I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#1

Post by mah4k4l » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

I think it is a childish and offending policy and am still surprised that HN does that. I mean *who* does that? To make it look to you as if your post got published, but really it didn't? Is that your way of being polite, perhaps? Or your way to maximally offend someone by pretending to be polite? [EDIT: wish I wouldn't have written that next sentence (was a bit pissed off) but too late to erase now with people commenting it] What a slimy and cowardly tactic. What a manifetation of the worst part of human nature.

If you ban and censor us, why don't you just tell us so? We're all big boys and girls.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#2

Post by dairylee » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:08 AM UTC

> We're all big boys and girls

Clearly.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#3

Post by Normille » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:11 AM UTC

I can see the thinking behind it. Why let a spammer know no-one is seeing their junk? They'll just keep creating new accounts.

But having been on the end of it myself with other accounts here -just for disagreeing with people who were obviously more 'in with the in crowd' than me- and without even receiving any warning first, I think the way it is sometimes implemented is pretty childish.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#4

Post by codefreeordie » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:16 AM UTC

Normille wrote: post #3

I can see the thinking behind it. Why let a spammer know no-one is seeing their junk? They'll just keep creating new accounts. But having been on the end of it myself with other accounts here -just for disagreeing with people who were obviously more 'in with the in crowd' than me- and without even receiving any warning first, I think the way it is sometimes implemented is pretty childish.

The concept might have originated as an anti-spam tool, but now it's just part of narrative enforcement.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#5

Post by throwaway67743 » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:19 AM UTC

Shadow banning is the dumbest, it's so cowardly

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#6

Post by mah4k4l » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:20 AM UTC

Normille wrote: post #3

I can see the thinking behind it. Why let a spammer know no-one is seeing their junk? They'll just keep creating new accounts. But having been on the end of it myself with other accounts here -just for disagreeing with people who were obviously more 'in with the in crowd' than me- and without even receiving any warning first, I think the way it is sometimes implemented is pretty childish.

It's kind of trivial to check if you're ghostbanned though via wget script or something for example. I don't think ghostbanning slows down spamming enough to be ethically justified.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#7

Post by speedgoose » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:32 AM UTC

It’s extremely effective and reduce the moderators workload a lot, because creating a new account and farming karma again is easy. However many spammers and unwanted commenters never notice that they are ghost banned.

I agree that it’s not nice to them, which is acceptable most of the time for most people because the ghost banned members are not really nice community members. It is an issue when someone is ghost banned for bad reasons or a bit too fast.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#8

Post by selfhoster11 » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:34 AM UTC

Normille wrote: post #3

I can see the thinking behind it. Why let a spammer know no-one is seeing their junk? They'll just keep creating new accounts. But having been on the end of it myself with other accounts here -just for disagreeing with people who were obviously more 'in with the in crowd' than me- and without even receiving any warning first, I think the way it is sometimes implemented is pretty childish.

While shadow banning has some benefits, at its heart it is a form of gas-lighting (claiming that everyone can see your message, while it's actually just you), with good intentions in the case of HN.

I don't know that it shouldn't be used just because of philosophical objections, but it certainly messes with the idea that a system is meant to either obey or refuse the command given by the user, and do so honestly. Lying to the user that yes, the post is published, while it's intentionally hidden, breaks the assumption that a system will behave consistently.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#9

Post by smt88 » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:35 AM UTC

Shadowbanning has two obvious benefits for the site:

1) Increases the time it takes trolls to realize they need to create a new account.

2) Pacifies angry, malicious users who might escalate their bad behavior when instantly banned.

I haven't seen HN use shadowbanning to censor anyone. The people who are shadowbanned all seem to post unhinged, profane, off-topic, content-free rants.

Personally, I think it makes the community better. If you find it slimy and cowardly, perhaps you should vote with your feet and visit other communities instead. There are millions of other message boards.

Re: I think that ghostbanning is unethical

#10

Post by janandonly » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

  > We're all big boys and girls.

We (as a species) overall do not behave like adults, really. Not on the internet anyway's, or at least not all the time.

But here is the thing: @dang is trying to keep peace and order. He is not trying to be evil or nice. He is "managing" us. Literally. And this path of the least resistance seems to be working fine-ish.

Personally, I hate having a great article be "flagged" or immediately down-voted. It is more worrisome that posting a similar article some hours later will make it into the top 10 for the same unfathomable reasons. It appears that being up or down voted is more or less emergent (and random?), and that saddens me a bit.