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Comment by bavell | Hacker News Reader

I'll be frank - I couldn't give a rat's ass about Weiss or Taibii. I'm not familiar with them and they're obviously trying to squeeze as much juice out of this story as they can.

However, I see a lot of people here dismissing the wider and (imo) more valid complaints about veiled moderation tactics by beating up these two and calling it a day, case closed. I don't care what specific narrow definition twitter chose on a whim in some blog post and I'm not concerned with strictly "shadow-banning". The fact is, these global influence platforms are easy to subvert by immensely powerful interests (state actors, billionaires, etc) and the power we're placing in these people's hands is incredible, way beyond what any authoritarian dictator of yesteryear could even dream up. And when how the sausage is made is ever so slightly exposed, it's dismissed and hand-waved away.

What could go wrong?

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Basically every forum uses veiled moderation tactics out of the argument that if they unveiled their techniques then they'd be defeated. Which is what dang argues on Hacker News; in fact, you can't even see if there are penalties on your HN account.

The thread is about the false claims Weiss is making, not about your own opinions on moderation. What you should do, if you want to share those, is start a new top-level thread on this story. I'm sure what you have to say is germane to the story. It's just not germane to the thread you're commenting on.

OP made many points and I responded to one in particular with my opinion. Seems germane to me, although point taken about starting a top-level thread for better visibility/discussion.

You seem very set on keeping this top level thread on the topic you believe you won the argument on, and are refusing to discuss anything else in a very condescending tone. Just thought you should know your thinly veiled attempts at controlling the conversation to "win" aren't going unnoticed.

I'll also add that you're wrong about the topic of the thread, bavell's point is absolutely on topic and the only reason you're refusing to engage and call his argument a red herring is because you know he's right and don't want to admit it.

If a person makes an argument, and you rebut it with a bunch of unrelated arguments, the original arguer isn't obligated to address the unrelated arguments. You think they are, but in fact, that's the coercive argument, not mine.

The assumptive close might sell a used car, but "you just won't admit it" isn't especially persuasive on a message board.

If I wanted to control the debate (or however you'd choose to put it) on this benighted subject, all I'd have to do is keep posting on the thread, which immediately and thankfully got yanked off the front page by the flamewar detector. Oh, wait. You caught me! :)

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