[nappy]

The author of this comment has a history of apologizing for Chinese crimes:

>>LOL, kill thousands of its own citizens in protests? The Chinese government never did that (even the famous tank man was unharmed and was not arrested), the truth is, many soldiers got killed because they were not allowed to fire at citizens. Even the Chinese government did kill its own citizen they learnt from the US (1932 Bonus Army, 1970 Kent state massacre, Jesus that was only 48 years ago, not mentioning almost every day someone is being shot by the police somewhere in the US. The funny thing is one shot won't even make it to the newspaper now.)

>>In a word, you have been brainwashed by your media. I know it's hard to wake up someone who pretends to be asleep, but it's good for you.

[simias]

The fact that the parent is pro-chinese is pretty clear, I don't see what digging into their post history adds to the discussion, especially since in this case it's tangential at best.

[dsfyu404ed]

It's always good to know the other parties agenda/ideology as that will (consciously or unconsciously, often the latter) influence what they feel deserves or doesn't deserve being mentioned.

[Dirlewanger]

Because astroturfing has utterly subverted discussion on hot-button issues on all social media platforms (including this one), whether you choose to believe it or not.

[dang]

We've spent a lot of time working on this, and the actual astroturfing that we've found is small compared to the frequency with which users fire this accusation at each other merely because they hold opposing views. That's why the site guidelines ask people not to bring this toxic trope up without evidence. Some users holding opposing views to yours is not evidence of astroturfing, only of divided views.

Perhaps you or someone else knows more than we do about this on Hacker News, but in that case you should be telling us at [e-mail] so we can look into it. That's in the guidelines as well. When there's real information, we take it very seriously. Unfortunately, though, this trope is driven mostly by imagination, not information.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[fosco]

I wonder if there are solutions to astroturfing that have not been explored.

this is really challenging as it is something I have been thinking about a long time and each idea I have I find a way that it would simply not work.

[AsyncAwait]

Do you have a substantive point relevant to what the parent said here?

[tempestn]

Seems like pretty relevant context to me.

[lagadu]

Why? The argument stands on its own legs, how is the commenter's post history relevant?

[akvadrako]

How is a commenter's potential conflict of interest not relevant?

[simias]

A conflict of interest would mean that they have an undisclosed interest in pushing that narrative (say, that they have stock in Huawei, that they're a Chinese official or something like that). The parent comment discloses no such thing. Having an opinion is not a conflict of interest.

At worse you could argue that the poster is biased, but then in this types of geopolitical discussions who isn't? Certainly not me.

[fitpolar]

Everyone technically has a conflict of interest or premeditated motivation. An argument should stand on its own merit, regardless of who makes it. Analyzing anything other than the argument is immature.

[EliRivers]

Analyzing anything other than the argument is immature.

Yet sometimes it leads to a better outcome than just analysis of the argument alone. Context is real. Context matters. Automatically disregarding real information on the grounds of "maturity" ideology can lead to a worse outcome, so it doesn't seem like the best course.

[fitpolar]

While context is important, I’ve found that the context of who someone is personally is rarely beneficial when being objective. If anything, this approach is anti-ideology, as you are not taking ideological bias into account...and there’s way too much ideological bias in discussions these days. I think that’s what I meant by maturity.

[ghusbands]

Calling someone's argument or stance immature is immature.

[fitpolar]

With that mindset nobody should use that word. We should wipe it from the dictionary.

[AsyncAwait]

Subtract the OP's posting history. Is what they wrote still relevant and valid? Yes? There's your answer.

[stef25]

It's not because there may be a conflict of interest that he's wrong. He's mainly just explaining the legal background of this event.

[otalp]

I don't have a history of doing that and came to comment very similar things. US sanctions against Iran are motivated solely for geopolitical realpolitik.

[throwawaylolx]

The author of this comment has a history of attacking the Chinese government:

>This is ridiculous equivocation between a democratic society with a rule of law and an authoritarian regime. You're kidding yourself if you don't think the Chinese government has an interest in data owned by foreign nationals that they could gain access to.

[HeavyStorm]

Ad hominem?

[throwawaylolx]

Just as much as the poster I replied to.

[qd6pwu4]

What I'm posting under this thread is based on fact. So you want to criticize me for irrelevant things?

[dang]

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for nationalistic political comments. That breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Could you please review those and use HN as intended, i.e. for intellectual curiosity, from now on?

The test we apply is whether an account has crossed the line of using HN primarily for political battle. If that is the case, we ban the account, regardless of which politics or nation they're fighting for or against. That is because these battles have a way of consuming everything if allowed to, and therefore must not be allowed to.

Further explanations of how we moderate this are here for anyone who wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

[sattoshi]

Is this reddit?

[joelx]

HN should shut down nation state's propaganda accounts.