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by lewi 2506 days ago
Claims without citations, 5 day old account, comment history shows user is from china: not sure if I'd trust the comment.
1 comments

Please follow HN guidelines and refrain from personal attack. Assume good faith and be substantive.
Honest question: what should communities do with the rise of nationalist “shill” accounts? The hard part is, it’s impossible to tell the difference between someone who’s merely a nationalist and someone who’s bought and paid for to post what amounts to propaganda, muddying the waters of discussion online. Extremely difficult problem to solve. Assuming good faith gets harder and harder as more information comes out about these “comment farms”, at times.
We have to assume good faith precisely because it's impossible to tell the difference you mentioned. If a real propagandist tells a lie, we can refute it with facts and flag the comment. But if a honest user is labelled as 'paid troll', it's almost impossible for the honest user to prove himself. And that severely poisons the discussion.
What wasn't substantive about the GP's post? It was factual to a fault.
Being substantive means replying to the actual argument instead of questioning the credibility of the person who makes an argument.
The OP started without substance while trying to smear HKers fighting for their freedom from the authoritarian CCP so why attack the person who highlights the suspicious nature of the accusers account? We live in a world of ever increasing propaganda. Pointing it out is as substantive as it gets. If anything your message is better suited for the OP. They did exactly what you are flagging the child comment for.
If you think OP is smearing, you can refute his argument with facts and flag his comment. It’s a human bias to think someone whom we disagree with has a malicious agenda. Democracy can survive the worst oppression, but will perish if we fail to conduct civilized discussion and start accusing and labeling each other when we disagree.
Calling a liar a liar is better use of time and energy than tirelessly repeating facts ad nauseam.