This is one of the most heavily flagged submissions I've seen in a while - hit #2 with 70 points, and now is at #6 with 174 points in 40 min, while the new #2 is 124 points in 2 hours.
This is an entirely anonymous complaint with no particular reason why anyone would believe it. A lot of it read to me as too perfect. Too designed to hit all of the right buttons to generate outrage.
I won't deny that it could be true. But I'd also give that possibility under even odds. And if stories like this are true, then we'll likely have enough opportunity to learn that later to give this version undue attention.
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top.
The story is not spam, not off-topic, and has a good chance of being non-egregious. It's certainly true it could be wrong, but that's very different.
(Maybe I'm wrong about appropriate use of flagging? I'd concede that it's fair for you to downvote it, but I suspect HN has disabled downvotes on stories for a reason, and using flagging as a pseudo-downvote seems wrong.)
My stated belief was that there are greater than even odds that it is propaganda. Propaganda is a form of spam.
Even worse, propaganda is a particularly nasty form of spam since it tries to alter your belief system such that future propaganda will seem more reasonable to you. Therefore maintaining a keen sense of what is possible propaganda is very important. A healthy brain should immediately try to verify anything that could be propaganda from any ideological position, and reject out of hand anything that cannot be verified.
This will only become more important as the world continues its slide towards fake news and echo chambers.
There are always two sides to a story. Having everyone believe the woman because she is a woman is a short road to seeing the system abused. Ever seen a false accusation of sexual harassment? I have.
The more important the cause, and the more serious the claim, the more important it is to proceed carefully and not rush to conclusions.
It might not technically break any HN rules, but it's kind of saddening to see what's so far an anonymous accusation it make it so deep into the front page.
Combined with the other recent bad press Uber's getting, it's admittedly not looking good for them, but on the other hand any of us _could_ have signed up for Medium and published an article like this.
I don't think it's flag-worthy because it absolutely could be true. It's not like anything here is that difficult to believe given previous insider reports from Uber. None of the claims here are that absurd.
But, yes, it could easily be an anonymous troll. It needs verification.
Not even halfway through reading it and I swore that somehow I must have missed that today was April 1st. Extremely sad if true, however highly questionable whether it is true.
Ideologues of all flavors frequently diss HN like this. Someone needs to stand up for the community, so I guess I will. This was a slur, and your prediction turning out consummately wrong illustrates this nicely.
I think it's in poor taste to diss a group with grand rhetoric whilst participating in it, since you're as much a part of it as anyone else. If you think so poorly of your community, perhaps find a different one and post nastily there. I hear Twitter is good for that.
The reality of the HN community is that it's divided much the way that society at large is. The comments here inevitably reflect that. It's a mixed bag, a lot of what's in that bag isn't great and a small portion is awful, but (a) this community does manage somewhat better than most of the rest of the internet and (b) far more of the participants here are thoughtful and decent than otherwise.
