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Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#191

Post by Chris2048 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29
justsaysmthng wrote: post #27

HN is the most intelligent and open minded online community of this size that I know online. I have deep respect for you guys and girls and your opinions are always enlightening and thought provoking. I really feel much smarter because I have access to all these very valid points of view that you are surfacing. But even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" which leads me to go into this…

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

A continued thread may accumulate downvotes for each response.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#192

Post by p4wnc6 »

nitrogen wrote: post #161
tomjen3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another account of mine was hellbanned for triggering some automated response based on voting patterns - which were very suspicious, but had a legitimate reason (specifically I downvoted comments that were of topic, which was most if not all the comments in that thread).

It would be nice if HN had some way to say, "this whole sub-thread together tanks the SNR". Sometimes a thread will go wildly off topic, but there are so many replies off the topic that more interesting on-topic points can't be raised above the noise. Sometimes I wonder if this could be a deliberate astroturfing strategy. One recent example was a useless conversation about whether the US was a democracy or a republic…

On the other hand, you could argue that if a comment generates substantive replies (as opposed to just replies that say "this is off topic") then it's actually pretty strong evidence that the community feels the comment is on topic.

In fact, I think it would be a good thing if it was made impossible for moderators to detach comments that receive enough up-votes, or have child comments (especially comments that disagree) with many up-votes.

In those cases, it's clear that community members get value from the comment, which should infinitely override bespoke opinions of whether it's "on topic enough" to remain -- those subjective opinions ought to count for way less than simply observing whether there are up votes or replies.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#193

Post by Chris2048 »

mreiland wrote: post #130
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd encourage you to stop 'self-censoring'. What matters a few karma points, if you have something important to say? You'll find that often an initial knee-jerk downvoting can turn around half a day later, as more considerate users join the conversation.

except that it can get you banned or harassed. I had deng(dang?) follow me around, and he (she?) was obviously prepping for a ban. At one point he wholesale deleted a comment of mine because it was widely misinterpreted in a sexist way (I clarified to multiple people, but it wasn't enough apparently). The sad part is the only ones being sexist were the ones interpreting it that way, I was personally shocked that so m…

Can you link to some of those threads?

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#194

Post by p4wnc6 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #58
dhimes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea this kind of thing happened. I've never seen it (and known what I was looking at anyway). I have, however, looked at some hellbanned accounts to see what caused the hellbanning and sometimes it's not apparent- that is, replies that aren't particularly insulting or vapid or anything obviously antisocial. I figured they were banned for some other reason- like sneaking advertisements in or something (that…

Another account of mine was hellbanned for triggering some automated response based on voting patterns - which were very suspicious, but had a legitimate reason (specifically I downvoted comments that were of topic, which was most if not all the comments in that thread).

It makes sense to me for someone to down vote the most top-level comment that led to an off-topic thread. But then further down voting comments that are replies within that thread makes little sense, and could be mistaken by some as vindictive down voting (which is likely why the automatic ban you describe exists).

Further, if there are enough replies in a given thread such that your down votes on all of them were enough to lead to a ban, it strongly suggests that the thread really was on-topic, that it generated valuable interest and discussion, and that actually it's just a controversial thread (one you may not like perhaps), but clearly not off topic.

I do see this a lot on HN. When a thread is controversial in a way that HN group-think disapproves of, then "off topic" is used as an inappropriate excuse to down vote it, try to derail any discussion about it, etc.

For example, I think effectively all of the stuff from the subreddit TheRedPill is utter nonsense, and it's often very controversial and I dislike it when some of it appears here at HN.

But it's rarely actually off topic when it's brought up, and it generates actual community interest (usually from people who rightfully point out how problematic and baseless it is).

I'd rather that controversial topics and tangents, even when they are things I don't like, are permitted when they clearly generate community engagement, than to basically have some implicit HN blacklist of disallowed topics that are facetiously treated as off-topic as a way to simply exclude unapproved opinions.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#195

Post by CM30 »

ywecur wrote: post #33
justsaysmthng wrote: post #27

HN is the most intelligent and open minded online community of this size that I know online. I have deep respect for you guys and girls and your opinions are always enlightening and thought provoking. I really feel much smarter because I have access to all these very valid points of view that you are surfacing. But even this community suffers from this strange phenomena of "group think" which leads me to go into this…

I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure how to solve the problem though, other than trying to teach people to treat the down vote button more respectfully. IMO there shouldn't be a down vote button at all, and to be honest I can't see its purpose. If a comment is trolling or being aggressive then you should flag it, so where is there room for the down vote button? It becomes quite intuitive to just use it for what you co…

Well, some systems have a seperate option for 'like/dislike and agree/disagree'. And a bunch of other things.

