[loceng]

That type of commentary is definitely crude and distasteful, ignorant at least - however OP's points still stands. Downvotes are a weapon of oppression, not only to readers but it also allows others to easily dismiss something - to turn an impulse or urge into a simple downvote click for a hit of dopamine, so arguably it's suppressing and perhaps placating others who feel strong enough emotion where they feel the need to act - but instead of a qualitative response so we can see if their criticism is critical, they get to act with a click.

[lightgreen]

Oppression is a bit strong word, I'd say downvotes promote groupthink.

People with opposing worldviews simply stop commenting after receiving downvotes (and especially when banned from commenting for some time because of downvoting). Currently HN is very progressive, although there is a lot of people with conservative views, who simply don't comment.

It could the the opposite: conservative majority with quiet progressives. It would be equally bad.

[loceng]

Yes, oppression is too strong of a word to use - the feeling I had would have been better described to state that suppression of ideas is on the spectrum towards oppression, a sign that that's not the best direction to go in, the better direction to lead towards is closer to freedom, and expression vs. suppression.

[dragonwriter]

> Currently HN is very progressive, although there is a lot of people with conservative views, who simply don't comment.

Currently, HN has a robust (though definitely skewed in ways one would expect of a forum dominated by people who are, if not always currently well-off, in possession of excellent economic prospects in first-world economies) mix of views, though the meme about conservatives being suppressed in tech is well-represented among HN’s conservatives, so we see lots of HN conservatives commenting about how HN conservatives don't comment.

Also, we see lots of them commenting about other things, too.

(In fact, others have argued—though I think this is also, but only equally, wrong—that the dominant viewpoint on HN is right-libertarian.)