European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google • Hacker News Board

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#171

Post by celticninja » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #167

celticninja wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC censors plenty on HN, especially negative stuff linked to YC alumni or startups. I posted something the other day about the myo and i got a error page everytime I submitted it. tried submitting something else and bang it goes straight through. I dont care that they censor stuff but that they are underhand and sneaky about it gives me pause for thought when I see content on here from YC startups, was it pushed to t…

> YC censors plenty on HN, especially negative stuff linked to YC alumni or startups. No, we don't do that. We actually take care to penalize stories less when they are negative about YC or YC-funded startups, and none of the HN software takes YC-related material into account. I mention the latter because what you're describing sounds like it was done by the software. There must have been some other problem with your…

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-...

This was the link that I tried to post, I submitted it 9 days ago when I subsequently posted another Myo link to the offical website which was allowed to stay up. I tried to post 3 times each time it just disappeared and threw me back to the submission page. I then tried to make another submission, one about a drone being used by an estate agent, which went through fine, then I submitted a direct link to the Myo site which also went through fine. So I tried my original link again and got the same 'error'.

Interestingly enough if you look at the original article I tried to submit there is a line that says:

"Quick aside, but if you want to see how nearly every form of media is crooked, try submitting this to Hacker News and look at the Thalmic investors. Edit: don’t bother, we’re blacklisted or something."

So evidently others had a similar experience to me whislt trying to submit the story.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#172

Post by tptacek » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #166

wfjackson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this post, they do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620539 It would be nice to have that in a disclaimer in the posts discussing Google or in the HN profile page though.

wfjackson and ckelvin are fakes, replying to and upvoting each other in order to astroturf this thread. This is the latest incarnation of a pro-Microsoft astroturfing campaign that has plagued this site for years, using these two accounts: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=recoiledsnake https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=cooldeal ... and many dozens of others. This person (or persons) is an accomplished if…

I wrote something longer and more boring, but managed through several rounds of edits to condense it:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#173

Post by celticninja » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #171

dang wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YC censors plenty on HN, especially negative stuff linked to YC alumni or startups. No, we don't do that. We actually take care to penalize stories less when they are negative about YC or YC-funded startups, and none of the HN software takes YC-related material into account. I mention the latter because what you're describing sounds like it was done by the software. There must have been some other problem with your…

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... This was the link that I tried to post, I submitted it 9 days ago when I subsequently posted another Myo link to the offical website which was allowed to stay up. I tried to post 3 times each time it just disappeared and threw me back to the submission page. I then tried to make another submission, one about a drone being used by an estate agent, which w…

This is an entirely factual post with details requested by a mod however because it portrays HN negatively it gets downvoted.

Whether this is by fanboys or by YC it doesn't really matter, it is still a form of censorship.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#174

Post by gress » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #156

gress wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no character assassination going on here. I'm simply pointing out the incentives. Bear in mind that DannyBee is also engaging in what you call 'character assasination' on the same basis. You, on the other hand, are now name calling, denying the power imbalance I mentioned, and accusing me of lying. Why do you feel the need to put so much emotional energy into defending DannyBee, who seems quite capable of de…

I stand by what I said and don't see any need for us to continue talking.

I'm disappointed you feel justified in your rude and dismissive behavior, but since you don't see any need to examine it, I request that you refrain from challenging my comments on that same basis in future.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#175

Post by tptacek » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 6:05 PM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #104

DannyBee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do work for Google, but i explicitly don't speak for them on HN. I also don't work for Google Legal, and don't work on issues related to this stuff. I have opined on this stuff long before i worked for Google, and will long after. Google literally does not pay me for my views on this. Ben is literally paid for his anti-google views on this stuff. You are of course, welcome to discount whatever you like. You should…

You may feel that way, and you may really be acting that way, but what matters is not so much what you do but how it is perceived. Simply being employed by someone introduces bias, or at least the perception of bias. Just as you raise important notes about Ben that readers of his "work" ought to be aware of while drawing conclusions from it, readers of your comments ought to be aware of your association to Google whi…

He's been consistently up-front about who he works for; he's even talked about which projects he's worked on. You haven't paid attention, and that's fine, but you can't then feign offense when he doesn't start every single conversation he has on the site with "I work for Google".

Also, once again: you can't accuse someone of being biased by their employer, and then say you've "taken pause" about it, without insulting that person's integrity. To do so casually says much more about you than the person you're talking about.

People like Daniel take a lot of flak on HN simply because they sign their names to their comments. As we saw downthread: not only do the anonymous assholes taking potshot not do that, but those anonymous people are actually paid shills.

It is fine to have questions about people, but you should have been much more careful asking them. You share a community with these people, but just now, you didn't act that way. Like they say on Wikipedia: WP:AGF.

(This is a hobby-horse issue with me on this site, because I've been here awhile and had a lot of dipshits question my integrity over utterly fictitious biases, like "you work in security so all that government contracting money you get selling vulnerabilities to the CIA is why your crypto advice is obviously corrupted by NSA".)

