With all due respect, I disagree. This conversation is specifically about a nation exerting censorship across the web. It is not unreasonable to think those censorship efforts would extend to other sites.
Moreover, I did not mark the primary thrust of the comment as a nationalistic attack. I took it as an observation that a motivated minority (or a nation-state actor) could game the system to mute a conversation by way of flags.
To be clear, I hope Chinese users feel welcome here. I also get it that this is a hot topic where speculation could easily spin out of control. I appreciate the tightrope you have to walk. I just respectfully disagree with your call on this one.
Edit: argh, I confused you with the GP commenter. I'm terribly sorry! Obviously "you" doesn't mean you in the below. I'm usually more careful but today has been a bit hectic with several high-intensity threads going at once, and evidently I've been dropping packets.
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If you hope Chinese users feel welcome here, you need to make some massive adjustments to the commenting style you exemplified above, because accusing "Chinese nationals" of being responsible for things you don't like on HN, based on (seriously) absolutely nothing, is the stuff that a lot of dark human history has been made of.
I realize that's hard to swallow, because (a) none of us wants to see that in ourselves, and (b) internet forums are just so unbelievably innocuous and trivial, until they aren't, but I'm telling you it's fundamentally the same dynamic. Sometimes it shows up in trivial ways and sometimes in hideous ones. If we want to actually be the tolerant, decent people that we imagine we are, we all need to work on this on ourselves. I don't mean to pick on you personally; it's without a doubt universal.
Heh, it might also be hard to swallow because this rebuke puts words in the parent commenter’s mouth — they are not the “Chinese nationals” commenter. Your original point remains, of course, and thank you for saying it.
Yikes! Sorry all, and especially Hnrobert42 - I didn't see that I was replying to someone else than the GP commenter. I've added to my post to clarify that now.
Thank you for the heads up! I usually don't make that mistake, and it's embarrassing.
I certainly appreciate the apology, but please don’t spend another second worried about it. Wrong account but fair point. And even if not, folks make mistakes.
> To be clear, I hope Chinese users feel welcome here.
I don't doubt you believe that too. But as far as I can tell, it's what people in western forums believe too as long as those Chinese people don't opine in a way that's similar to the government that 95% of them support (otherwise they're bots, coherced or brainwashed, or otherwise not full humans).
Moreover, I did not mark the primary thrust of the comment as a nationalistic attack. I took it as an observation that a motivated minority (or a nation-state actor) could game the system to mute a conversation by way of flags.
To be clear, I hope Chinese users feel welcome here. I also get it that this is a hot topic where speculation could easily spin out of control. I appreciate the tightrope you have to walk. I just respectfully disagree with your call on this one.