The country may be collapsing but don't worry. Hackernews' anti controversy systems will ensure nothing gets to the front page to force you to confront anything uncomfortable
> UC Berkeley gives personal information for 150 students and staff to government ...
Why is this being argued as a bad thing? If there is one constant in even mild socialism it's that government has access (and uses) everyone's data, exactly for the reason Trump is using it.
This happens, as a matter of course, where I'm from (Northwest Europe). Oh and sure, when I was studying it was mostly to find actual fascists (you know, actually openly pro-Hitler), but I've been told this has expanded. Schools are far from the only ones who do this, the government "youth houses" do the same (report the political ideas of everyone who comes by to the police commissioner. They have forms and everything. Extremists or thieves are to be reported immediately)
m-watson · 1h ago
I would love to see dang weigh in here just out of curiosity AND see how many people or if people are using the vouch mechanism if they can. Because this post doesn't have an insignificant upvote count and has actual conversation happening in the comments.
uncircle · 20m ago
Don't use the vouch mechanism, it's a trap. I've had it disabled on my other account because I vouched "flame-bait" and thus I was revoked of the privileges, as dang explained to me via email, and I quote: "we took vouching privileges away from your account because you vouched for too many comments that were unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or otherwise broke the site guidelines"
The Hacker News stance of "users can flag posts, it's none of our doing" I bet is a complete fabrication, and it's conveniently used by the moderators to hide hot-button topics. Not saying that's necessarily bad, but I feel the moderation team could be a little more honest with their "censorship" process, instead of trying to convince us it's all an organic, user-driven process.
You can vouch these posts at your own risk; just make sure you toe the party line, or you'll have the privilege revoked.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 1h ago
> if people are using the vouch mechanism if they can
Nobody can vouch the post right now because it is not [dead]. At this point, if one wants the flag to be removed, the only way is to email hn@ycombinator.com for them to remove it manually at their discretion.
> Because this post doesn't have an insignificant upvote count and has actual conversation happening in the comments.
This isn't really relevant to the post being [flagged]. That happens when enough people click "flag" on the post. It will go to [flagged][dead] first, then people can vouch and it will drop them both, then, if more people flag it, it will become [flagged] again. It might be more complicated than that but I've seen that pattern a fair amount and I'm pretty sure the only way for a post to be [flagged] is for it to be, well, flagged.
m-watson · 50m ago
Thanks for that I was mistaken about how the vouch process worked. I thought vouching could work for flagged as well since fagged can lead to removal.
mitch3x3 · 2h ago
If I wanted to see posts like this I could go to literally any other social media site. The reason I come here is to have stuff like this filtered out.
duxup · 2h ago
There are a lot of articles I don't care for on HN. Outside straight advertising and scams, I don't flag them. That's life, stuff you don't want to see sometimes.
Sometimes I even open those articles wondering what everyone is talking about and sometimes it turns out to be worthwhile, sometimes not.
Karrot_Kream · 43m ago
It's not the articles themselves. It's the quality of the commentary that comes from them. IMO these highly charged topics are very corrosive to the culture of a site. The people that post the hyper emotional comments on these posts and get rewarded in upvotes start doing the same thing throughout the site. Also in my experience if I post a low effort political comment I get much more karma from the crowd than a high effort technical post. What does that do for content incentives?
It's my belief that the recent growth in both user count and highly emotionally charged low quality content on this site is directly proportional to the amount of hot button issues on this site. A decent amount of folks use this site as yet another culture war front.
IMO these kinds of discussions need much, much more moderation than HN does to be productive. That's not a knock on HN moderation, it was never meant to be a structured debate platform. But taking a lightly moderated site and inundating it with hot button high emotion posts will not go well.
jleyank · 2h ago
Isn’t it easier to just put your fingers in your ears, shut your eyes, and go la-la-la? Some of us prefer to see what’s going on, particularly when the HN community might be people making the situation worse. Not every bit of software is helpful, and “data”in the wrong hands can be fatal.
cloverich · 1h ago
That's literally every other site. The reason you can't see high quality HN style comments on those sites, is because they don't block stuff like this. And quality goes exactly where you'd expect. You can't get quality commentary on charged political topics on a mostly unmoderated online forum. You need dedicated groups and in depth moderation.
Like it or not life does go on regardless of political complex and so long as we're working, we need more than _just_ politics in our news feeds. That's what HN is.
Jensson · 51m ago
> Some of us prefer to see what’s going on
And you can see that anywhere else, why should every site talk about the same things?
saubeidl · 49m ago
Because American democracy is literally being dismantled as we speak???
