Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#1

Post by scaphist_302 » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 12:44 PM UTC

Pardon the throwaway account. I have a good reason.

About a week ago, I linked to an essay on AI written by someone who made a few people look bad, a long time ago, and got himself un-personed here a few years ago. The essay didn’t hit on any of his “touchy” topics and was inoffensive. I didn’t even name him. I just linked to it.

Anyway, I used an alt account for this and I’m glad I did because the account was “ghostbanned”. As in, it looked to me like it had been submitted successfully, but as soon as I logged out it disappeared.

You should be very cautious about what you post here. This is not neutral territory. Who knows what other bad-faith ghostbannings and algorithmic manipulations go on that we don’t even know about?

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#2

Post by mtmail » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

You can see all shadow-banned submissions when you enable showdead=yes in your profile. I have it enabled so the "Who knows what other ..." argument is less scary, it can be seen.

You said you used an alt account. An easier explanation is that one of the anti-spam algorithms saw it as duplicate and auto-blocked the submission. That happens to brand new throw-away accounts all the time and it needs another existing HN user to click 'vouch'. Not a moderator, it's enough for another user to click it. Entirely possible simply nobody did. Can be time of day, can be the topic, and yes could be the "unperson" (your words).

Regarding the topic: I noticed AI-generated posts or posts of chats with AI don't go well (not enough users upvote) on HackerNews. Maybe it's deemed not relevant enough. Today there was a "ChatGPT Poetry: Trump vs. Biden" submission for example.

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#3

Post by karamanolev » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

mtmail wrote: post #2

You can see all shadow-banned submissions when you enable showdead=yes in your profile. I have it enabled so the "Who knows what other ..." argument is less scary, it can be seen. You said you used an alt account. An easier explanation is that one of the anti-spam algorithms saw it as duplicate and auto-blocked the submission. That happens to brand new throw-away accounts all the time and it needs another existing HN…

FWIW, OP says "essay on AI written by someone". I.e. not an essay written by an AI, but where the topic is AI.

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#4

Post by shaftoe » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

Pardon my ignorance, but who is an unperson here?

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#5

Post by mtmail » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

karamanolev wrote: post #3

mtmail wrote: post #2

You can see all shadow-banned submissions when you enable showdead=yes in your profile. I have it enabled so the "Who knows what other ..." argument is less scary, it can be seen. You said you used an alt account. An easier explanation is that one of the anti-spam algorithms saw it as duplicate and auto-blocked the submission. That happens to brand new throw-away accounts all the time and it needs another existing HN…

FWIW, OP says "essay on AI written by someone". I.e. not an essay written by an AI, but where the topic is AI.

Ah, ok. I missed that. I would help to have a link to that submission. Like I said it's not deleted, it can be made seen again and then (that needs a moderator though) the account status can be checked. The anti-spam algorithms are pretty good but not perfect.

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#6

Post by baggsie » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

shaftoe wrote: post #4

Pardon my ignorance, but who is an unperson here?

[REDACTED]

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#7

Post by mtmail » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:22 PM UTC

shaftoe wrote: post #4

Pardon my ignorance, but who is an unperson here?

I only know Jamie Zawinski (one of the founders of Netscape and Mozilla.org). Not the person, not his opinions. But he hates HN - I think - and decided to show picture of a genitalia when people click on links to his blog. He doesn't want traffic from HN and doesn't want HN users to discuss his blog posts. So his domain is blocked.

[edit] I thought Foone, always good content, but they don't like HN either "I'm gonna have to email [HN] again and finally get them to just ban me from HN. this has happened too many times" https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1574140918478692352 but seems it's not https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32975173

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#8

Post by mtmail » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

baggsie wrote: post #6

shaftoe wrote: post #4

Pardon my ignorance, but who is an unperson here?

[REDACTED]

That joke isn't helping. HN doesn't edit comments automatically. You wrote that.

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#9

Post by fathyb » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

shaftoe wrote: post #4

Pardon my ignorance, but who is an unperson here?

My guess is Michael O. Church.

Re: Tell HN: You can get ghostbanned for mentioning certain “unpersons.”

#10

Post by tptacek » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

Without a link, it's hard to evaluate this. I doubt you're getting "ghostbanned" for mentioning "unpersons". But this is posted under a throwaway account, so there should be no risk to posting both the link and the name of this supposed "unperson". Go ahead and clear things up for us, would you?

Somebody else on this thread seems to believe that HN will ban you for posting stories critical of Bobby Fischer. You can see why people are jaded about claims like these.