Actually, the title refers to it as "bias" rather than "censorship". "free market" is a larger concept than "bias", although you can be biased while still operating within the context of a free market. Still, censorship doesn't have anything to do with the government, although the U.S. explicitly forbids government censorship.
If we really start considering media, a lot of taxpayer money worldwide went to broadband Internet infrastructure, so Twitter and friends do not play on a completely private field either.
Understood, its your prerogative and your choice. I feel that inference is not derogatory nor offensive, and I would rather be banned that be required to coddle those who are incapable of receiving or digesting criticism or engaging in difficult dialog.
I come here for the intelligent and interesting discussions. Often times these are the types of discussions that are difficult for people as they contain ideas that challenge one's sense of self and place are the most uncomfortable. But without those challenges, people will never grow. Trees are strongest where the forces of nature are not buffered. People are as well.
> Trees are strongest where the forces of nature are not buffered. People are as well.
That may be true of trees and people but it is not true of internet communities. I think you're making a category error. The confrontational style you're talking about requires smaller, more cohesive environments to generate interesting outcomes. On a large, anonymous, open internet forum like HN, it just produces repetitive flamewar, then brain death, then heat death. Since the idea of HN is to be interesting (to the extent possible), we have no choice but to moderate this. I wish it were different—it would be a lot less work.
Usually when someone posts the sort of argument that you did, I have found that it's possible to persuade them to follow the site guidelines once they understand that everything we do follows from trying to optimize for interestingness (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). It's not about enforcing some tedious moral code. If you decide you buy that and want to use HN as intended in the future, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and let us know.
