> I know on HN you're not allowed(?) to say negative things about big "tech" companies. I may be shadowbanned for ti,
I despise this meme. You are allowed to say negative things about big "tech" companies, especially here on HN. What you aren't allowed to do is act childish about it. Which is exactly what you do when you say things like this. And I tend to down vote when I see commentary like this, because regardless of what else you have to say, this type of commentary is what hurts conversation. Clearly, you are wrong about the culture of HN.
I've been on this site since 2006 or 2007. I've earned 5,000+ karma on most of my previous accounts. Everyone of them was shadowbanned at one point or another.
In one case I linked to a scientific paper about global warming that does not agree with global warming hysterics. That was the only post in several months at the time and the only commentary I added was "these guys disagree!"..... shadowbanned. For linking to a peer reviewed paper!
Another time, the last comment was talking about how I had met Grace Hopper. Nothing negative in it, Nothing "childish". Just relating how she gave me a "nanosecond". Shadowbanned.
I stopped putting effort into this site for several years because of that-- why try to discuss things with an extremely ideological and narrow minded group (which HN really is) if you're going to get banned for disagreeing?
I only created this account because I don't care. I do expect to get shadowboxed because the moderators of this site, in my experience, are unethical.
But of course, those who believe in rigid narrow minded censorship are incentivized to believe that all those who were shadowbanned were being "childish".
Because of course you want to believe you're broad minded and that criticizing Amazon is allowed, and the like. (Hey maybe it is, so far I've been allowed to.... but that's the thing about arbitrary shadow bans, you can't know what's verboten and what's allowed.)
My experience matches yours precisely. Certain viewpoints here are ruthlessly censored, to the point of insanity. The justification is always "that is so wrong as to be offensive", which of course is absurd to a community that purportedly values free speech.
If the views are so absurd, why not allow them to stand and be downvoted? Why the need to flag and ban?
For example, regarding the Pao issue, numerous reaction articles from differing viewpoints were instantly flagkilled.
I find that HN is a group of clever people who conform an extremely narrow ideology.
>And I tend to down vote when I see commentary like this, because regardless of what else you have to say, this type of commentary is what hurts conversation.
What absurd nonsense. If we are having a rational discussion we only care about what he has to say, not how he says it.
Leave the doublethink and doublespeak for the politicians, it doesn't belong here.
I despise this meme. You are allowed to say negative things about big "tech" companies, especially here on HN. What you aren't allowed to do is act childish about it. Which is exactly what you do when you say things like this. And I tend to down vote when I see commentary like this, because regardless of what else you have to say, this type of commentary is what hurts conversation. Clearly, you are wrong about the culture of HN.