Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dragonwriter 2103 days ago
> It is a political opinion itself to think those actions are controversial.

No, the existence of controversy over an issue is a question of empirical fact, not political opinion.

The ascription of significance to the existence of controversy may be a political opinion (and is certainly a value-based opinion), but not the question of whether controversy exists.

1 comments

If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial? You can always find at least one upset person about any significant decision of any company, thus it's inherently political when you decide which group of people or how big a group you have to have to merit the "controversial" badge.

Those complaining of being deplatformed would probably agree strongly with your definition, however, so I will admit the definition of this word is itself controversial. Or maybe I shouldn't, because the prior sentence feels very political to me.

> If it's an empirical fact, how much objection from how many (and which) people is enough to cross the line into controversial?

Any. Controversial is a continuous-valued, not binary, attribute.

How controversial is enough to justify a particular reaction? That's a political judgement, and in practice has as much to do with where you stand on the controversy as how much controversy there is.