Hacker News is a social echo chamber
Oct. 15th, 2013 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59Hacker News is a fairly influential link aggregation site, with stories submitted and voted on by users. As explained in the FAQ, the ranking of stories is roughly determined by the number of votes divided by a function of the time since submission. It's not a huge traffic driver (my personal experience of stories on the front page is on the order of 30,000 hits), but it's notable because the demographic tends to include a more technically literate and influential set of readers than most other sites. The discussion that ensues from technical posts often includes meaningful feedback from domain experts. Stories that appear there are likely to be noted by technology workers, especially in the Silicon Valley startup field[1].
That rather specific demographic appears to correlate with other traits. There's a rather more techno-libertarian bias on Hacker News than on most general discussion forums, which is consistent with the startup-oriented culture that it springs from - the desire to provide disruptive solutions to real world problems tends to collide with existing regulatory frameworks, so it's unsurprising that a belief in individual rights and small government would overlap with US startup culture. There's a leaning towards the use of web technologies rather than traditional client applications, which matches what people are doing in the rest of the world. And there's more enthusiasm for liberal open-source licenses over Copyleft licenses, which makes sense in a web-focused environment (as I wrote about here).
Now, personally I'm a big-government, client-app, Copyleft kind of person, but for the most part I don't think the above is actively dangerous. It's inevitable that political views will vary, we'll probably continue to cycle between thick and thin clients for generations and nobody's ever going to demonstrably prove that one licensing model deserves to win over another. But what is important is that the ongoing debates between these opinions be driven by facts, and that it remain obvious that these disagreements exist. As far as technical (and even political) discussion goes, Hacker News doesn't seem to
have a problem with that. Disagreeing with the orthodoxy is tolerated.
This seems less true when it comes to social issues. When a posting discussing the myth of the natural born programmer[2] hit the front page, the top rated comment is Paul Graham[3] off-handedly discounting the conclusions drawn. The original story linked to a review of peer-reviewed scientific research. Graham simply discounts it on the basis of his preconceptions. Shortly afterwards, the story plummeted off the front page, now surrounded by stories posted around the same time but with much lower scores.
How does this happen? There's two publicised methods which can result in stories dropping down the order. Users with high karma scores (either via submitting popular stories or writing popular comments) are able to flag submissions, and if enough do so then a negative weighting is applied to the story. There's also a flamewar detector, a heuristic that attempts to detect contentious subjects and pushes them off the front page.
The effect of both is to enforce the status quo of social beliefs. Stories that appear to challenge the narrative that good programmers are just naturally talented tend to vanish. Stories that discuss the difficulties faced by minorities in our field are summarily disappeared. There are no social problems in the technology industry. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
This isn't healthy. We don't improve the state of the software industry by hiding stories that expose conflicts. Flamewars don't solve problems, but without them we'd be entirely unaware of how much of a victim blaming mentality exists amongst our peers. It's true that conflict may reinforce preconceptions, causing people to dig in as they defend their beliefs. However, the absence of conflict does nothing to counteract that. If you're never exposed to opinions you disagree with, you'll never question your existing beliefs.
Hacker News is a privately run site and nobody's under any obligation to change how they choose to run it. But the focus on avoiding conflict to such an extent that controversial stories receive less exposure than ones that fit people's existing beliefs doesn't enhance our community. If we want to be able to use technology as an instrument of beneficial change to society as a whole, we benefit from building a diverse and welcoming community and questioning our preconceptions. Building a social echo chamber risks marginalising us from the rest of society, gradually becoming ignored and irrelevant as our self-reinforcing opinions drift ever further away from the mainstream. It doesn't help anybody.
[1] During the batch of interviews I did last year, two separate interviewers both mentioned a story they'd read on Hacker News that turned out to have been written by me. I'm not saying that that's what determined a hire/don't hire decision, but it seems likely that it helped.
[2] The article in question discusses the pervasive idea that some people are inherently good programmers. It turns out that perpetuating the idea that some people are just born good at a particular skill actually discourages others from even trying to learn it, even those who are just as capable.
[3] One of the co-founders of Y-Combinator and creator of Hacker News.
(Edited to fix a footnote reference)
That rather specific demographic appears to correlate with other traits. There's a rather more techno-libertarian bias on Hacker News than on most general discussion forums, which is consistent with the startup-oriented culture that it springs from - the desire to provide disruptive solutions to real world problems tends to collide with existing regulatory frameworks, so it's unsurprising that a belief in individual rights and small government would overlap with US startup culture. There's a leaning towards the use of web technologies rather than traditional client applications, which matches what people are doing in the rest of the world. And there's more enthusiasm for liberal open-source licenses over Copyleft licenses, which makes sense in a web-focused environment (as I wrote about here).
