Hacker News Guidelines

While you are there, go through dang’s comments timeline https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang

Moderating something like HN is a very hard job. Gratitude .

I understand why but I don’t like how people are individually rate limited silently without their knowledge. It is certainly immoral

EDIT: unfortunately I cannot defend my point in the comments, as I am now rate limited :)

EDIT 2: /u/Dylan16807 yes I'm seeing that. When I try and post it says "you are posting too quickly, please slow down"

I don't think it's immoral - it's their site, after all. Our being able to post here at all is a privilege afforded to us, and their choosing to revoke that privilege for any reason is fully within their rights. No cause or explanation is even required, though they are frequently provided out of the abundant courtesy that the moderators seem to have a natural talent for. If you think about it, even rate limiting is a slightly more courteous alternative to outright banning someone.

I think shadowbanning is a bit unethical as it technically involves lying, but afaik HN doesn't do such things.

While shadowbanning has been made political, it is a key tool in managing a community. If you ban a troublemaker, they just make a new account. So if you can isolate a troublemaker without them understanding what's happening, you improve the community and reduce the whack-a-mole game.

And ultimately, "freedom of speech" refers to the government silencing speech, not private companies/private websites. We are all guests here, and if someone isn't upholding the standards the people who run this website want people to uphold, then they're free to do whatever they want.