So maybe something like that could work on Hacker News. Slashdot had it, XenForo forums have used for a plugin for it for years and Facebook has just introduced something akin to it in Reactions.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#196

Post by SpaceCadetJones »

jessaustin wrote: post #187
erichocean wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same on HN (self-censor, constantly) and have come to peace with it. I don't submit over 80% of the HN posts I write, and I immediately delete anything that gets one down vote. Furthermore, if I do post something that gets a down vote, I update my "don't post" probabilities to match, meaning I post even less. I'd encourage you to try and not feel bad about the situation. It's not your job to provide insight…

...I immediately delete anything that gets one down vote. You're missing out. I regularly have posts that go to -2, -3, etc., which are then upvoted back into positive territory. Here's a fairly recent one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11332081 (I think that one got downvoted initially for the explicit religious imagery.) The little mental boost I get from an occasional 'yo-yo' completely counteracts the 0 an…

Reviewing the common nature of the disagreement in replies is also a good way to practice presenting unpopular opinions. There's a lot of pitfalls I've learned to avoid when being tactful

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#197

Post by nitrogen »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #192
nitrogen wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if HN had some way to say, "this whole sub-thread together tanks the SNR". Sometimes a thread will go wildly off topic, but there are so many replies off the topic that more interesting on-topic points can't be raised above the noise. Sometimes I wonder if this could be a deliberate astroturfing strategy. One recent example was a useless conversation about whether the US was a democracy or a republic…

On the other hand, you could argue that if a comment generates substantive replies (as opposed to just replies that say "this is off topic") then it's actually pretty strong evidence that the community feels the comment is on topic . In fact, I think it would be a good thing if it was made impossible for moderators to detach comments that receive enough up-votes, or have child comments (especially comments that disag…

It only takes about ten redundant comments (wild guess number) to derail a thread for thousands of would-be participants. This doesn't indicate community value; at best it indicates accidental nerd sniping, and at worst could be a coordinated attack on what would otherwise be a productive discussion, from which more people could derive far greater value.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#198

Post by p4wnc6 »

nitrogen wrote: post #197
p4wnc6 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, you could argue that if a comment generates substantive replies (as opposed to just replies that say "this is off topic") then it's actually pretty strong evidence that the community feels the comment is on topic . In fact, I think it would be a good thing if it was made impossible for moderators to detach comments that receive enough up-votes, or have child comments (especially comments that disag…

It only takes about ten redundant comments (wild guess number) to derail a thread for thousands of would-be participants. This doesn't indicate community value; at best it indicates accidental nerd sniping, and at worst could be a coordinated attack on what would otherwise be a productive discussion, from which more people could derive far greater value.

But the comments are drawn from the distribution of Hacker News readers. You can't presume that just because you see a thread of ten comments as an off-topic distraction that so must the other thousands of readers, especially if there are healthy replies and up votes.

Your comment that it "derail[s] a thread" makes the implicit assumption that the comments are actually off-topic. If they are on-topic, but you happen to have the opinion that they aren't (even thought they are) then it's not derailing anything, it's just a healthy reflection of the comment-generating process that is "the pool of all HN readers." I think of it like the John Lennon quote: "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted."

I don't have a magic answer for how to accurately detect off-topic diversions in a way that satisfied most people most of the time. All I'm saying is that upon seeing a healthy back and forth, it should give me a lot of pause that if I merely think it's off topic, I am probably wrong, and it's just an opinion that should not be indulged by moderator activity.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#199

Post by tn13 »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #24
tn13 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But the people who run the institutions will mostly reflect the majority and hence protect their kind. When the society was mostly anti-gay the government machinery was used to hurt these target homosexual groups. Now that society is pro-gay we see government forcing bakers to bake cake for gay weddings. I will not be surprised if the surveillance mechanism would be used to hurt Libertarians and anti-government…

That's an interesting premise, do you think that the heads of e.g. the KGB were representative of the majority of Soviets? It was my impression that there was a large class distinction between the Soviet intelligence apparatus and the proverbial average Joe. Note: I selected the USSR/KGB not for any particular resemblance to current Western intelligence agencies (much more human intelligence and shotgun mics back the…

To give a growth hacking analogy, becoming KGB head is the final step in the funnel. To be a KGB head you should probably have qualities that 99.99% of the people do not posses. But it is wrong to say he does not represent the majority of soviets because the entry to the system and almost every other step in the funnel is highly biased towards those who conform to majority opinion.

For example when I say Donald Trump is representative of majority of conservative base I do not mean majority of conservative base is narcissist and billionaire. I basically mean Trump is pro-Gun, pro-Life, pro-Christian, anti-Gay. Because without those criteria he would not have entered the funnel in first place.

Conservatives or Liberals the current trend among American politicians is "trust us", "bend before authority", I am 100% sure no person can rise to top in American government if he does not conform to these ideas.

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