zlacker

>>dang+(OP)
This is a terrible decision. The tech industry has built powerful tools of social control, and runs vast databases of private data on pretty much everyone in the country. We have a golden period of forty-some days before a new administration comes to power that has shown every intent of using that information to deport people and create a national Muslim registry.

We need to be talking about the political implications of what we've built, and figuring out how to fix our mess. This is like the period before the hurricane: everyone should be busy boarding up windows, and you can't do that if you decide you're just not going to talk about the coming storm because it makes you feel bad.

>>idlewo+ck
Imagine HN banning crypto-related discussion for a week after the Snowden revelations, because it was too hard to deal with.

>>ajames+8y
Well, Paul actually did change the ranking algorithm to penalize anything Snowden or NSA-related. He also adjusted the ranking to penalize discussions of TSA policies which directly affect entrepreneurs who have to travel in and to the US. And the discussions at the time were much the same as now - people (including me) saying "hey wait a second these are very much on topic" and others saying "but it makes us uncomfortable to discuss the political aspects of technology, let's pretend it that an arbitrarily-enforced rule of 'no politics' is apolitical"

>>jdp23+IA
I support political discussions, but I also support these weightings. Without them the site would've talked of nothing else. It was a huge amount of stories which all got massive amount of upvotes.

I think we should aim for reasonable ratios. Maybe we should have an algorithm that categorized stories and tried to create a certain ratio of tech:politics:curiosities:startups, for example?