Analyzing HN moderation and censorship (2017)(drewdevault.com)
drewdevault.com
Analyzing HN moderation and censorship (2017)
https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html
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Instead of a vague comment, why not read the article or respond to the specific accusations outlined on the thread?
Here’s a concrete example from two of my posts. My first submission received 511 points with 267 comments and was on the front page of HN and received national news attention. This clearly shows interest from HN about Amazon’s power against small Amazon sellers.
My next post was shadow banned by Dang and was wiped off the submission page within a few minutes, without even a chance to be downvoted or upvoted by my peers.
The HN moderators have too much power and control, especially in regardless to lack of transparency and arbitrary opinions on who to shadow ban.
1. Delisted on Amazon – “Defective Product” with 6 complaints of 5164 sold in 2021 (travelhead.medium.com) 1 point by travelhead 3 months ago | past
2. Amazon competitor got our belt listing taken down by saying it contains drugs (travelhead.medium.com) 511 points by travelhead 4 months ago | past |
Here’s a concrete example from two of my posts. My first submission received 511 points with 267 comments and was on the front page of HN and received national news attention. This clearly shows interest from HN about Amazon’s power against small Amazon sellers.
My next post was shadow banned by Dang and was wiped off the submission page within a few minutes, without even a chance to be downvoted or upvoted by my peers.
The HN moderators have too much power and control, especially in regardless to lack of transparency and arbitrary opinions on who to shadow ban.
1. Delisted on Amazon – “Defective Product” with 6 complaints of 5164 sold in 2021 (travelhead.medium.com) 1 point by travelhead 3 months ago | past
2. Amazon competitor got our belt listing taken down by saying it contains drugs (travelhead.medium.com) 511 points by travelhead 4 months ago | past |
My guess is that the second article is too similar to the first one. (It's not the same case, it's about a similar problem you had with Amazon, but it's similar.)
It's strange it's [dead]. I'd expect it to had a manual penalty to avoid repetition, but I don't expect it to be [dead].
> However, an HN moderator did not like the article, so he shadow banned me.
Did they shadowban your account? Or your website? Or only killed the post? Do you see the post as [dead]?
Looking at your submissions and comments history, the last post are all about your sites. There is no hard rule against that here, but it may trigger some of the automated antispam or an error by a moderator.
Have you asked by mail about that case?
It's strange it's [dead]. I'd expect it to had a manual penalty to avoid repetition, but I don't expect it to be [dead].
> However, an HN moderator did not like the article, so he shadow banned me.
Did they shadowban your account? Or your website? Or only killed the post? Do you see the post as [dead]?
Looking at your submissions and comments history, the last post are all about your sites. There is no hard rule against that here, but it may trigger some of the automated antispam or an error by a moderator.
Have you asked by mail about that case?
The post was shadow banned.
As far as similarities between posts, yes they are both about my experience with Amazon.
I agree HN moderators should flag spam accounts, remove automated bots, and focus on improving overall quality of HN.
What I fail to see is why the “new submissions” page is so heavily moderated that the HN moderators feel like my post was worthy of a shadow ban, when my previous post made national news attention and the front page of HN with 511 upvotes and 267 comments.
If a post is not spam, then let the users decide to upvote or downvote it.
HN proclaims itself to be a social news site, but this is clearly false. The content MUST align with the views of HN moderators or you won’t stand a chance at even a few people seeing your post. This was made evident by my post getting shadow banned by Dang within a few minutes of submission.
Also remember, shadow banning is the most severe form of censorship. By not alerting the user that his post is not visible to other users, they give the user no chance to appeal or even know that his post has zero distribution on the platform, in order to not draw attention to the censorship.
HN moderators clearly did not want me to know that my post was removed, in order to prevent threads like this appearing on HN. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire thread was removed because we are discussing HN / HN moderators in a negative light. That is the exact definition of censorship. The powers that be don’t want their content moderation policies exposed, in order to maintain the illusion of HN as a site that aggregates and votes on content by your peers.
>>Have you asked by mail about that case?
Yes, I have a very lengthy email correspondence with the HN moderator who shadow banned the submission. He said it was similar to my prior post (it's absolutely not, it's a totally different topic) and that it was self-promotion (it's not, the reason why my prior post went to the front page of HN with 511 upvotes and 267 comments was because of my experience as a small business selling on Amazon.
As far as similarities between posts, yes they are both about my experience with Amazon.
I agree HN moderators should flag spam accounts, remove automated bots, and focus on improving overall quality of HN.
What I fail to see is why the “new submissions” page is so heavily moderated that the HN moderators feel like my post was worthy of a shadow ban, when my previous post made national news attention and the front page of HN with 511 upvotes and 267 comments.
If a post is not spam, then let the users decide to upvote or downvote it.
