Disappointed how quickly this post and the related one got flagged and in the other case was dead. I find it fascinating to read and don’t think either are necessarily deserving that? But if it does violate a rule or something greater, I would love to be educated.
He deflagged the other post and let discussion proceed. I've had numerous comments flagged and have been super annoyed by dang's comments in the past, but he's generally acting in good faith and trying to keep the conversation civil and productive. I also think he works super hard to maintain the site, no need to be a dick to him even if you disagree with some of his views.
And not sure if Dang will read this but I am curious the right balance here. The topic is ongoing and sensitive but something about posts getting instantly flagged sits wrong with me. At least when I don’t see how the contents were immoral or wrong. At the very least I would hope the HN community could help educate me on why it’s right or wrong.
Only brining it up because I would like to discuss the topic and not create a flame war in the process.
Deranking is different than dead though right? The other post was live for maybe a minute. I get the flame war prevention but this feels more like individuals killing ideas they don’t agree with. I don’t have skin in the game. Just curious.
It happens all the time here. I use a feed reader for HN so I see just about everything before it’s flagged or killed as it trickles in. There are posts that get quickly flagged and killed that definitely follow guidelines, but perhaps the article’s author might not have an acceptable HN community opinion on some other topic, and boom within minutes they are flagged enough to stop commentary and bury the article.
No, that's not what "targeted" means, you're just making that up. In this context, targeted means he was attacked because he was in some list/satisfied some criterion.
That is a great writeup. Shame https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572675 wasn’t given some front page time. It seems squarely in the "new phenomenon" territory of the guidelines, since tech investors coordinating to fire employees is historically unique.
I am Jewish, appalled by Paul’s tweets, but lazy and don’t do anything about it.
I fail to see how other Jewish people, that are similarly appalled, but more activist in nature about trying to work together to push back on rising antisemitism, is anything nefarious.
"I fail to see how other Russian people, who are similarly appalled but more activist in nature about trying to work together to push back on rising anti-russian sentiment, is anything nefarious."
"I fail to see how other Chinese people, who are similarly appalled but more activist in nature about trying to work together to push back on rising anti-chinese sentiment, is anything nefarious."
"I fail to see how other Saudi people, who are similarly appalled but more activist in nature about trying to work together to push back on rising anti-saudi sentiment, is anything nefarious."
...Once a state actor is involved, you have become the devil you swore to fight.
Please don't cross into attacking someone else on HN. This topic is extremely inflammatory, so you can be sure that the other person will feel your comment as many times more aggressive than you intended it.
Needless to say this goes equally for both sides of the argument.
Dan I wish you would address such remarks to the person who makes the first move rather than people who react to it. Alleging that pg was 'trashing his rep' (without saying why) is the epitome of flamebait, but you have a long-standing pattern of chiding people for taking the bait rather than the person throwing it out. This rewards baitposting.
You put this way better than I ever could. It’s a sentiment I’ve felt has been true for a long time at HN and I’ve never been able to properly put it into words.
Dang has actively called me out on doing what I did today before - which is react to what amounts to racist and xenophobic posts that are allowed on HN.
I am not baitposting or flamebaiting, nor do I think it's fair to say I am the one that made the "first move". To be clear:
1. Paul has, all on his own, decided to wade into an extremely controversial political topic.
2. Many Jewish people (not including myself, until now) have publicly called him out on how they perceive his tweets.
3. Paul has now publicly accused, on a tweet with 1.3M views, the reactions to his tweets as manufactured "astroturfing", leading to someone else posting it here.
4. The person that I responded to said that it's important to know that "someone is trashing his reputation" and the title to this thread says he was "targeted by IDF".
My point was solely that Paul is, on his own volition, saying things that are organically hurting and upsetting the Jewish community. I use myself as an example: someone who is hurt by his tweets, because I read them and respected Paul, not because the IDF instructed me to.
I'm sure you disagree with my take on his tweets - and I highly doubt debating the specifics of it will get us anywhere productive - but it's not flame bait to point out that he chose to speak, and that real Jewish people found the way he speaks to be hurtful, not because of some grand coordinated IDF-directed conspiracy. In other words, he is "trashing his reputation" with the Jewish community by his words, not as a result of an astroturfed reaction. You can debate whether the Jewish community is over-reacting and misreading him if you want, but my point was narrowly directed to the fact that he is the one causing that reaction.
I still have no idea what he said that you felt hurt by. I consider comments like 'trashing his rep' to be baity in that they're assuming a conclusion without any context.
Except that it should be uncontroversial to say that nobody should kill children. But people have lost jobs for saying that Israel needs to stop killing Palestinian children.
HN is one of the rare places online where the much needed discussions could be facilitated for the welfare of all. In this case, the information control implications might overweight the political narrative and be relevant for the people inclined to the truth.
Maybe it is? I vouch for things frequently but that's because I have Showdead turned on and scan the New page regularly for unlucky submissions. I personally think it's a little too easy to flag things on HN, it seems as if the threshold to kill a post was set at a time when there was a much smaller userbase.
Free speech may not be the relevant criticism here, but there's... somewhat of a discomfort of a government (if admittedly foreign) agency calling out specific individuals. I know we're in the era of terminally online politicians, but this crosses some sort of professionalism boundary?
EDIT: Which is to say, it's not illegal or anything, but I'm sending a frowning emoji.
> but this crosses some sort of professionalism boundary?
I don't know. I assume any organisation interested in directing online discourse about subjects it is vested in does something like this. Especially political organisations.
This is politics. Kinda dirty, but that's what it is, I guess. It's probably only noteworthy because the context and persons/groups involved are noteworthy.
> In the United States, commercial speech is "entitled to substantial First Amendment protection, albeit less than political, ideological, or artistic speech".
Now, the IDF isn't under US jurisdiction, but the idea that only individual humans have rights is... not supported by the facts.
What's happening here is plain for everyone to see. IDF has much much more resources, power and influence to suppress the free speech of individuals. You are using IDF's right to free speech as a way to justify the suppression.
Again, free speech has never been the right to not be trolled, or criticized, or made fun of, or debunked. Swap out the IDF for JK Rowling or Bill Gates sending their followers at someone; there's never been a requirement for equal power between the two speakers for the right to exist.
(It's not like pg doesn't have his own resources and connections, anyways.)
A "the IDF cannot troll people on Twitter" law would seem to limit free speech, not enhance it.
You are coming up with some really spectacular arguments.
We don't have to go as far as JK Rowling or Bill Gates. There's a billionaire Harvard alumni on Twitter using his "free speech" to harass and doxx Harvard grad students right now.
PG cannot detain people or bomb settlements. IDF can and does. They are not merely trolling here.
I'm not sure the two can be properly compared. I was going to say it's the same, then I thought maybe it was a little less concerning, but now I'm really not sure.
I share your concerns, but maybe we should concentrate on this particular issue when it comes to this particular comment section, because simply bringing this up isn't really adding to the conversation.
"dog whistle" is such a nasty concept. You can accuse anyone of anything you associate their vocabulary with. The only limit is your imagination and the accused can't really falsify it.
>The term dog whistle is regularly used as a covert form of Ad Hominem that I find logically annoying, basically "ignore everything this person said because" insert assumption of what was meant and derogatory term about political affiliation.
I view the phrase as "I can't find something to attack in what ideological opponent said, so I'm going to pretend that what he said actually means something else, and attack that instead".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38571758