It'll be interesting to see how the Democrats use this ramped-up and militarized ICE when they're next in power. I don't imagine they'll be disbanding it.
Given how many accounts online are bots or anonymous, will they ever be able to shake out which real people which personas belong to? Or will it be a case of "we said this is you, so that makes it you"?
Yeah, that's some Gestapo level business... or since they don't like that word, Stasi.
As in, there were loads of people in the DDR (East Germany, 1949-1989) whose job it was to read people's personal mail, along with the network of neighborhood snitches.
Arguably, we have been for a long, long time, and this is merely the first step in a long line of small corrections so that we may finally one day prosper once again.
So if they are using information people freely share to social media sites as the seeds for their investigatory and enforcement actions it follows that there is a simple trick people can employ or minimize their effectiveness.
I guess I had always just assumed this was the case for quite some time. Or I should say "someone" in the govt was always watching...not necessarily ICE.
Nationwide secret police with paramilitary capabilities only answerable to a few people in the executive branch? Completely unconstitutional, violating all the clauses on warrantless searches, detention without trial, etc.?
Looks like ICE should be abolished and its entire staff fired, just have INS take over all immigration issues.
And of course it's flagged. Because the use of technology built from companies funded by VC has nothing to do with Hacker News and Ycombinator.
Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.
The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.
Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.
> for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged
I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.
I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.
Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.
After having been here a long time and paid close attention to what gets flagged: They're not a joke. They're collaborators. The wave of flags around everything Thiel and Musk and Israel in the last year has been extraordinarily disturbing, and the rationalizations for it have been tissue thin.
When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.
That this post got flagged, and was allowed to stay flagged (as far as I can see) is one more excellent example of the selective idiocy of the moderators on this site, or if not their idiocy, than tacit support for dampening certain narratives. It's very much a tech-related post, that talks about a very worrying authoritarian digital surveillance tendency, and it gets flagged on a site that calls itself "hacker news"? Get the fuck out of town.
32 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 49.2 ms ] threadPeople can always go mack to USENET and IRC if they want to make it hard to be tracked :)
As in, there were loads of people in the DDR (East Germany, 1949-1989) whose job it was to read people's personal mail, along with the network of neighborhood snitches.
https://signal.org/download/
Some other people: "More fascism. This is Trump's version of the SS. It's absolutely horrible and we are doomed if this continues."
The world continues to spin.
Looks like ICE should be abolished and its entire staff fired, just have INS take over all immigration issues.
Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.
The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.
Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.
I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.
I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.
Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.
This. A thousand times this.
When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.
If you believe a story shouldn't have been flagged, email mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
(Mods also don't see mentions of their names, email is how you attract moderators' attention.)