I've been commenting as openly as I possibly can on this for years now. The issue isn't that we're hiding the truth (as far as we know what it is) from anyone. The issue is that people's perceptions are so conditioned by their passions that it doesn't matter much what the truth actually is. Many people on both sides of this issue perceive every post they agree with as being flagged and removed, and every post they disagree with as being upvoted to the top every time. That's not an exaggeration. As I said to someone yesterday: if evidence were needed here, they could just look at HN itself.
It's wrong to say this hasn't come up about any other country than China. Before the China wave, there was the Russia wave, and passionate users were saying things like: "YCombinator is in the Kremlin's pocket. Wow. I fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion. But wow." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631095) and "Russian money might be making this very site possible" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15630920). These perceptions were just as wrong, and by just the same mechanism.
Comments
I've been commenting as openly as I possibly can on this for years now. The issue isn't that we're hiding the truth (as far as we know what it is) from anyone. The issue is that people's perceptions are so conditioned by their passions that it doesn't matter much what the truth actually is. Many people on both sides of this issue perceive every post they agree with as being flagged and removed, and every post they disagree with as being upvoted to the top every time. That's not an exaggeration. As I said to someone yesterday: if evidence were needed here, they could just look at HN itself.
It's wrong to say this hasn't come up about any other country than China. Before the China wave, there was the Russia wave, and passionate users were saying things like: "YCombinator is in the Kremlin's pocket. Wow. I fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion. But wow." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631095) and "Russian money might be making this very site possible" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15630920). These perceptions were just as wrong, and by just the same mechanism.