen before. An absolute mess of corrosive disinformation. Even knowing about it, I still don’t know it well. I don’t live in it. I can’t speak about it authoritatively. And it’s not even like, say, a subreddit. You can’t wander in and take a look, it’s all private to the user.
I don’t know whether the current censorship moves are wise or not, but as a group we’re not exposed to the reason the censorship is taking place. The HN crowd tends to lean towards free speech absolutism (as does the internet at large), which feels like a good reflex in general. But there’s mitigating context here and I don’t know that we (as a group) are the best people to talk to it.
HN is social media, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
My social circle is full of people that deleted FB. But when I step outside that circle not being on FB is very rare.
I don't think a typical HN participant is deleting their FB account and then telling people to follow them on Instagram.
HN readers know that Instagram is owned by FB.
Another good bit of willful ignorance is that “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product not the customer” seems to not apply to HN.
The big problem with Facebook and Twitter is a potent mix of incentive for controversy, algorithmic amplification, and groupthink bubbles. These problems exist elsewhere as well, so it's not like it's all social media (eg. television news networks in an age of unlimited media choice), but I don't think HN is a useful example to understand any of the macro-dynamics of todays information culture and political landscape.
The forums that I used to use simply made the top shown comments/threads the most recent activity.
The default HN view is clearly based on some algorithm to calculate what is "worth" being on the front page. I read the high comment topics, and there is a ton of groupthink and pushing controversy.
This is also why the HN effect is even a concept. There are enough people here watching controversial topics to hug a modern website to death.
I'm amazed that people still act surprised that these platforms are used for hostile disinformation when that's basically their business model. (At least YouTube lets you pay to get rid of ads, although you lose even more privacy on the way.)
Edit: And to add something constructive, I think the only way out is for the EU (where I'm based) to fund a free, public, encrypted messenger service to free its citizens from WhatsApp, and maybe more services later. Social media has become the public space, for better or for worse, and at the very least it needs to be regulated like a utility.
Some of the participants on HN are some of the those who've build the big tech industry. It's always important to keep in mind that HN is more than just "big tech" and that "big tech" is more than just HN. Just as it's important when we're categorizing or characterizing any sufficiently large community.
I am fairly certain what the parent comments meant was that the people on HN are a significant portion of the talent (note: talent != headcount) of big tech.
HN is a fantastic resource for learning about new tech. And being curious around technology is usually a sign that you're much above average.
In less heated times when people are engaged in good-faith debate, we can be more lax with our language. From the discussions of the past few days, that's clearly not the case right now. We're unlikely to get past this without first being more nuanced ourselves.
Social media is rough and polarizing, but on balance I expect history will see it as a positive with growing pains.
Also, the funniest line ever told starts with “Open and shut case, Johnson. I saw this once before when I was a rookie.”
What an unbelievably patronizing worldview.
Personally, I think classical industry should act in kind, and refuse to sell gasoline, clothes, electricity, food, etc. to anyone who gave voice to BLM. Let's see who wins this tiresome war of refusing to do business with anyone whom we disagree.
You might argue that 7% has already lost an org credibility, but that's still 93% of protests that were peaceful.
Also, if you were black, how many George Floyd-esque videos do you think it would take you to see before you got physically angry? (Note that I'm partially blaming the media optimizing for outrage, here)
6th street in Austin is completely gone. People who live in major metros may not understand this, but rural America is laughing at them. These cities are national embarrassments.
But that's not the point. The point is the sheer arrogance required to believe that they're qualified to control what people are allowed to read.
These same people can't even keep their cities from being burned down, 50+% increases in murder rates, fecal matter on the streets, people leaving in droves... I'm supposed to listen to them? Really?
But if 90% of Twitter was run by Republicans who lived exclusively in rural areas, would you like it if they deplatformed Biden?
Would that be construed as offensive? Because that exact scenario is happening in reverse. People at tech companies in San Francisco who vote 90+% Democrat have just kicked off the Republican president of the United States. They've been talking about it for years, and this event is just pretext.
The issue with Trump isn’t his politics but his policy. I agree with his politics, we are both nominally Republican after all, but when he goes to implement it the policy is incompetent at best and actively harmful at worst.
For example, both Trump and I support the ideal of strong Republican leadership. I want to achieve that via elections, he aimed to achieve that through illegal power grabs attempts at last 4 years capped off with inciting a violent riot against his political opponents.
He has simply gone too far.
He stood in front of a crowd and told them to seize the party for himself, then after the riot called them patriots and told them they are loved.
Vast majorities of Republican voters believe that Biden stole the election. Scarily huge majorities of Republican voters believe that something approaching Civil War is possible. Similar numbers exist that believe Democrats were trying to invalidate the 2016 election with their calls for impeachment before Trump even took office.
If San Francisco had any diversity of thought at all, it would understand how damaging their petty bans and disclaimers have been. But it doesn't. The perverse reality is that San Francisco has become an echo chamber.
I’ve been to Austin and to 6th Street. Tragic.
> These same people
They’re us. We’re all the same people. Maybe try asking them why they’re upset first before going “WHY do THOSE PEOPLE have to act like this?”