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Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

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11–20 of 159 posts

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#12
post #6

Do you honestly believe we've understood this surveillance complex enough that we can keep on with our lives? Why accept that "PRISM [won't go] away" or that "Snowden's fate is grim"? Honestly? Is this cause not worth fighting for anymore?

Is posting hundreds of mundane "news" articles with no substance really fighting?

Is not talking about it better?

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#13
This is a problem with Hacker News. Maybe because most people can't downvote (or I dunno some other reason), it has a big big problem with duplicate stories. When Steve Jobs died for example, 30/30 stories were "Steve Jobs has died" for quite some time.

It is irritating, that's for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#16
post #6

Do you honestly believe we've understood this surveillance complex enough that we can keep on with our lives? Why accept that "PRISM [won't go] away" or that "Snowden's fate is grim"? Honestly? Is this cause not worth fighting for anymore?

Is posting hundreds of mundane "news" articles with no substance really fighting?

We complain all the time that the major news networks don't cover what is really important or that they cover them and move on like it never happened. I think it is a good think that it is kept present in our minds so we don't forget it or write it off as "There is nothing we can do about it".

Seeing the entire front page of HN covered in stories on it might be slightly annoying but it is much better than the alternative (no coverage) IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#18
I agree not only with regards to Edward Snowden but generally worthless articles about people who happen to be in the tech news lately. E.g. "Kim Dotcom braids his hair!", "Julian Assange orders Cherry Coke instead of regular!", "Elon Musk buys three rare white leopards!" It's tedious.

Unfortunately what makes good click bait also makes good upvote bait and most people will just fall for it unthinkingly. And looking at the comments so far, apparently will defend doing so.

Yes there are larger issues at stake which are why these people are in the news, but 99% of the stories being upvoted have nothing to do with the larger issue and are instead press releases with no interesting content, meant solely to drive clicks and in the case of older stories like Kim Dotcom, meant to keep their names in the news.

Stop being a sucker; be more critically minded with what you choose to upvote and read.

Re: Ask HN: Can we please slow down the stories about Edward Snowden?

#20

Agreed. At some point I flagged every snowden/NSA story on the front page (I believe it was 28 out of 30). I don't seem to be able to flag any more so I guess that was picked up as abuse, so unfortunately I can't flag any more of these stories. I wouldn't mind seeing stories on all of this, as long as they are only posted when something interesting has actually happened, as opposed to just because there hasn't been a…

Why not let the others here decide what they think is interesting instead of flagging posts?

Things people like gets upvoted and rise to the top. You did abuse the system, because you used the flagging as a downvote button. This is not Reddit.

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