[guard-of-terra]

So what? The real dissidents, ones who were actually heroes and not just fell in love with a nice word for their nick, were harassed because they were claimed to be CIA mouthpieces.

I thought we as a society figured out that this is an entirely wrong reason to shut someone off. First of all, you can be honestly mistaken.

I guess I had this one wrong.

[dissident]

I've been on the other side of the hivemind many times here and on reddit, and I can assure you, I encourage opinions that I may even disagree with or doubt. The last people I would sympathize with are the stubborn, dogmatic kind that refuse to listen to other perspectives.

RT is not an opinion or a perspective, they are a source that lacks credibility. It is not that their opinions are "wrong" to me, or that I disagree with them, it is that they fabricate, sensationalize and mislead people. As is the case with this article and many more.

Those are not characteristics of a debate in which all participants and opinions are given a fair shot -- you know, the ones dissidents fight for.

By the way, this is a private website, not a public space, and I have no problem with Hacker News outright banning whatever they want. Especially if it means I have to read less made-up crap. And if they end up banning legitimate sources, I can go elsewhere. Or if they're like reddit and refuse to police themselves -- letting the community's cynical attitude pervade the entire website's content, skewing the news and making it an unreliable representation of current events -- I can go somewhere else too.

You might have a hard-on for calling me a hypocrite, but really you're just making yourself look like an ass.

[guard-of-terra]

"this is a private website" part is fallable because this is how censorship/spin worked in Russia/Italy: all the big media is private but owned by the local czar. If you try to voice your opinion in those media you are politely told to go elsewhere, i.e. to screw yourself.