Jensson · 37m ago
But this event was already covered, there is no need to also have this opinion piece as well. You can just read this thread which isn't flagged:
I don’t use any other social media site. I use this one because I want to have meaningful discussions on things relating to hacker culture
And what could be more relevant to hacker culture than authoritarian takeovers? Is not the entire hacker spirit one that pushes back against someone who tells you that you can’t do X or Y?
How long until the administration turns its focus from late night hosts to hackers who are also publishing things the administration does not want you to know?
sidibe · 2h ago
The YC leadership is the people doing the collapsing. Theyve been living for Elon retweets and replies for a while
saubeidl · 2h ago
It's not just anti-controversy systems. It's deliberate censorship efforts by digital brownshirts.
It is good to see there are principled organisations defending free speech.
seydor · 3h ago
It s more than that. The fact that they did not conceal that they publicly coerced the tv station to fire him serves as a warning to other media.
No comments yet
Synaesthesia · 3h ago
I can't believe he got cancelled for such a mild statement.
karakot · 2h ago
When you get cancelled by the goverment it's censorship.
saubeidl · 3h ago
The right wing has exposed their hypocrisy on free speech and cancel culture for the whole world to see. It was never about principles, it was always just self-serving agitprop.
gjsman-1000 · 3h ago
All you had to do was look at Reddit or BlueSky after the shooting; and I think they popped a nerve.
In the meantime, the CEOs of Discord, Reddit, Twitch, and Steam have been casually "invited" to Congress to have a little chat this October. Personally, I'm expecting Discord's CEO (considering his background at McKinsey, need for blame shifting, spotting the most vulnerable person in the room) to make Huffman look like an idiot and start acting like a Redditor. There's no way Huffman manages to overcome his lack of interview experience, 20 years of Reddit brain, and decade of being the CEO responsible for everything, when needled.
red-iron-pine · 46m ago
facebook, apple, palantir, twitter have all bent the knee or are otherwise locked down by leadership -- they will tow the line.
these are the next steps in locking down the online discussion realm.
they will eventually go after places like tumblr and roblox next.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
But the Twitter files!
throw310822 · 2h ago
The twitter files were also bad. Not as bad as the stuff Trump is doing, but still bad.
kawfey · 1h ago
ABC/Disney made the choice to pull Kimmel, bent at the knee in fear of losing their broadcast license. That decision itself is one worth questioning...what if they didn't? Would the FCC actually do it? If they did, how many lawsuits would come their way since that's the greatest infringement of the First Amendment the US has ever witnessed? Wouldn't ABC, the public, and the First Amendment win out massively at the end?
What if that bit of libertarian anarchy played out?
ABC ignores the backlash and threats, and keeps Kimmel on the air, maybe even encouraging speech against those bullies and hatred. Then FCC pulls their license, but ABC keeps broadcasting. Their pirate broadcasts would escalate both sides even further: stoking a great groundswell of support for the freedom of speech from liberals/the left, a storm of legal battles representing We The People v. the Government would form, and a massive (possibly violent) outcry from far-right conservatives and nationalists. What happens then would redefine our nation. Would corporations back ABC and capitalism retake the reins, and grassroots efforts steer the misguided Right back to normalcy? Or would an explosive sabotage and a bloody battle over the fate of our nation take place before any progress, or regression, would happen?
As much of a work of fiction as that sounds, it's almost more believable given the timeline we're already on.
delichon · 1h ago
SCOTUS ruled 6-3 last year in Murthy v. Missouri that the states lacked standing to sue the government for first amendment violations from pressuring speech platforms to moderate. I'm afraid that decision will effectively immunize the FCC from pressuring ABC in this case. The states were found not to have the necessary injury, causation, or redressability. Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch dissented.
k310 · 1h ago
The tech industry largely thrives on basic freedoms, especially freedom of speech, and on university innovation, both of which are under direct attack.
Those who cry that these are "no concern" of tech and Hacker News won't be happy when their projects and companies are shut down in order to do eugenics "research" or to turn their work into ways of sequestering and managing inmates of what are already concentration camps[0]
Hacker News and the industry are reduced to rubber stamps and prison administrators when basic freedoms are lost.
This is one of the reasons that large-scale corporate ownership of media is very bad for citizens, and very good for oppressive governments. The FCC can make one phone call to one powerful person running one large corporate entity. If the same couple corporations own all the media (almost where we are today), it’s trivial for the government to shut down one voice.
