[qarlow]

How it is appalling that people disagree with you? You say yourself that it is a "net benefit" meaning there are things to disagree with. Your opinion isn't the one being hidden en masse. I tend to find it appalling to when hacker news argues against for example a free press and when publications like valley wag and democracy now was banned. Arguing against arguably the most powerful software company in the world because you disagree with their practices? Not so much. That is essentially the entire raison d'etre for being a hacker. That doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but it certainly makes it weird to dismiss people for it. Especially in a "we should know better" way.

[ziddoap]

>How it is appalling that people disagree with you?

They didn't say they were appalled at people disagreeing with them. They said they were appalled at the lambasting. There is valid criticism raised here, but the majority of the criticism is based solely on the fact that its P0. Not for any technical reason. Not for any security related reason. Just because it's Google. If you think "Google is worse than China and Russia" is a worthy criticism... So be it.

>I tend to find it appalling to when hacker news argues against for example a free press

Huh. Can you expand on this, in the context of this thread?

>Arguing against arguably the most powerful software company in the world because you disagree with their practices?

Very few of the legitimate criticism I have seen here has been about P0's practices - and the ones that have brought up P0's practices have brought it up in the context of the security industry as a whole (i.e. what responsible disclosure should be).

[qarlow]

> They didn't say they were appalled at people disagreeing with them. They said they were appalled at the lambasting

Whether you think something is legitimate criticism or not is subjective and I don't see an argument why it is. Anyone is certainly free to argue, or not argue, with those comment and they have.

> Huh. Can you expand on this, in the context of this thread?

I was calling out the line "I thought Hacker News would have a community which understands the critical importance of security research". People argue against important things here all the time.

> Very few of the legitimate criticism I have seen here has been about P0's practices [...]

Again, subjective. Here is the first comment hidden by downvotes:

'Why should end-users "have nothing but gratitude" when vulnerabilities are disclosed and they are immediately placed at risk until they get a chance to update, even when the vendor has promptly provided a correct patch? I know I certainly don't appreciate that and can't reasonably expect any normal person to appreciate it either.'

Seems like a legitimate opinion to me. (The same users had almost all their comments downvoted as well, most of which seem perfectly fine). There are a number of others saying that Google has a conflict of interest, which also seems legitimate.

What I see is people doing everything they can to not address those arguments. It is one thing to call out people when they are the majority, another when mostly normal comments are being suppressed. That is not legitimate if anything. I can't see how the people creating that environment expect to get anything out of it, but I guess that isn't the point. Very few smart people you meet in real life spend any time on hacker news.

[throwawaycert]

So you think, in defense of free speech, Google shouldn't be allowed to talk about what it found in Apple's products.