I have a really hard time understanding how we're supposed to stop this kind of thing, not just on the internet in general and not this comment in particular but on this site in particular.
HN has rules against accusations of bad faith, and they work 99% of the time, and I try hard not accuse an individual comment of being in bad faith even if I strongly suspect it. But it seems so obvious by looking at any thread about the Uyghur Genocide on Hacker News that there is a pattern when looking at the whole thread, the whole site, in aggregate. I'm not suggesting 50-cent-army-type astroturfing either -- I don't think it's 1 person with 100 accounts spreading FUD for malicious reasons, I think it's 100 people with 100 accounts spreading FUD about the Uyghur genocide because they are nationalistic and proud of their country for personal reasons.
I think this is bad, and needs to be stopped because the genocide in Xinjiang is too important, but I think that HN's policies about not accusing people of bad faith or astroturfing may actually make it harder to have honest discussions on the topic. It's a conspicuous failure case for a site where normally things don't get this bad. I'm not sure what a better policy would be either, which I suspect might be the reason why nothing has changed.
I apologize is this comment is considered rule-breaking, and I will remove it if it is. I just can't stand watching this kind of thing happen.
I mean anytime someone whataboutisms literal ongoing genocide, it's bad faith, period. Whether it's someone working directly on behalf of the CCP or an individual self-motivated nationalist or even a foreigner that's fallen for CCP global propaganda is irrelevant. It's bad faith, and in my opinion, outright malicious.
I think "bad faith" suggests you are not being honest, like you know you're wrong or making a fallacious argument but you're saying it anyways. In that sense, an individual nationalist, a foreigner who's fallen for the propaganda, both cases would not necessarily be "bad faith". I agree that denying or minimizing an ongoing genocide is pure evil.
HN has rules against accusations of bad faith, and they work 99% of the time, and I try hard not accuse an individual comment of being in bad faith even if I strongly suspect it. But it seems so obvious by looking at any thread about the Uyghur Genocide on Hacker News that there is a pattern when looking at the whole thread, the whole site, in aggregate. I'm not suggesting 50-cent-army-type astroturfing either -- I don't think it's 1 person with 100 accounts spreading FUD for malicious reasons, I think it's 100 people with 100 accounts spreading FUD about the Uyghur genocide because they are nationalistic and proud of their country for personal reasons.
I think this is bad, and needs to be stopped because the genocide in Xinjiang is too important, but I think that HN's policies about not accusing people of bad faith or astroturfing may actually make it harder to have honest discussions on the topic. It's a conspicuous failure case for a site where normally things don't get this bad. I'm not sure what a better policy would be either, which I suspect might be the reason why nothing has changed.
I apologize is this comment is considered rule-breaking, and I will remove it if it is. I just can't stand watching this kind of thing happen.