Well, I agree the discussion is pretty awful. But this policy is a bit unclear to me (and otherwise unwritten, AFAICT):
> not making insinuations about astroturfing and shills, unless you have evidence
That's confusing: What evidence could users have? In my comment, one of the ones you objected to, I cited some strong patterns in the discussion. That's going to be the best evidence that users have access to unless it's very clumsily executed. The astroturfers aren't going to out themselves; looking like ordinary users is the fundamental requirement of 'astroturf'.
So if there's no possible sufficient evidence, do you really mean, 'don't bring it up at all?' I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but nobody even should point out the general possibility, saying for example, "it seems like something odd is going on here; all these talking points look the same and are made provocatively ..."?
There is no doubt astroturf happens here, simply because there is overwhelming evidence that it is rampant on the Internet and HN isn't exempt. If users can't discuss the topic at all (probably not what you meant), that would shield the bad actors and be a recipe for it to happen unrestrained.
I wish HN would ban comments like the parent. It's such an old tactic for spreading hate, I don't need to describe it. It adds nothing to HN - the pseudo-rational is just old propaganda - and is in fact a great detriment. I can speak only for myself, but please take your hate elsewhere.
Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? Does anyone know about any serious research or reporting on it? Chinese and Russian operations are well-known and reported, but I haven't heard of Indian ones.
Seeing the same, generally weak talking points, angrily defending the Indian government, advocating nationalistic points of view, and repeated over and over - it all reminds me of threads critical of China and Russia.
> Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing?
You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence. Haven't we discussed this with you before? Please don't comment like this again.
dang: It's a bit shocking to read this, and it's disappointing too.
I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see only a tiny fraction of what you do, and you could make this comment 100 times and maybe only a fraction of users would come across it at all.
But it's especially disappointing to read the accusation, which has no basis as far as I know. I've always been respectful of the mods, other users, the forum, and its rules, even when I think they aren't great ideas (inevitably, nobody will agree with everything). If I had known about this policy, I would have respected it too. I don't know how I was cast into the role of an antagonist. Like anyone, I don't appreciate loose allegations about me.
...
> You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence
I don't quite understand the policy as stated. I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but I certainly didn't do that even by implication. Half my comment was a question asking if there was evidence that it happens in other places, not HN. I also raised the possibility of it happening here, but clearly was unsure and 'insinuated' nothing; I meant simply what I said. If not even that is allowed ...
But to be clear, my concerns don't mean I won't respect your forum's rules. (However, uncertainties will make it more likely that it will happen unintentionally)
EDIT: Moved paragraph with questions of general interest to your post at the top of the discussion.
There are several ways you might have actual evidence that someone was astroturfing, but they're rare, and overwhelmingly less likely than people just making such accusations up because another user's comment pisses them off. The "you must be a shill" trope is pretty much the most popular internet cheap shot out there, and based on everything we know, it's a far greater threat to this site because it's so common and degrades discussion so quickly. Indeed it's a bit like antivirus software in causing the very problem it claims to combat.
So, unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.
To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN.
> I've posted about this countless times
Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mods - I see a few discussions and a minority of comments in each. Consider even your 'sticky' post at the top of this discussion - what tiny fraction of HN users will see it? Few will see this discussion, and even most/many commenters on this discussion will have moved on or will be reading their comment histories to see responses.
> unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.
To be clear, that's not at all what I did, as I described above. I'm still not sure if what I did say - pointing to a strong pattern of the same arguments repeated in angry posts, both hallmarks of astroturfing and propaganda - is admissible, since it seems to both meet your standards and yet was rejected. Moving on ...
No, it's not admissible to see arguments you disagree with and make posts "wondering" if state actors are astroturfing HN. That's just another variation of the same insinuation, so please don't do it here.
Again, that's not what happened, and not what I described several times even though you can see it for yourself. I'm not going to repeat myself to describe it again, but this is absurd. It represents what you suspect in your mind - motives and intent - not the words on the page, while it overlooks half the actual text (the second paragraph, which contains the evidence). What defense is there from mind-reading? The baseless allegations are not welcome, even from moderators.
EDIT: I don't even disagree with the alleged astroturfers; I've known about Aadhaar for a long time and think it probably is a good idea on balance. This really is a ridiculous situation.
I'm not defending anything, it's just extremely hypocritical to accuse India's system of being dystopian while currently existing systems in "developed" nations are even worse.
America doesn't have this. EU doesn't have this. AFAIK only UAE has such a comprehensive system. What countries are you talking about that takes mandatory 10-finger + retina scans of its citizens and compiles it into a single database?
India hasn't banned DDT which has been banned for decades in every other country. We have crippled infrastructure, severe poverty. Yet India has time and money to implement one of the most ambitious Universal ID systems in the world.