HN proclaims itself to be a social news site, but this is clearly false. The content MUST align with the views of HN moderators or you won’t stand a chance at even a few people seeing your post. This was made evident by my post getting shadow banned by Dang within a few minutes of submission.
Also remember, shadow banning is the most severe form of censorship. By not alerting the user that his post is not visible to other users, they give the user no chance to appeal or even know that his post has zero distribution on the platform, in order to not draw attention to the censorship.
HN moderators clearly did not want me to know that my post was removed, in order to prevent threads like this appearing on HN. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire thread was removed because we are discussing HN / HN moderators in a negative light. That is the exact definition of censorship. The powers that be don’t want their content moderation policies exposed, in order to maintain the illusion of HN as a site that aggregates and votes on content by your peers.
>>Have you asked by mail about that case?
Yes, I have a very lengthy email correspondence with the HN moderator who shadow banned the submission. He said it was similar to my prior post (it's absolutely not, it's a totally different topic) and that it was self-promotion (it's not, the reason why my prior post went to the front page of HN with 511 upvotes and 267 comments was because of my experience as a small business selling on Amazon.
This is an important topic since HN appears to be a news site that uses social up/down voting, but really is a highly moderated platform, where moderators have full power to censor and shadow ban for any reason without any transparency.
I was shadow banned for my submission about Amazon’s power over my small Amazon business, an important topic in which I received national media attention from NBC, former editors of Vice News, etc.
However, an HN moderator did not like the article, so he shadow banned me.
I understand there are cases for shadow banning, such as trolls, spam accounts etc, but my submission was a highly significant news worthy article that received national media attention, that did not deserve this treatment due to one HN moderators opinion.
HN lacks moderator transparency. Readers believe they are being shown a curated list of relevant news from their peers, but really are just seeing the topics and views that closely align with HN moderators opinions.
I was shadow banned for my submission about Amazon’s power over my small Amazon business, an important topic in which I received national media attention from NBC, former editors of Vice News, etc.
However, an HN moderator did not like the article, so he shadow banned me.
I understand there are cases for shadow banning, such as trolls, spam accounts etc, but my submission was a highly significant news worthy article that received national media attention, that did not deserve this treatment due to one HN moderators opinion.
HN lacks moderator transparency. Readers believe they are being shown a curated list of relevant news from their peers, but really are just seeing the topics and views that closely align with HN moderators opinions.
my posts were also recently banned (0% of the time showing up when submitted now - and am playing by rules now + something quite unique & useful in a niche space)
know that’s not necessarily a HN site guideline req., but when you censor premature, you sometimes kill sincere & nascent attempts at innovation (especially when really not too big on SM)
in essence: “too bad” is the sentiment. (won’t participate now?)
sometimes feels like when you want to have a discussion, even here, haters jump on and attack while missing Big Picture of what could be
There is probs no more local / friendly zone of “super - smarties” than the folks on HN
and it’s too bad when peeps attack or “no second-chances” censored for, in the scheme of things, minor infractions, instead allowing / offering chance for growth + the innovative-kind of-discourse that seems sometimes here is owed here / could be (at least moreso than arguing or just casual convo)
also, not saying Dang & crew have an easy job keeping Quality up & don’t know what they go through daily obvi (HN really is one of the greatest imo) but it sucks when you’re learning & creating & not perfect on site guidelines
Everyone’s loss when you’re banned on a platform that could help build a better future
know that’s not necessarily a HN site guideline req., but when you censor premature, you sometimes kill sincere & nascent attempts at innovation (especially when really not too big on SM)
in essence: “too bad” is the sentiment. (won’t participate now?)
sometimes feels like when you want to have a discussion, even here, haters jump on and attack while missing Big Picture of what could be
There is probs no more local / friendly zone of “super - smarties” than the folks on HN
and it’s too bad when peeps attack or “no second-chances” censored for, in the scheme of things, minor infractions, instead allowing / offering chance for growth + the innovative-kind of-discourse that seems sometimes here is owed here / could be (at least moreso than arguing or just casual convo)
also, not saying Dang & crew have an easy job keeping Quality up & don’t know what they go through daily obvi (HN really is one of the greatest imo) but it sucks when you’re learning & creating & not perfect on site guidelines
Everyone’s loss when you’re banned on a platform that could help build a better future
I assume this might be in response to Linus' vaccine post from yesterday?
It received a crazy amount of votes in its first half hour(almost 500) and then just suddenly disappeared from the main news listing without being flagged or dead.
No comment from HN staff either as far as I can see.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27466374
It received a crazy amount of votes in its first half hour(almost 500) and then just suddenly disappeared from the main news listing without being flagged or dead.
No comment from HN staff either as far as I can see.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27466374
Be aware that if you think something’s off you can also just email the moderators first! They tend to respond quite quickly.