ABC doesn’t give a shit about truth, fairness, journalism, or any such fuzzy concepts. They want short-term profits and long-term media monopolies, so cancelling one comedian or another makes no difference to them.
This is what fascism actually is — a blending of corporate and government power for the benefit of both, and against the interests of citizens.
hellcow · 2h ago
For a historical reference of another famous censorship, here’s the front page of the NY Times in Feb 1939, reporting that Goebbels ended the career of 5 actors for “witticisms” made about the Nazis: https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-ca...
tim333 · 1h ago
>Goebbels today ended the professional careers of five "Aryan" actors ... on the grounds that “in their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance...
seems quite similar to Brendan Carr having Kimmel removed for a lack of positive attitude towards Trump and MAGA.
duxup · 3h ago
I remember in Murthy v. Missouri you had lawyers and politicans on the right arguing that even just a phone call to a reporter or social media company qualified as coercion. Even a few right wing SCOTUS judges agreed with them ...
Now we have every branch of government deployed by right wing politicians targeting individuals speech.
We have the government forcing media companies to sell to their cronies ...
We have the FCC chairman making threats taking issue with speech they don't like.
Trump threatening reporters with investigation because they asked a question he didn't like.
I guess they're ok with that as long as it's their people.
josefritzishere · 1h ago
The most enduring quality of fascism so far is how pervasively stupid it is. I fear for the future.
Synaesthesia · 1h ago
We have to fight against this.
eth0up · 25m ago
Man, I lean right. Always will even if I fall off a cliff. But the main reason I do is the Republic and Constitution. Free speech is sacred, and I think Jimmy is a wanker. But I'll be damned if I silence the guy, or don't defend his right to be a wanker. So yeah, this is going to dark places.
robertheadley · 2h ago
He didn't even criticize Kirk. The criticism was levied against Trump / The Republican party.
Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting ‘‘misinformation,’’ ‘‘disinformation,’’ and ‘‘malinformation,’’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to:
(a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;
(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;
(c) ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and
(d) identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.
Sec. 3. Ending Censorship of Protected Speech. (a) No Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary to section 2 of this order.
bb88 · 23m ago
Have you read the North Korean constitution?
ARTICLE 13. Citizens of the D.P.R.K. have freedom of speech, the press, association,
assembly, mass meetings and demonstration.
Citizens are guaranteed the right to organize and unite in democratic political parties, trade
unions, cooperative organizations, sports, cultural, technical, scientific and other societies.
eth0up · 2h ago
Unless the innocuous quote in tfa is what was said (I'm not sure I could believe it if so), can someone please post an exact quote of what all the fuss is about?
Kimmel: We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately
trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other
than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
Kimmel: In between the fingerpointing there was uh grieving on Friday. The White House
flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level
you can see how hard the president is taking this.
Reporter: "My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. May I ask sir
personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir?"
POTUS47: "I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They've
just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is
something they've been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it's
going to be a beauty."
Kimmel: Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction.
The country may be collapsing but don't worry. Hackernews' anti controversy systems will ensure nothing gets to the front page to force you to confront anything uncomfortable
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/active
Others: Trump designates anti-fascist Antifa movement as a terrorist organization https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-targets-antifa-moveme... UC Berkeley gives personal information for 150 students and staff to government https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/uc-berkeley-turns-over-...
Why is this being argued as a bad thing? If there is one constant in even mild socialism it's that government has access (and uses) everyone's data, exactly for the reason Trump is using it.
This happens, as a matter of course, where I'm from (Northwest Europe). Oh and sure, when I was studying it was mostly to find actual fascists (you know, actually openly pro-Hitler), but I've been told this has expanded. Schools are far from the only ones who do this, the government "youth houses" do the same (report the political ideas of everyone who comes by to the police commissioner. They have forms and everything. Extremists or thieves are to be reported immediately)
The Hacker News stance of "users can flag posts, it's none of our doing" I bet is a complete fabrication, and it's conveniently used by the moderators to hide hot-button topics. Not saying that's necessarily bad, but I feel the moderation team could be a little more honest with their "censorship" process, instead of trying to convince us it's all an organic, user-driven process.
You can vouch these posts at your own risk; just make sure you toe the party line, or you'll have the privilege revoked.
Nobody can vouch the post right now because it is not [dead]. At this point, if one wants the flag to be removed, the only way is to email hn@ycombinator.com for them to remove it manually at their discretion.
> Because this post doesn't have an insignificant upvote count and has actual conversation happening in the comments.