(Also: 'DannyBee is one of several compiler-wonk/lawyers we have on HN, and how cool is it that we have any of those? It pisses me off to see people try to chase them off with torches and pitchforks, even if those chasers are so dumb they're using nerf pitchforks.)

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#176

Post by dang » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #171

dang wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YC censors plenty on HN, especially negative stuff linked to YC alumni or startups. No, we don't do that. We actually take care to penalize stories less when they are negative about YC or YC-funded startups, and none of the HN software takes YC-related material into account. I mention the latter because what you're describing sounds like it was done by the software. There must have been some other problem with your…

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... This was the link that I tried to post, I submitted it 9 days ago when I subsequently posted another Myo link to the offical website which was allowed to stay up. I tried to post 3 times each time it just disappeared and threw me back to the submission page. I then tried to make another submission, one about a drone being used by an estate agent, which w…

Ok, I found that in the logs. What you experienced was caused by the duplicate detector. That story had already been submitted by a different account, but was dead. (It was dead because the submitter had lost submission privileges because of prior off-topic posts.) The system redirected you to the existing post, which is how it tells you that you submitted a duplicate—but since you don't have "showdead" turned on in your profile, you didn't see it. This is a bug. We're working on a better duplicate detector, which should eliminate this problem.

Re the quote from that article, it's common for article writers to spice their posts with claims of being blacklisted. In HN's case, at least, you should take such claims with a lot of salt—they're usually groundless, and the ones that aren't are typically distorted. I tried to point that out in this case at the time (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8625890).

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#177

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Dec 01, 2014, 7:33 AM UTC

gress wrote: post #143

DannyBee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It has extreme market penetration which they abuse for various reasons like prime placing for their own products. And that not only hurts competitors but in the end also consumers which will end up with only one option for maps, video sharing, etc." Assuming they did prime place their own products, this is not a recognized antitrust harm (it is not bundling or tying, despite random claims on HN).

Assuming you're right and it's not a recognized antitrust harm, what's your opinion of it? Do you think it's ethical or good for society simply because it hasn't yet been ruled illegal?

If you want to base this on "good for society" or "ethical", i don't suspect you'll actually get anywhere in terms of coming to a conclusion. There are reasonable arguments on both sides.

My opinion on things related to competition/antitrust are based mainly on evolution of law and economic viewpoints.

Basically, over the past hundred years, courts have moved away from (and economists have strongly supported) declaring these kinds of things as "per-se" illegal precisely because evidence has not shown that you can simply point at them and say "yeah, this hurts competition" or "yeah, this hurts consumers", despite what one may think.

In some cases, this evolution of law/economy has pretty clearly turned out bad for consumers price-wise (with the return of folks requiring retailers to sell at certain minimum prices).

In some cases it hasn't.

This particular thing, hard to say.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#178

Post by gress » Mon, Dec 01, 2014, 11:47 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #177

gress wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're right and it's not a recognized antitrust harm, what's your opinion of it? Do you think it's ethical or good for society simply because it hasn't yet been ruled illegal?

If you want to base this on "good for society" or "ethical", i don't suspect you'll actually get anywhere in terms of coming to a conclusion. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. My opinion on things related to competition/antitrust are based mainly on evolution of law and economic viewpoints. Basically, over the past hundred years, courts have moved away from (and economists have strongly supported) declari…

I know there are reasonable arguments on both sides - I'm really wanting to understand your personal view. It sounds as though you might think that ideas about ethics or good societies are things you prefer not to hold a view on given the quotes.

The second part of your comment only mentioned prices as a factor in terms of what is good or bad for 'consumers'. I realize that you leave room for other ideas of what is good or bad, but in lieu of mentioning anything else, it seems as though this is all you are willing to put forward as a criterion.

I guess I understand a little more about your perspective, but not much.

Re: European Parliament votes in favour of breaking up Google

#179

Post by DannyBee » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

gress wrote: post #178

DannyBee wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to base this on "good for society" or "ethical", i don't suspect you'll actually get anywhere in terms of coming to a conclusion. There are reasonable arguments on both sides. My opinion on things related to competition/antitrust are based mainly on evolution of law and economic viewpoints. Basically, over the past hundred years, courts have moved away from (and economists have strongly supported) declari…

I know there are reasonable arguments on both sides - I'm really wanting to understand your personal view. It sounds as though you might think that ideas about ethics or good societies are things you prefer not to hold a view on given the quotes. The second part of your comment only mentioned prices as a factor in terms of what is good or bad for 'consumers'. I realize that you leave room for other ideas of what is g…

I don't really have a personal view on the ethics or societal good, to be honest. I try not to hold uninformed views, and i haven't had the time or honestly, desire, to do the research into history necessary to have an informed one.

Truthfully, this kind of stuff is only tangentially interesting to me: Companies without physical resource monopolies (ie oil, diamonds, whatever) tend to come and go despite all efforts to the contrary. I don't expect Google, Facebook, or anyone else will be any different.