Now, personally I'm a big-government, client-app, Copyleft kind of person, but for the most part I don't think the above is actively dangerous. It's inevitable that political views will vary, we'll probably continue to cycle between thick and thin clients for generations and nobody's ever going to demonstrably prove that one licensing model deserves to win over another. But what is important is that the ongoing debates between these opinions be driven by facts, and that it remain obvious that these disagreements exist. As far as technical (and even political) discussion goes, Hacker News doesn't seem to
have a problem with that. Disagreeing with the orthodoxy is tolerated.
This seems less true when it comes to social issues. When a posting discussing the myth of the natural born programmer[2] hit the front page, the top rated comment is Paul Graham[3] off-handedly discounting the conclusions drawn. The original story linked to a review of peer-reviewed scientific research. Graham simply discounts it on the basis of his preconceptions. Shortly afterwards, the story plummeted off the front page, now surrounded by stories posted around the same time but with much lower scores.
How does this happen? There's two publicised methods which can result in stories dropping down the order. Users with high karma scores (either via submitting popular stories or writing popular comments) are able to flag submissions, and if enough do so then a negative weighting is applied to the story. There's also a flamewar detector, a heuristic that attempts to detect contentious subjects and pushes them off the front page.
The effect of both is to enforce the status quo of social beliefs. Stories that appear to challenge the narrative that good programmers are just naturally talented tend to vanish. Stories that discuss the difficulties faced by minorities in our field are summarily disappeared. There are no social problems in the technology industry. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
This isn't healthy. We don't improve the state of the software industry by hiding stories that expose conflicts. Flamewars don't solve problems, but without them we'd be entirely unaware of how much of a victim blaming mentality exists amongst our peers. It's true that conflict may reinforce preconceptions, causing people to dig in as they defend their beliefs. However, the absence of conflict does nothing to counteract that. If you're never exposed to opinions you disagree with, you'll never question your existing beliefs.
Hacker News is a privately run site and nobody's under any obligation to change how they choose to run it. But the focus on avoiding conflict to such an extent that controversial stories receive less exposure than ones that fit people's existing beliefs doesn't enhance our community. If we want to be able to use technology as an instrument of beneficial change to society as a whole, we benefit from building a diverse and welcoming community and questioning our preconceptions. Building a social echo chamber risks marginalising us from the rest of society, gradually becoming ignored and irrelevant as our self-reinforcing opinions drift ever further away from the mainstream. It doesn't help anybody.
[1] During the batch of interviews I did last year, two separate interviewers both mentioned a story they'd read on Hacker News that turned out to have been written by me. I'm not saying that that's what determined a hire/don't hire decision, but it seems likely that it helped.
[2] The article in question discusses the pervasive idea that some people are inherently good programmers. It turns out that perpetuating the idea that some people are just born good at a particular skill actually discourages others from even trying to learn it, even those who are just as capable.
[3] One of the co-founders of Y-Combinator and creator of Hacker News.
(Edited to fix a footnote reference)
Hacker News alternatives
Date: 2013-10-15 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: Hacker News alternatives
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-17 01:06 am (UTC) - ExpandYou don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
Date: 2013-10-15 03:22 pm (UTC)This goes also for: Don't criticize YC funded startups and generally don't offend mods. (The last part is the most difficult one because you don't know what could offend a mod.)
If you want really open discussions seek sites that don't have karma systems implemented. Because with karma the local hive mind always will win.
/signed a HN user with high karma
Re: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 04:48 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 05:13 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From:Re: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 05:15 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From:Re: You don't disagree with PG or you get shadow banned
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 06:44 pm (UTC) - ExpandWhat HN is
Date: 2013-10-15 03:28 pm (UTC)If it didn't exist, many of the very successful startups it has a stake in likely would not have applied to it.
Now, one of HN's most important functions is to 1) advertise the YC-funder startups, or at least raise their name-recognition, b) advertise YC, advertise the VC's, and c) jobs ads for YC companies.
HN and pg whatever it can to optimize these 3 functions.
Re: What HN is
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 03:39 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: What HN is - A filter to find YES BOYS
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 04:53 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: What HN is
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 04:59 pm (UTC) - Expandno subject
Date: 2013-10-15 03:31 pm (UTC)I was hellbanned for sharing my experience meeting Grace Hopper!
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 04:56 pm (UTC) - ExpandThere is nothing libertarian about HN. It's ideologically hard leftist
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 04:59 pm (UTC) - ExpandFlamewars are not equal to vibrant discussions
Date: 2013-10-15 03:45 pm (UTC)Making a point that disagrees = hellbann
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 05:01 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Making a point that disagrees = hellbann
From:HN is an echo chanber
Date: 2013-10-15 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 04:26 pm (UTC)Re: Bizarre
From:Re: Just because they aren't as mysandrist as you, doesn't make them misonogystic.
