So, obviously, I spread my blog’s posts around the internet. One place I like to do that is called Hacker News. It’s basically the most influential tech/engineering news aggregator on the internet.
So you submit your article there, people can vote and comment, and the best articles bubble to the top.
So far I’ve had 12 articles reach the front page in under a year. 2 reached the #1 position. And 8 were censored and removed within minutes of reaching the front page.
All these 8 have one thing in common: they point out something inconvenient to San Francisco progressive values (the site is run by a group in SF).
Today, I submitted my article on the CHIPS Act. It very quickly amassed a lot of votes, far more than any other article recently submitted, and a healthy discussion was happening in the comments agreeing with my article. It hit the front page in the fastest time for any of my submissions, about 10 minutes.
2 minutes later, the website removed it.
It is unbelievably stupid that we cannot have a discussion about policies which are inherently political (it was a bill made law by the federal government) when only one side’s viewpoint is allowed. Even the discussions was positive talking about how ridiculous it was that they wanted quotas for worker that don’t exist and how requiring childcare is expensive and unnecessary.
Yet, my voice is not allowed on Hacker News. The most notable other article to be censored was one where I analyzed the crime rate per square mile of San Francisco to show it was about 5 times more dangerous than any other city in the United States. That again reached the #1 spot only to suddenly disappear after getting hundreds of comments.
Can’t say anything about about their side. And we wonder why everyone is so polarized when they don’t even get to hear a gentle opposing view.
I think I posted the CHIPS article on LinkedIn. Not much of a reaction there, but I do not have that many followers there either.