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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

#51

Post by 13thLetter »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #4

Freedom is the right to be wrong. If I am free only to agree with the popular consensus, I'm not free. If I can't have a quiet chat with friends in public making clear I'm a gay, atheist, muslim, vegan, witch, then I'm not free. If I can't have a private chat with any other member(s) of the populace, I'm not free. Someone will always think I'm living my life wrong.

> If I can't have a quiet chat with friends in public making clear I'm a gay, atheist, muslim, vegan, witch, then I'm not free.

Or, for that matter, if you're a fundamentalist Christian, Trump supporter, gay marriage opponent.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#52

Post by kup0 »

ars wrote: post #41
ywecur wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The downvote button is supposed to be for non-constructive (i.e. stupid/useless) or offtopic messages. Flag is for spam and very very inflammatory stuff. It is NOT supposed to be used for incorrect messages! (Or at least, if the message is grey, don't keep downvoting it just because there is a mistake in it. One downvote is enough.) And most especially it is not for disagreeing with someone - that's what the reply bu…

I think the mentality that downvote = disagreement is widespread on any site with a karma/voting mechanism. Many subreddits themselves say right in the sidebar (and often elsewhere) that "downvote only if something is off-topic or does not contribute to discussion", but everyone still tends to use it that way.

So I think the issue is somewhat bigger than reddit or HN or even just a certain slice of users. It seems to be a fundamental problem in understanding up/down votes. Maybe psychologically we're inclined to downvote when we disagree, whether consciously or not.

I am also guilty of this even though I know better. It's hard to resist downvoting something I disagree with. It's like a natural response I have to actively work against.

Edits: grammar / clarifying wording

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#53

Post by tomjen3 »

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.

The second part is true, I have had comments going from -4 or five to plus four or five, then tank again back to minus 4.

The problem is that when they get downvoted they don't produce any response, and if nobody is going to do anything based on what you write, why write it at all? You might as well start yelling at the walls.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#54

Post by DanBC »

dhimes wrote: post #42
p4wnc6 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I have sometimes faced reply comments that are quite unreasonable and at times meant solely as insult. It's very rare here, but still a risk. But what's far worse is that the moderation of Hacker News functions with very little transparency. Even just Googling for the moderator `dang` turns up a lot of angry rants on other blogs and in other sections of the internet, full of people who feel wronged by bla…

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…

Sometimes accounts get caught in an accidental hellban. In that case (if you've gone through the history and can't find anything obvious) you might want to email dang to let him know, or email the person to let them know. Or you could vouch for the person's posts. I think enough vouching would mean the account becomes unbanned?

(Of course, this is just my opinion. I have no idea if it's true.)

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#56

Post by erichocean »

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 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 or knowledge to others, or even just plain old participation. If you don't like the response you get, just keep doing what you're doing: don't post. It's their loss.

P.s. If this comment gets down-voted, which my filters tell me is "highly likely", I'll just leave this P.s. comment instead of doing a full delete like I usually do. Hopefully you'll have read it by then. :)

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#57

Post by ywecur »

kup0 wrote: post #52
ars wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvote button is supposed to be for non-constructive (i.e. stupid/useless) or offtopic messages. Flag is for spam and very very inflammatory stuff. It is NOT supposed to be used for incorrect messages! (Or at least, if the message is grey, don't keep downvoting it just because there is a mistake in it. One downvote is enough.) And most especially it is not for disagreeing with someone - that's what the reply bu…

I think the mentality that downvote = disagreement is widespread on any site with a karma/voting mechanism. Many subreddits themselves say right in the sidebar (and often elsewhere) that "downvote only if something is off-topic or does not contribute to discussion", but everyone still tends to use it that way. So I think the issue is somewhat bigger than reddit or HN or even just a certain slice of users. It seems to…

My theory is that it's because it's to convenient.

A solution could be to move it to next to the flag button, maybe? And also making it a bit more difficult to do, like requiring the user to input a reason.

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#58

Post by tomjen3 »

dhimes wrote: post #42
p4wnc6 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I have sometimes faced reply comments that are quite unreasonable and at times meant solely as insult. It's very rare here, but still a risk. But what's far worse is that the moderation of Hacker News functions with very little transparency. Even just Googling for the moderator `dang` turns up a lot of angry rants on other blogs and in other sections of the internet, full of people who feel wronged by bla…

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).

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#59

Post by DanBC »

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.

> What matters a few karma points

Aren't there effects of downvotes like rate limiting and post position?

Re: Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

#60

Post by EliRivers »

guelo wrote: post #14
USANEEDSHELP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass surveillance is meant to work against anybody and everybody

That makes no sense. Why would mass surveillance be used against people that support the regime?

To make sure they support it, and to make sure they keep supporting it. Compliance today does not buy you a free pass tomorrow.
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