Drew DeVault: Hacker News has a pronounced political bias favoring capitalism
A blog post argues HN's moderation suppresses left-wing critique while platforming right-wing voices.
What to know
- DeVault argues Hacker News exhibits systematic political bias favoring capitalism and libertarianism while suppressing progressive voices.
- The essay cites moderation of Grok-related comments as an example: critical remarks about Elon Musk are flagged and hidden while technical praise dominates.
- The analysis suggests Y Combinator's ownership of HN shapes editorial direction to promote startups and libertarian values.
- Commenters debate whether criticism of Musk-owned products should remain inseparable from critique of Musk himself.
The dispute Whether criticism of a founder's politics and ethics should be mandatory context for evaluating their products, or whether product and person should be evaluated separately. · positions read across 19 posts and comments
HN systematically suppresses progressive critique while platforming right-wing voices and capital-friendly takes.
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“Until Musk owns up to his Nazi salute, I won't be using Grok, sorry. I don't care how good or cheap it is.”
HN commenter · Hacker News ↗
Criticism of Musk belongs separate from product evaluation; every Musk thread turning into politics is frustrating but caused by Musk's own actions.
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“There's often frustration that every thread related to a Musk company includes a discussion about Musk, but Musk himself caused that by being the only tech founder to actively campaign for Trump.”
HN commenter · Hacker News ↗
HN's bias reflects Y Combinator's interests in promoting capitalism and startup culture regardless of moderation practices.
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“Because it's run by a bunch of billionaires.”
twipped@twipped.social · Mastodon ↗
Drew DeVault Software developer and bloggerY Combinator Startup incubator that hosts Hacker News
Elon Musk Owner of Grok AI
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlesposts
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Social platforms amplify and discuss DeVault's analysis
The essay circulated on Hacker News (reaching 117 points with 42 comments) and was shared on Mastodon with summary commentary about Y Combinator's control of the platform.
“Because it's run by a bunch of billionaires.”
— twipped@twipped.social -
1 outlet Why is Hacker News like that?
first by HN Frontpage, 15h ago
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This doesn't mirror my experience, which is that most posts and comments criticizing the current administration and conservatives in general get significant positive engagement. There are few posts taking the opposite side, and those that try often get downvoted to oblivion.As a recent example, anti-progressive themes (being supportive of Israel…
2 more of the top 3 · 19 posts in this stretch
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"Why is Hacker News like this?" TLDR: Because it's run by a bunch of billionaires. https:// drewdevault.com/blog/Why-is-HN -like-that/
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One thing I've noticed is that people will engage in thread arson to kill submissions they don't agree with. When I see some of these low value comments, I check their comment history and often they have reasonable comments on other things.So what they're doing is leaving low value comments and then they're probably the same people flagging it as…
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background
Drew DeVault publishes essay analyzing Hacker News political bias — DeVault published a blog post titled "Why is Hacker News like that?" arguing that HN exhibits pronounced political bias favoring capitalism and libertarianism. The post contends that progressives have largely abandoned the forum while the right wing has not, and that moderation suppresses left-wing critique.
What people are saying 16 voices from 1 site · best of 19 · verbatim
- Does HN's moderation actively suppress political left-wing commentary, or does it reflect user preferences?
- Should discussions of Musk-owned products be inseparable from discussion of Musk's political activities and controversial statements?
- Yesterday
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The irony of flagging this post should be obvious.If you're not already, I strongly recommend using [algolia](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...]) to view HN. That way you can still find content that is ordinarily rudely shoved out of view.Another irony: using algolia, I've come to see most of HN users as refreshingly…
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The takeaway from this is very important, and always missed: the people at the top were, are and always be intentionally political, ideological and conspirational in their activities. And what benefits them the most is exactly the kind of asymmetry which is created when everyone else keeps politics out of their conversations.
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Very apropos is this same author's post from a few years ago where they literally and explicitly support corporate censorship, albeit when that censorship was coming from a lefty perspective.> Nevertheless, the system as it exists today produces outcomes which approximate both rationality and justice, and I do not stand in opposition to the…
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Hear fucking hear.Maybe this article will finally grant me the strength to leave this decrepit place. It’s 90% AI articles and press releases anyway.
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Jensen Huang is neither a Nazi, nor far right.HN has other biases that mirror the biases of the avg tech worker in the valley and those of the people called out in the article.But they don't neatly fit into "far left" and "far right" buckets. People who use those terms usually are professional agitators.
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I have a hard time imagining a tech forum in my heyday doing anything with a Bill Gates press release other than giving it a giant middle finger.Musk is several orders of magnitude worse than Gates, yet here we are, cheerfully discussing his marketing and flagging dissent.This is not a forum for “hackers” anymore, if it ever was. OP is completely…
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"I think it's an interesting discussion."Except for comments you want hidden because you think they are "boring" or "low-calorie".
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>the system at Hacker News amplifies right wing politics and bigotryI can't say I get that impression. You don't get any Trump is great kind of stuff and Musk gets slagged off. I suppose it depends on what you think is right wing.
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Oh, right. Drew devault. The drew devault that pays danbooru, the drew devault that collects loli art, drew devault that made a foss hitlist. That drew devault
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If you're far left the center is right, if you're far right, the center is left.
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every thread has some “low calorie” comments. The only ones being flagged are the political ones
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It’s because people keep amplifying meta-discussions instead of focusing on the topic at hand. Hence, this article as example. I shouldn’t even be commenting.
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This is a good example of a person observing a community, slotting the whole thing into one of a small handful of political categories based on the relatively tiny proportion of comments that lean one way or another, and then claiming that the community has changed or is hypocritical when it turns out people tend to have more dynamic opinions than…
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But couldn't a bunch of posts that are just coming here to lift up one of Elon's products also be counter productive? You can never tell if someone is genuine when reviewing a product he put out. I think that is a big problem as well.
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The flagged comments given as examples are exactly the type I don't want to see here. Not because they are wrong (they are not), but because they are boring, low-calorie declarations of obvious that add very little value to the topic at hand. It's like every mention of an iPhone got a comment about poor conditions of Chinese assembly workers…
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This is almost comically backwards. HN is very pro-union, like reddit. In fact, it's pretty much the same users and political opinions as reddit.It's funny he mentioned the grok discussion. The other day I saw grok got some new release, and although I don't use it, I was curious whether it is any good, and was pleasantly surprised people were…