I was referring to agricultural use which is banned worldwide except India and North Korea.
WHO recommends poor countries to use DDT for malaria probably because people there are dying anyway from malaria. Would rich countries use it? Do you use it in your home? Again why India uses it in Agriculture when other alternatives exist?
Also payment startups are at the fore front of the Anti Aadhaar lobbying effort, since Aadhaar based payments + UPI essentially cut the middleman out - NO MDR anymore!
And it makes sense. Would you want a private company like ApplePay/PayPal/AliPay control payments, and be able to block merchants at will like apple does, or a public agency you can drag to court.
I'll add that in a few hours I got 6 (or maybe more) down-votes on otherwise uncontroversial comments that didn't agree with the seeming Indian nationalist party line - often the comments didn't directly disagree, they just didn't advocate or drink the Kool-Aid.
Not a complaint, but it looks like the symptoms of what I asked about.
I thought my tone was civil and matter-of-fact. Please let me know if it seemed otherwise.
> unsubstantiated claims
I substantiated my hypothesis and acknowledged its uncertainty. Of course there is no clear proof of astroturfing, unless it's very clumsily done. The whole point of it is to look like legitimate users.
Would you please stop going on about this? You've done it a great deal and we've now explained to you that (unless you have actual evidence) it's off-topic.
If you have concerns about abuse on HN you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it, but you're not welcome to dilute HN discussions with what amounts to nothing more than tedious fantasy.
Aadhaar was supported by the previous government. This government continued it. Most of India is unwavered in their support, since they see the benefits of getting instant bank account or food subsidy. And not being forced to stand in a line for such simple stuff in 40C+ temperature and wasting your entire day.
There are more anti-aadhaar green accounts in this thread than pro-aadhaar. If your only argument is to bring thowaway statements like Nationalism/Russia etc into it, then it just reflects poorly on you.
> Social Security Number in the US pre-dates the internet and any concerns people had about privacy.
People in the US were concerned about privacy long before the Internet. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution dates back to the 18th century, for example.
In fact, I'd say people are much less concerned about privacy in the Internet era; they put everything online and happily give private info to corporations and government.
This article is sensationalizing a very inflammatory issue. For example, the article claims the arrests are "at the behest" of one group, but the citation used doesn't say that. The arrests seem to be at the behest of the law enforcement enforcing the laws as passed by the government.
There are serious issues of free speech and incitement involved, but this article is not the way to address them.
The Guardian recently published leaked training documents for Facebook moderators. The instructions quoted in the Guardian article depict very minimal moderation. For example:
- Remarks such as “Someone shoot Trump” should be deleted, because as a head of state he is in a protected category. But it can be permissible to say: “To snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat”, or “fuck off and die” because they are not regarded as credible threats.
- Videos of violent deaths, while marked as disturbing, do not always have to be deleted because they can help create awareness of issues such as mental illness.
- Some photos of non-sexual physical abuse and bullying of children do not have to be deleted or “actioned” unless there is a sadistic or celebratory element.
- Photos of animal abuse can be shared, with only extremely upsetting imagery to be marked as “disturbing”.
> “We review over 100 million pieces of content every month,” Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his page on Feb. 16. “Even if our reviewers get 99% of the calls right, that’s still millions of errors over time.”
On one hand, that's a good point. On the other, that's the response of many people to things they are pressured to do. If it's something they really care about - e.g., a big new market or a trend-setting tech - then the response is that they can 'innovate', 'disrupt', change the world, and they'll tell you to ignore the naysayers who talk like Zuckerberg did above.
My assumption has been that Google, Amazon, and Microsoft run the heavy-duty AI in the cloud when possible, benefiting from huge scale and easier updates. Maybe that assumption is wrong?
If it's right, is Apple adopting a more decentralized model, with AI (or more AI) running locally? Could that compete with cloud-based AI's advantages? Obviously it would be better for offline usage, for responsiveness when transmission to the cloud is a significant part the latency, and for confidentiality.
> not making insinuations about astroturfing and shills, unless you have evidence
That's confusing: What evidence could users have? In my comment, one of the ones you objected to, I cited some strong patterns in the discussion. That's going to be the best evidence that users have access to unless it's very clumsily executed. The astroturfers aren't going to out themselves; looking like ordinary users is the fundamental requirement of 'astroturf'.
So if there's no possible sufficient evidence, do you really mean, 'don't bring it up at all?' I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but nobody even should point out the general possibility, saying for example, "it seems like something odd is going on here; all these talking points look the same and are made provocatively ..."?
There is no doubt astroturf happens here, simply because there is overwhelming evidence that it is rampant on the Internet and HN isn't exempt. If users can't discuss the topic at all (probably not what you meant), that would shield the bad actors and be a recipe for it to happen unrestrained.
EDIT: some clarifying edits