This isn't really relevant to the post being [flagged]. That happens when enough people click "flag" on the post. It will go to [flagged][dead] first, then people can vouch and it will drop them both, then, if more people flag it, it will become [flagged] again. It might be more complicated than that but I've seen that pattern a fair amount and I'm pretty sure the only way for a post to be [flagged] is for it to be, well, flagged.
Sometimes I even open those articles wondering what everyone is talking about and sometimes it turns out to be worthwhile, sometimes not.
It's my belief that the recent growth in both user count and highly emotionally charged low quality content on this site is directly proportional to the amount of hot button issues on this site. A decent amount of folks use this site as yet another culture war front.
IMO these kinds of discussions need much, much more moderation than HN does to be productive. That's not a knock on HN moderation, it was never meant to be a structured debate platform. But taking a lightly moderated site and inundating it with hot button high emotion posts will not go well.
Like it or not life does go on regardless of political complex and so long as we're working, we need more than _just_ politics in our news feeds. That's what HN is.
And you can see that anywhere else, why should every site talk about the same things?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45282482
And what could be more relevant to hacker culture than authoritarian takeovers? Is not the entire hacker spirit one that pushes back against someone who tells you that you can’t do X or Y?
How long until the administration turns its focus from late night hosts to hackers who are also publishing things the administration does not want you to know?
It is good to see there are principled organisations defending free speech.
No comments yet
In the meantime, the CEOs of Discord, Reddit, Twitch, and Steam have been casually "invited" to Congress to have a little chat this October. Personally, I'm expecting Discord's CEO (considering his background at McKinsey, need for blame shifting, spotting the most vulnerable person in the room) to make Huffman look like an idiot and start acting like a Redditor. There's no way Huffman manages to overcome his lack of interview experience, 20 years of Reddit brain, and decade of being the CEO responsible for everything, when needled.
these are the next steps in locking down the online discussion realm.
they will eventually go after places like tumblr and roblox next.
What if that bit of libertarian anarchy played out?
ABC ignores the backlash and threats, and keeps Kimmel on the air, maybe even encouraging speech against those bullies and hatred. Then FCC pulls their license, but ABC keeps broadcasting. Their pirate broadcasts would escalate both sides even further: stoking a great groundswell of support for the freedom of speech from liberals/the left, a storm of legal battles representing We The People v. the Government would form, and a massive (possibly violent) outcry from far-right conservatives and nationalists. What happens then would redefine our nation. Would corporations back ABC and capitalism retake the reins, and grassroots efforts steer the misguided Right back to normalcy? Or would an explosive sabotage and a bloody battle over the fate of our nation take place before any progress, or regression, would happen?
As much of a work of fiction as that sounds, it's almost more believable given the timeline we're already on.
Those who cry that these are "no concern" of tech and Hacker News won't be happy when their projects and companies are shut down in order to do eugenics "research" or to turn their work into ways of sequestering and managing inmates of what are already concentration camps[0]
Hacker News and the industry are reduced to rubber stamps and prison administrators when basic freedoms are lost.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
ABC doesn’t give a shit about truth, fairness, journalism, or any such fuzzy concepts. They want short-term profits and long-term media monopolies, so cancelling one comedian or another makes no difference to them.
This is what fascism actually is — a blending of corporate and government power for the benefit of both, and against the interests of citizens.
seems quite similar to Brendan Carr having Kimmel removed for a lack of positive attitude towards Trump and MAGA.
Now we have every branch of government deployed by right wing politicians targeting individuals speech.
We have them placed as employees in news organizations, required by the government, as "bias monitors". https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-fcc-cbs-ne...
We have the government forcing media companies to sell to their cronies ...
We have the FCC chairman making threats taking issue with speech they don't like.
Trump threatening reporters with investigation because they asked a question he didn't like.
I guess they're ok with that as long as it's their people.
Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting ‘‘misinformation,’’ ‘‘disinformation,’’ and ‘‘malinformation,’’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to:
(a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;
(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;
(c) ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and
(d) identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.
Sec. 3. Ending Censorship of Protected Speech. (a) No Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary to section 2 of this order.
ARTICLE 13. Citizens of the D.P.R.K. have freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, mass meetings and demonstration. Citizens are guaranteed the right to organize and unite in democratic political parties, trade unions, cooperative organizations, sports, cultural, technical, scientific and other societies.
https://youtu.be/-j3YdxNSzTk?t=123
Kimmel: In between the fingerpointing there was uh grieving on Friday. The White House flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this.
Reporter: "My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. May I ask sir personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir?"
POTUS47: "I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They've just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it's going to be a beauty."
Kimmel: Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction.