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Ask HN: What's with the culture of suppression of dissenting views?

66 points by 0xBABAD00C ↗ HN
I've been on this site for over a decade, under different names. Generally I've found it to be one of the better tech-focused and smart online communities. However, I've recently caught myself self-censoring and avoiding sharing provocative or speculative opinions, since they immediately get downvoted (often without any explanation). It seems like there's now a culture of conformity that punishes for dissenting views. Is it (A) in my head, (B) an inevitable stage of all maturing communities, or (C) something else like the state of the world at large?

110 comments

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wmf
The comments I see getting crushed are really out there, but then I stay out of the political threads. I see downvotes as a way to sense the limits of the community without actually hurting anything.
paulpauper
Downvotes are not completely harmless. if you get enough of them you may lose certain privileges.
misnome
Yes, but you can only lose (IIRC) 4 points max per post
hotpotamus
I learned that lesson by making a (what I thought was fairly respectful) joke about Mark Zuckerberg. I get my share of upvotes and downvotes, but that was the fastest I've ever seen it hit the floor. I'm not really a fan of the whole karma thing, but I think my biggest complaint is that when you post, it starts as 1, but doesn't change your overall score, so it's really 0, which would make more sense to me.
nickthegreek
If you lose enough karma over enough posts that you are losing privileges, it’s safe to assume that the damage you were doing to the discourse on this site was not completely harmless.
soco
And you can win them back just as easily, so there.
sharemywin
sometimes it helps to have some kind of link or something to back up your opinion.

with an example it's hard to tell.

I try to go to new and offer advice to people early on which usually get upvoted. Then I don't really care about the down votes.

version_five
Overton window has shifted and there are some extremely intolerant subcultures that have popped up (in the world). Otoh, HN is probably one of the more tolerant forums to different views, most, like reddit, don't seem to even allow anything controversial.

Most downmods (that I get) are most likely just due to posting something dumb though.

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tayo42
What view do you want to share that you feel like you can't?
nickff
It seems to me that the fact people are self-censoring is a problem, regardless of what their views are. Questioning the legitimacy of their views here is unlikely to help, and seems like victim-blaming.
troutwine
I don't know that I would call a community disagreeing with you -- however loosely defined 'community' is on a semi-anonymous site -- victimizing. Downvoting is not shouting fire in a crowded theater; it's an expression of speech on the part of the voter. Not one that can be responded to directly, sure, but presumably at least some downvotes are an expression of disagreement that don't rise to the threshold of response on the part of the voter.

Brigading is another matter and limit my comment to 'normal' up/down vote patterns.

tayo42
No one can answer the op with out examples. Otherwise we're responding to made up scenarios in our head.

Two off the top of my head, he wants to say things perceived as hurtful on hot topics (trans rights for example)

Or he's bringing up controversial opinions at times where it seemed forced. I know personally this happened with a gun comment here

Edit for a third, he could be a "hard truth" guy and just saying things that come off insulting

Freedom2
I'll say it - NodeJS isn't that bad, and frontend development can be quite pleasant sometimes.

(Just trying to lighten the mood, a bit)

Zetice
Couldn’t disagree more. Self censorship is a huge part of a functioning society and without it, we’re much worse off.

People need to find ways to express themselves productively, and when they don’t, other people must have the freedom to express their displeasure, or we won’t reap the benefits of free speech.

effingwewt
Your comment makes zero sense.

So people need to self-censor and only express themselves in approved 'productive' ways, because if they lose the freedom to express their displeasure we lose the benefits of free speech?

How about adults need to act like adults and take ownership of their own feelings and let others do the same?

You can't have censorship and freedom of speech they are antithetical.

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Zetice
Feelings are free expressions, you can’t have freedom of speech without letting people express their reactions to your expressions, and you considering others is baseline pro social behavior.

Self censorship is a fantastic thing, a critical behavior in a cooperative group, and necessary for free speech.

Unthinkingly seeing “censorship” and reacting with “That’s bad!” isn’t helpful.

thrwy_918
>It seems to me that the fact people are self-censoring is a problem, regardless of what their views are

You really think there are no views that should be self-censored? There exist many views that I believe are not worthy of being aired in public

jfghi
I think one taboo topic is having positive things to say about projects using the C programming language. Immediately it’ll get hit with criticisms from rust promoters even if it’s a domain that rust is quite separate from.
crooked-v
Generally I find myself very doubtful of anyone who complains about not being able to share dissenting opinions without actually saying what those dissenting opinions are.
version_five
Because two people said this, and frankly it's stupid, I'll give my view: if you give examples, you immediately have people start debating the validity of the examples with you, instead of the actual topic. And so people like you and the other person (no idea of your actual intentions obviously) seem to pop up and say "oh, what opinions do you mean" to try and tell them their opinion is extremist or whatever. It's a bush league online debate tactic, whether intentional or not.
Zetice
Honestly? Too bad. Abstract arguments without concrete examples tend to over or under weight specific outcomes, which ruins practical discussion.

Say what you think you can’t, and be prepared for others to also say what they think of what you say. Your speech doesn’t get special treatment just because you went first.

m348e912
I think people in general have been conditioned to downvote or report dissenting views that they understand to be not only false but fall into the category of dangerous misinformation. It's especially noticeable on HN because generally these types of views are not of a technical nature and it's easy to dismiss as simply "not relevant to the discussion". (which is generally true)

HN doesn't claim to be an unfettered open forum of free discussion. In fact it's heavily moderated (not just for wild opinions) and you could argue that's what makes it so good.

lez
This is exactly how the most disturbing downvotes happen to me.

When enough people are conditioned to believe X is a dangerous misinfo about Y topic, we are in a bubble and cannot discuss Y anymore openly because of "safety of the readers".

And people are easily conditioned to believe anything, if all media sources, including tech sites are "following the science" by silencing opposing views. This, we've seen A LOT in the last 2-3 years.

orwin
Honestly, if you're talking about covid, it's because "dissenting" science is hijacked by dumb science, and lumped together.

The "probably an unintentional lab break initially unnoticed then covered up" got lumped with the "aaaaah! China virus! Bill gates bad!".

Not by one person, in one comment, it's like a chain. Someone make a reasonable, skeptic comment, someone agree but goes further, the third one goes even further, and by the fourth we have a dumb idea that doesn't have any basis, and it's easier to reject the thread entirely.

But i made several comments highly suspicious of the real efficacy of mRNA comapred to usual deactivated virus (i do have a friend working at Valneva, so i might have been partisan), and had pleasants conversations about it, and learned a lot. But several time some big "vaccine = autism" guy showed up on the thread. It's just tiring.

RicoElectrico
I think you're onto something, at least on Reddit somebody would rush to prove you wrong (and get that sweet karma in the process). They say that HN is a more civilized Reddit, but I think only in form.
kzrdude
I think arguing back and forth about unsubstantial things on the internet is one of those small things that can really affect your mood. It's pointless and has mostly downside and no upside for me. So, I hedge my comments and word them with a bit of care to avoid knee-jerk responses that just want to disagree on technicalities.
notmypenguin
Yes, I see this whenever anyone posts something critical about someone’s cash pony, said pony’s owner and their pals gang up on the person. I don’t think it’s anything high level like y-combinator related, but rather low level sock puppetry
cashthrow7492
Very astute observation.

Sometimes it feels like the only reason people are “going to bat”/rationalizing/etc. (glorified simping) for corporations/people of wealth or power/etc. is because they have a financial incentive to maintain good publicity else the stock they hold would be in jeopardy.

I know there’s been sock-puppetry on smaller scales; but for things like FAANG/MAANGA/Elon/$latest_bigco_doing_layoffs you have people coming out of the woodwork to sing praises and “ackschtully”s, perhaps because they work there/know people that work there/or have stock in the parties involved.

But other times it might just be a rationalization to preserve ego. F.e. on Blind, outright saying that FAANG et al. Might be overrated is a quick way to get a bunch of Googles and Microsofts to tell you off.

effingwewt
Austin Allred of lambda 'school' infamy is a perfect example of this.
pmoriarty
What do you propose as a solution?
TheMagicHorsey
It depends on what kind of views you are talking about :)

HN is fairly tolerant on some axes, and fairly conservative on other axes.

But one thing you should learn is how to have a thick-skin. Who cares about downvotes? I certainly don't. Why do you?

root_axis
Downvotes aren't "suppression of dissenting views", they most often come from snarky and hostile comments or clearly incorrect information stated as fact. I've been on this site for more than a decade across different accounts and from my perspective things are mostly the same. A thoughtfully articulated comment or one that strikes a cadence of open discussion and humility is pretty much never downvoted.
smitty1e
Figures against whom at fatwa has been pronounced, e.g. Clarence Thomas, are defended at peril.
foogazi
I’d be interested in how someone would (care to) defend Clarence Thomas

Seems like an odd pick for a “provocative or speculative” topic

version_five
I don't know why it would come up in HN (though apparently it did though this discussion). But he has lots of supporters, your comment represents exactly the kind of narrow view people are talking about. It's not a given that everyone would hate a sitting supreme court judge, an elected politician, etc.
smitty1e
Q.E.D., for a look at my OP.
foogazi
> your comment represents exactly the kind of narrow view people are talking about.

my comment expresses no view - I’m asking why Thomas would be topical on HN

pfannkuchen
I'm not sure if this is off topic, but I live under a rock and I've missed what the beef is with Thomas. As an apparent anti-Thomasite, would you mind briefly bringing me up to speed? People here are usually a little bit more level headed than the media, so I expect your opinion is likely to be more grounded than a MSM article might be (hence why I'm asking instead of Googling).
foogazi
> As an apparent anti-Thomasite, would you

I have expressed no view on Thomas. I don’t follow the supremes. Gp said they couldn’t defend him - I didn’t know he had or needed fan club

I could speculate but want to give gp a chance to answer

pfannkuchen
Oh I misread, I thought you were saying that you didn't think anyone sensible could possibly defend him given what he has said/done.

Carry on!

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quantified
It quite depends. A review of downvoting I've been part of includes "I don't like your view" and "you're demonstrably wrong" together.

I appreciate the "you're demonstrably wrong" commentary, which downvoting doesn't provide.

lowmagnet
I think a lot of us are used to the "bullshit asymmetry principle" and would rather disengage than engage in a handful of fruitless and repeated arguments.
pfannkuchen
I believe that principle only holds when the "bullshit" generation is tactical, as opposed to stemming from either confusion, a different sampling of existing facts, or different values. It seems against the spirit of HN to assume the first option?
smitty1e
I really appreciate the better signal-to-noise ratio here, but feel the moderation needs a "lighten up, Francis" in some places.
flippinburgers
I would say it is B. With enough people in the mix, and given how the internet has only just bolstered what would have otherwise been fringe ideas, public forums will eventually shift into a state where there are enough users of subculture X with an axe to grid that will see your comment and downvote it religiously.
0xBABAD00C
Yeah I tend to agree it feels like a little bit of everything, but mostly B. To be honest, this community survived longer than many others I've seen.
etchalon
Given the community works through a voting system, the downvoting of provocative and speculative opinions is the community's way of signaling that such opinions aren't welcome – or at least need to be better worded to encourage discussion.

Calling that a "cultural of suppression" instead of "the intended outcome of a feature" seems weird.

jltsiren
I don't think there is such thing as "the community" on any site with more than ~100 active users. It's more likely that there are many overlapping communities, each with its own norms and expectations.

The way this site works, the intended semantics of upvotes and downvotes are roughly "promote" and "suppress". Or at least that's the way I see it. But it's obvious that many people see it otherwise and use them as "agree" and "disagree".

etchalon
I think that's a radical revision to what the word "community" usually means.
jltsiren
It could be that the English concept "community" is subtly different from Finnish "yhteisö".

Another way to state this could be that as a community grows larger, the shared norms become weaker. Large communities often have subcommunities that believe that their norms are more universal within the community than they actually are. Ugly things tend to happen when two such subcommunities collide.

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shipscode
It's not in your head, people who wield downvote power on HN are ultra mid & downvote anything outside of the "current thing" or "prominent worldview".

Like all online communities, HN suffers from the "most active people online do nothing IRL" factor, and the downvotes show.

whack
"The Coddling of the American Mind" is a great book that explores this subject in depth.

Very bad overview that is a poor substitute for reading the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coddling_of_the_American_M...

> The book goes on to discuss microaggressions, identity politics, "safetyism", call-out culture, and intersectionality.[1] The authors define safetyism as a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes "emotional safety") has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. They argue that embracing the culture of safetyism has interfered with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development.[2] Continuing on to discuss contemporary partisanship or the "rising political polarization and cross party animosity", they state that the left and right are "locked into a game of mutual provocation and reciprocal outrage".[2]

> The authors call on university and college administrators to identify with freedom of inquiry by endorsing the Chicago principles on free speech,[2]: 255–257 through which university and colleges notify students in advance that they do not support the use of trigger warnings or safe spaces.[3] They suggest specific programs, such as LetGrow, Lenore Skenazy's Free Range Kids, teaching children mindfulness, and the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).[2]: 241 They encourage a charitable approach to the interpretations of other peoples' statements instead of assuming they meant offense.

progrus
In my lifetime I’ve seen the general breakdown of civil discourse. I’m not totally sure it can be proven which side “started it”, but there has been a general trend where now that fringe scientist is not invited to parties anymore, and those ideas are shunned as if they carry evil energy.

As far as forums go, people here often try to keep things civil, serious, and in good faith (shoutout to dang), but IMO there is still that stain of “academic” bullying where the words stay polite, but their coded meaning is nasty and dehumanizing.

goawaythrwaway
Some good examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35512064

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35513687

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35485467

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progrus
Adding this to help understanding, even though we appear to be enemies:

There is an information war going on. Many headlines and things that you might try to call “news” I see as malicious and violent. How can a news organization write that hurricane damage is more expensive than ever, allow many readers to believe that it is all because hurricanes are worse, and refuse to mention how coastal areas have developed in the same time?

This is war. Clutch your pearls all you like, but we are done pretending that your intents towards us are anything but malicious. This is us trying to intimidate you into backing down, because it is the right thing to do, and better than the alternative.

We see you for who you are. We don’t care if you agree or not. Stop this madness before more people get hurt. Stop the lies, stop the fighting words - coded or not. Just stop it.

CyberDildonics
Hacker News is one of the most censored general forums on the internet. The only forums that are more censored are run directly by the organization they are about and kept free of any negative information, like /r/bitcoin or forums that claim to be about something general but are really run by people who are using it to advertise, like /r/gadgets or /r/cryptocurrency.

These examples are all from reddit but apply in a general sense as well.

rurp
I don't know, I read with `showdead` on and the vast majority of heavily downvoted comments are really bad. Lightly downvoted posts are more of a mixed bag, but honestly I think it's pretty fair overall. Nothing is perfect but this forum gets it right more often than any other popular one that I have spent a long time on.
m348e912
I wasn't aware of the showdead option, thanks.
soco
Might be that the major evolution is that nowadays "dissenting" became to be an ass about it, because the others are just "snowflakes" unable to take my "well researched" opinion.
jemmyw
I see a lot of downvoting for things people don't like that are factual/anecdotal. Downvote - pretty much saying "don't post that here because I don't want to hear it". If someone has done something you disagree with I think it's better to respond with a comment.

I don't check every dead comment I find, but the couple I've looked at this past week seemed OK. Dissenting opinion and not really out there.

I probably agree that it's better than other popular forums, but I disagree that the majority (I come across) should have been downvoted at all.

Sytten
Downvoting is an easier way to express a disagreement than writing a comment thus gets used more often. I am wondering if they should raise the number of points required to access this feature, it should probably be raised each year in fact.

But yeah some things you just can't say on HN without being downvoted: subcriptions are not evil, opt-out telemetry is fine, not everything needs to be open source, etc.

another_story
The internet brought everyone and their opinion to the table. It used to be that debate was done within smaller circles, and the wayward elements within those were tolerated to a larger degree, but the rest, the outsiders, were never let in.

Now anyone can weigh in on anything that is presented online. You are no longer debating amongst your "clan" but amongst all clans, many of which won't really understand where you're coming from and will invariably disagree.