From:Re: Just because they aren't as mysandrist as you, doesn't make them misonogystic.
From:I see you can delete posts you disagree with.
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 05:11 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: I see you can delete posts you disagree with.
From:I see only one view is tolerated here.
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 05:10 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: I see only one view is tolerated here.
From:Re: I see only one view is tolerated here.
From:You think disagreement is tolerated because your ideology is the dominant one
Date: 2013-10-15 04:42 pm (UTC)Literally, in response to someone spewing global warming pseudo-science, I once linked to a peer reviews paper that disagreed with their claims, and was shadow banned for it.
I cited a paper and got banned from HN. Why? Because HN is ideologically leftist / pro-FSF (anti-open source) / pro-google anti-Apple.
Sure there are people who express opinions contrary to this on HN, but they cannot last long.
The ideological filter and shadow bans from unaccountable mods mean that the site is nothing more than a mindless echo chamber for people who agree to agree with each other.
What's really pathetic and alarming is just how much these people think they are having "intelligent" discussions, when any independant thought is ruthlessly purged from the site.
I blame Paul Graham, who has already repeatedly shown himself to be a man with no ethics (look at the lies he told in the AirBnB trashed apartment scandal) for this.
The site was created to foster a cult of personality for himself, and to groom innocent children to be exploited by his "accelerator".
Hacker News is a cult, with ruthless ideological filtering.
Not just social issues, also tech
Date: 2013-10-15 04:49 pm (UTC)For example look at this page(copy paste since links are not allowed in comments) to see a couple of stories about Samsung's bad practices buried quickly.
http://hnweird.tumblr.com/
Since the process is so opaque, it's hard to tell whether people are doing it on purpose or it's the flamewar detector that's causing it.
This attitude also affects comments, it's not uncommon to see commenters who got hellbanned over posting something that's anti-Google or pro-Apple/Microsoft.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 04:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 05:08 pm (UTC)That said, it makes me sad, and I don't really know what to do about it. HN succeeds, in part, because groups like YC and pg who make it succeed. Sharding the market and having a "socially thoughtful" group probably doesn't help, because then we just have two echo chambers.
If you have thoughts on how to improve this, I'd love to hear them.
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2013-10-15 06:24 pm (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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From:I Posted This and it was Disappeared
Date: 2013-10-15 05:47 pm (UTC)- Leftist orthodoxy (Keynesian good/Austrian bad, etc.)
- Disappearing dissenters (HeckBanning, NegVotesToOblivion)
- Apple the Immaculate (and Saint Jobs the Perfect)
- All startups are equal (but YC's are more equaler than others)
Please HeckBan this and prove the points made about HN's accoustics and whatnot. Whatever you do, must not upArrow and offend the hive mind.
shark jumping
Date: 2013-10-15 06:04 pm (UTC)Tracking this story on Hacker News
Date: 2013-10-15 06:36 pm (UTC)So... an article you liked got voted down
Date: 2013-10-15 07:02 pm (UTC)It'd be far less healthy for a site to shift from a circlejerk to a "why you, the reader, are an awful toxic jerk!" flamefest-carrier. If anything, the two mechanisms you posit make Hackernews resistant to entryist takeover as a throw-away activist platform.
Yeah really
Date: 2013-10-15 07:33 pm (UTC)There are several good examples of this from 2010/2011 in comments on Liminal States. This was before they changed the behavior to hide how many votes each comment had so it really gives a clear picture of community sentiment. There are examples of gender, ageism, and civil liberties [a place where HN's techno-libertariasm clashes with the "let's not talk about civil liberties here" attitude).
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:24 pm (UTC)Whether or not people are different at birth seems to be a major sticking point for a certain category of publicists, a type I am all too familiar with. Whenever you mention it, those seemingly rational individuals will try to deny facts to the extent that will make global warming skeptics seem downright cute by comparison.
Eagerly awaiting for the next utopianist editorial about how the world consists of sugar and spice and we are all the same on the inside and if only the powers that be enforced it.
(no subject)
From:But of course software development skills are inherited!
From:The sky is blue.
Date: 2013-10-16 12:54 am (UTC)This is how on line forums work. This is how sports bars work (pick a team). This is how *people* work.
I'm not saying it's right in some way but rather that these sites don't have a magical solution to the wider problem. Don't expect forums to solve everything. Treat almost every (well, ok, every) forum as a viewpoint and not as a collection of viewpoints.
(And I need to fix my OpenID. ugh. Using a dead provider.)
Disappearing stories
Date: 2014-05-21 05:57 pm (UTC)Its URL is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=
Since Hacker News is nothing but a promotional tool for Y Combinator, I image Paul Graham or one of his goons decided that such stories were bad for business, and promptly dropped it in the toilet.
I consider Hacker News to be essentially a type of cult.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-30 09:18 pm (UTC)