Ask HN: Does anyone else lie on the internet?

No, I don't even remember when I lied last time, no matter whether online or IRL, I may skip information I don't wanna reveal or avoid answering, but I try to deliberately lie as little as possible, because that's behavior reserved for children and disgusting people. Honestly I should not be even answering in this thread to encourage liar in his lies.

Stating things you don't know about for sure and suspect they are correct is not lying.

Lying is saying things you KNOW are false.

Lie noun: lie; plural noun: lies an intentionally false statement.

I have an ex-friend who could not shed the habit of "adversarial learning" which is related to this. Instead of trying to learn a subject by reading and experimenting and maybe asking somebody who actually knew it, he'd basically force people to educate him by correcting his misconceptions. The first gambit was usually "I could do this better" followed by a series of "you could just (ridiculous idea)" and cross-examination on details, until he felt satisfied.

That kind of disrespect, goading or manipulating people into providing information they would gladly have given in a less adversarial way, and never showing an ounce of gratitude, is a good way to lose friends. Not just me, and not just him, BTW. It's a pretty common behavior among the technically inclined, especially online. "If you want a right answer from the internet, post a wrong one." It's kind of funny when it's an accident, but when it becomes a constant deliberate habit it degrades the space for everyone.

Being a utilitarian, I don't think that lying (or anything else) is inherently immoral, and you can only judge the morality of intent based on intended and actual outcomes. So in that case, I'd say you've correctly assessed that your South Africa story is immoral for propagating a racist trope for your own entertainment, which could lead to confirming people's negative biases about South Africa and the (implied in your comment) racial conflict there.

As far as lying in general goes: you may be triggering conversation you find interesting, but have you considered the effect your lies have on the people who read your comments, believing they're truthful? You're giving people false confidence in your totally-made-up opinions thinking they're expert testimony. That can be harmful if people internalise the lies you tell and act based upon them. Not that anybody's making a framework out of just your posted comments, but we all absorb and interpret the information we take in and that can affect our perspectives.

As for whether I lie on the internet? No, and I don't get the appeal. If I want to trigger an interesting conversation, I don't feel the need to pretend to be somebody I'm not: I can just ask pertinent questions or state my actual perspective and bring about conflicting replies that way.

Sure, it is unwise to make life choices based on internet comments because of people like the OP. Even so, it does not absolve OP and people like them of having contributed to the harm that can occur due to their contributions.