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Comment by cmeacham98 | Hacker News Reader

This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality. Everyone on HN can uovote and votes are how voices get magnified. If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section.

The reality is this is adverse selection: those users probably weren't interested in a post about updates to GA, and didn't click it.

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>This idea there is some "silent majority" of pro-tracking and pro-ad HN users doesn't track with reality.

Not anti-ads and tracking doesn't mean those are pro-ads or pro-tracking.

>If that was the case we'd expect the odd pro-ad/tracking comment to always be near the top of the comments section.

It often takes lots of courage to post something contrarian. That is why it rarely happens.

> Everyone on HN can uovote

I don't believe that's true. I'm pretty sure it's a no-op for me.

Ok, here's proof for whoever downvoted me.

I made a new account, wrote a message, upvoted it with my current account.. and no change in points. I never see any message become black or "less grey" after upvote + refresh. It is a no-op for me.

https://i.imgur.com/ettYnxX.png

HN likely does something to prevent vote manipulation from using multiple accounts coming from the same IP. That doesn't exclude the possiblity that your account had a flag to desregard votes before. I personally dislike this kind of hidden moderation like shadow banning. I know people will defend them saying that they are needed to deal with spammers but that does not make them any less dishonest when they invitably affect genuine users.

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