[tptacek]

We could have more political stories on HN, fewer of them knocked off the front page by flagging, as they are today, if it wasn't for the people who took every such story as an opportunity to inject substance-free snark into the site.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to make that happen, so instead, we'll keep doing what we do now: patrolling the front page and killing stories that present too many opportunities for comments like yours.

It's too bad, that comment! Usually, when I read a comment like this, I click through the profile looking for other terrible comments to flag, and usually when I do that, I end up wading through a cistern of crap and malevolence. Not in your case! Anybody who can write comments that start with "I work for an EMR provider and..." has something to contribute to the site. Why muddy those contributions with stuff like this?

[forgotpasswd3x]

Instead of killing off the story through flagging, why not just disable commenting on the story?

Seems like banning / downmodding users should work just fine, instead of killing off the whole story.

[tptacek]

That's not a feature of HN. It's mostly not HN that is forcing political stories off the site, although HN's moderators have confirmed repeatedly that such flagging is appropriate given the site guidelines.

[dqmdm2]

Every story is an opportunity to snark. You should ban the account that made the comment not suppress the controversial information. The information that FinFisher supports/profits/enables oppressive governments should not be hidden just because you don't like the comments.

[tptacek]

No "information is being hidden". There's a whole internet's worth of venues on which to discuss stories like this. They aren't worth the cost to the site, and so they get flagged off the site.

It's also true that all stories are an opportunity for snark. But it's not true that all kinds of snark are equally toxic. The kinds of snark that fill up threads like this are particularly bad.

[HoochTHX]

The idea of hiding content due to unwanted rabble rousing, at the loss of the content and discussion regarding dual use tech, strikes me as the preferd solution of someone who stands to lose business and is attempting to protect themselves. Choose what ever label you want, by any name it is still censorship, and cronyism. Moxie was right about you.

[dang]

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

[tptacek]

What did Moxie say about me?

[jonaldomo]

"Snarky?"... "My account should be banned?" The CIA involvement in Pakistan is widely known and is in the mainstream media. All the spy novels, documentaries and movies in the past decade are around the secret war going on in Pakistan.

[tptacek]

The CIA is so tight with the ISI that Osama bin Laden lived in a huge house blocks away from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point. Or, wait...

[mpyne]

I really hope "spy novels" is not what you'd consider actual evidence. As you say, it's not exactly a secret that the U.S. and Pakistan have been working together (since the 1970s at least, natch).

What is not widely known is just how fragmented and unbelievably complex that U.S.-Pakistani relationship actually is, not to mention the relationships of various groups within Pakistan, which is why the idea that "oh, the CIA just runs Pakistan" is so devoid in substance. Pakistan doesn't even run Pakistan, let alone any CIA puppet-masters.

[throwaway2048]

you are not a mod, you are however presenting yourself as having the authority of one. Please don't do this.