[root_axis]

> This argument is touted around a lot to justify censorship by private parties. Don't be misled - it is censorship

It's not about justifications, it's about prerogatives.

> There are plenty of things which are both legal and immoral.

Despite what you seem to be implying, the operators of a privately run forum have no moral obligation to let anyone speak, regardless of how that might impact the quality of discussion in the community. It is totally fair for participants to criticize the moderation efforts, but just because the site is high profile doesn't mean that the moderators are any more morally obligated to permit comment than you are morally obligated to amend your fine article with my commentary.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

Morals are relative. I consider it a moral obligation - you may feel differently. Both are valid.

[arkades]

You seem to believe that it is a moral obligation of anyone with an audience/platform to provide that platform to anyone that wants to use it...? Specifically, you described “depriving (someone of an) audience” as the immoral act.

Just to recontextualize that: if I have a blog, am I immoral for not allowing comments? Am I immoral for not allowing guest bloggers? Do I have a moral obligation to allow advertisement?

This is odd. A moral obligation to use one’s private resources to provide an audience to all comers isn’t free speech; it’s not even a free marketplace of ideas. It’s appropriating someone else’s communications infrastructure.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I think a blog is a different enough medium that it renders the comparison meaningless. Hacker News is a website that posts user submissions. I wouldn't make this argument about your blog, but I might make it about Medium.

[arkades]

But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc.

A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth.

And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blog. Blogs host comments; they host guest posts, and multiple authors. The degree to which they’re one voice or many depends on their individual structure - and none of that contradicts your core moral statement about the immoral act being not letting people have a free-for-all on your private platform. You make a distinction without rationale for why some private platforms are allowed to curate their offerings, and why others are /immoral/ for doing skz

[Sir_Cmpwn]

>But they’re not a site that posts user submissions. They’re a site that posts certain types of submissions: that’s what distinguishes them from reddit, 4chan, voat, etc.

>A failure to maintain that identity would fundamentally change their offering and lose them their audience. You make it sound like a trivial expenditure of Nothing more than a little bandwidth.

They have rules and guidelines, and they set the overall topic by calling it Hacker News. Users do the rest by voting up stuff that they find relevant or interesting. This doesn't work everywhere, but it works here. I've seen it first hand by browsing my stats, posts that are off-topic don't make it far.

>And you haven’t meaningfully distinguished it from a blog. Blogs host comments; they host guest posts, and multiple authors.

Your blog is still curated. I can't make an account on your blog and post an article to it without being invited by you and presumably having you read and approve it. On HN, on the other hand, every submission is like this. If you make a "blog" where every article is submitted by users, then I'm going to give you the same speech.

[root_axis]

Well if all moral perspectives are valid then you should not use morality as the foundation of your argument.

[Sir_Cmpwn]

Well, I'm not presenting an objective argument. I am presenting a subjective opinion.

[root_axis]

All arguments are subjective so I'm not sure what that statement is supposed to convey except maybe "I am not concerned with the persuasiveness of my argument".