Comment by XiJInPaddington | Hacker News Reader

Comment by XiJInPaddington | Hacker News Reader

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XiJInPaddington

It's strange to me how any censorship from Facebook is savaged on this site but I rarely see censorship on HackerNews criticized. This website habitually shadowbans people and controversial comments are hidden as if they never existed. The mods here explicitly warn people against rocking the boat, all in the name of "preserving what this site is for". The disparity is very odd to me. In many ways it seems like people are totally fine with censorship, until someone they don't like or agree with is doing the censorship. At the very least Facebook will tell you they are censoring you. Shadowbanning, a prevalent practice on HN, I think is even worse and more abusive, yet it seems the majority of users here don't have an issue with this. Maybe I'm missing something, but from my perspective the hypocrisy is laughable.

Edit: I think people are missing the point. I don't particularly disagree with any of the replies. HN's commentary is pretty superb in part due to censorship and I agree that without a big stick being used open communities turn to trash. My question is though, why are people defending the mods here but when FB tries to do the same thing, we act like FB is some cyber Gestapo out to dominate speech on the web. It boils down to HN good, FB bad; it's shallow and hypocritical. And I maintain that shadowbanning is an abusive practice. If a user's behavior is such that the user can no longer participate, the user ought to know this. Shadowbanning is like internet gaslamping. You are telling the user one thing while the reality of the situation is different. Websites should not be playing these mind games with their users.

Everyone on HN exists in the same space. If you post something, a significant portion of users will see it. Most socials usually only show your content to people who opted into seeing it or otherwise came across it in a non-trivial way. With a click of a button you can auto-hide content you don't like.

A HN account doesn't have much value. Unless commenting on HN is what gives you joy in life, you won't be impacted much if you lose it. Major socials can be a big part of one's identity, the way one communicates with friends, work and businesses. The "value" of your account grows with usage. There's no chat on HN, no follower graphs or whatever. Pretty sure most HNers don't even notice usernames on here.

I do believe any business has the absolute right to censor anything they want. But in case of FB, Twitter etc too much censorship [0] compromises the value proposition. On HN it is the value proposition.

For the record, yes, I do think they're self sabotaging and will eventually pay the price. I'm guessing the demise will look much more like IBM rather than Myspace.

[0] For example, it makes perfect sense to ban people who actively harass others. Most users don't want to deal with too much nastiness, it reduces the value of your platform.

Maybe you've never had to deal with determined trolls?

I won't say HN is perfect and there are no false positives, but they are doing pretty well considering being out numbered a thousand to one. Most of the time I investigate a dead or banned individual, I think, yep makes sense. While it's felt a bit heavy-handed at times, I haven't found a place with better discussion on average.

> This website habitually shadowbans people and controversial comments are hidden as if they never existed.

First off, enable showdead to see the shadowbanned users. I vouch for their posts sometimes, because sometimes they're good posts. But a great deal of them aren't really here to be a part of the conversation. It's not censorship, it's curation, and I think HN is better for it. Want trolls? Hit up 4chan or something.

I didn't realize that was an option - thanks for the hint.

Do people really think HN would be a better community without strict moderation?

Within a year HN would fill up with trolls, commercial spammers, bigots, and culture warriors of all stripes.

As a result HN would lose a large portion of its industry veterans and nerdy academics.

Within two years, the site would be like every other garbage heap on the internet.

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