[disambiguation]

It's pretty clear what he means by free speech here. In the grey area between legal and illegal are the topics we consider taboo. Many platforms simply censor these subjects, OP wants to understand why.

The simplest answer is that content moderation is an unsolved problem and certain topics are expensive to moderate. Freedom of speech matters but so does the culture of conduct. Further, as a site owner you risk your reputation by the activity you permit, and taboo subjects can attract folks you don't want on your site. Hence why they end up in the cesspool.

[raxxorraxor]

Not all sites end up like that.

HN is friendly to freedom of speech because the site probably doesn't attract people that are easy to act out when offended or those that like to report people whose content they do not like. Or because of the occasional comment that refocuses a discussion again.

I would even argue that some more strongly moderated sites can often even be larger cesspools. You can go to Instagram and say something negative about the next random pop start or influencer and people are going to get extremely vicious. Far more so than a message board with only anonymous users.

Also the amount of taboos seem to correlate with hostility for some reason.

[yqtjnvou]

> HN is friendly to freedom of speech because the site probably doesn't attract people that are easy to act out when offended or those that like to report people whose content they do not like. Or because of the occasional comment that refocuses a discussion again.

In other words, we're dealing with over-sensitive people on the internet? Children, because those are the only ones that cannot accept the truth. And, since everyone is so easily offended, they have to be protected by content editing?

No one in their right minds would spend a dime for an easily offended person. If this done, there are things at play here.

> Also the amount of taboos seem to correlate with hostility for some reason.

I noticed that too.

[asdf1145]

HN censors anything they don't like specially about their related startups/companies and is also biased to the left politically speaking

[yqtjnvou]

I know. That's the point of my question: what is a place completely unmoderated?

Everywhere that allows free speech now has an angle. Some hide it better than others, and people can't see it.

[DonHopkins]

No, HN moderation is just biased to the non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic, non-transphobic, non-conspiracy-theorist. It's the right wing's choice that they're biased to the sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and conspiracy theories. Don't blame it on the HN community that they aren't sociopathically biased the same as the right wing and Elon Musk, and don't tolerate all that bigotry. Clean up your own act, and take some responsibility for your own bigotry, instead of blaming others for not tolerating your intolerance and hatred.

[DonHopkins]

Flagged dead green anonymous coward unog: If you mistakenly perceive that as a personal attack against you, it's only because you yourself are guilty of personally attacking innocent people with hate and bigotry by punching down and lying and bullying, and you totally deserve the same shit you dish out, but you just can't take it. You're guilty of and trying to justify and defend your own and other asshole's right wing sociopathic behavior, cultivated ignorance, racist and sexist and homophobic and transphobic bigotry, mental illness, and conspiracy theories, and that's a fair objective accurate diagnoses based on the evidence, not a personal attack. I'm just personally DEFENDING the people you love to personally ATTACK. You don't belong here, and you fucking well know it, because you're terrified to post that bullshit under your own name. Go away, bigot.

Mark Robinson's historic posts on internet forums clearly demonstrate the hypocrisy and self loathing and psychological projection that's really going on with people like you.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/kfile-mark-robin...

At least Mark Robinson has the gumption to post that shit under his own name. If you truly believe and stand by and think you can justify what you say, then you should give it a try, anonymous coward keyboard warrior.

[DonHopkins]

Flagged dead green anonymous coward unog: nothing personal about it, because you're not a person nor a member of this community, just a cowardly shadow banned anonymous racist troll.

[unog]

You are repeatedly and unashamedly breaking the site guidelines in this thread. Kindly stop.