It's strange to me how any censorship from Facebook is savaged on this site but I rarely see censorship on HackerNews criticized. This website habitually shadowbans people and controversial comments are hidden as if they never existed. The mods here explicitly warn people against rocking the boat, all in the name of "preserving what this site is for". The disparity is very odd to me. In many ways it seems like people are totally fine with censorship, until someone they don't like or agree with is doing the censorship. At the very least Facebook will tell you they are censoring you. Shadowbanning, a prevalent practice on HN, I think is even worse and more abusive, yet it seems the majority of users here don't have an issue with this. Maybe I'm missing something, but from my perspective the hypocrisy is laughable.
Edit: I think people are missing the point. I don't particularly disagree with any of the replies. HN's commentary is pretty superb in part due to censorship and I agree that without a big stick being used open communities turn to trash. My question is though, why are people defending the mods here but when FB tries to do the same thing, we act like FB is some cyber Gestapo out to dominate speech on the web. It boils down to HN good, FB bad; it's shallow and hypocritical. And I maintain that shadowbanning is an abusive practice. If a user's behavior is such that the user can no longer participate, the user ought to know this. Shadowbanning is like internet gaslamping. You are telling the user one thing while the reality of the situation is different. Websites should not be playing these mind games with their users.
Edit: I think people are missing the point. I don't particularly disagree with any of the replies. HN's commentary is pretty superb in part due to censorship and I agree that without a big stick being used open communities turn to trash. My question is though, why are people defending the mods here but when FB tries to do the same thing, we act like FB is some cyber Gestapo out to dominate speech on the web. It boils down to HN good, FB bad; it's shallow and hypocritical. And I maintain that shadowbanning is an abusive practice. If a user's behavior is such that the user can no longer participate, the user ought to know this. Shadowbanning is like internet gaslamping. You are telling the user one thing while the reality of the situation is different. Websites should not be playing these mind games with their users.