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Ask HN: Is HN becoming more of an “echo chamber”?

by alasr on 2/15/22, 7:35 PM with 54 comments

• by brodouevencode on 2/15/22, 7:54 PM

  IMO, no for the most part. There is a great deal of opinion as well as technological diversity represented here. For these facets it's a great place to be. @dang and friends do, IMO, a pretty good job of keeping most things sane. However...

  The not so great facet is the amount of obvious wearing-your-politics-on-your-sleeve, but that could easily be said for society in general right now. If I had the time I'd love to pull the top X links and their comments for the day and do some sentiment analysis just to see how quickly it goes from "X technology" to "Y political leanings".

  Another not so great facet is that a lot of stories are very coastal. It's admittedly not HNs fault because if you're not in CA or NY you kinda feel left out in some respects. I wish a lot of tech companies would go to other places to A/B test new products and services.

• by gherkinnn on 2/15/22, 8:29 PM

  It's a cynical place with amusingly conservative and luddite tendencies. But even those circle jerks get regularly interrupted.

  Reoccurring topics of contentions are:

  - Linux <-> Apple

  - Electron <-> Native

  - Slack <-> IRC <-> Email <-> Discord

  - JS <-> no JS ever

  - Zuckerberg is worse than JS and FB will fail tomorrow <-> He's an evil genius, operating within the law and FB won't go anywhere

  - Work at FAANG at all costs <-> fuck it

  And every side has adequate supporters. Bitcoin, crypto, and IoT are the exception. Nobody seems to like that stuff here.

  Could be worse.

• by onion2k on 2/15/22, 8:28 PM

  You can't downvote articles so the fact an article has a lot of upvotes can't really be used as an example of HN being an echo chamber. All the people who want to downvote it have no voice. Plus, an upvote isn't really a mark of agreeing with the article; some people upvote because the article is interesting and worth discussing.

  Also, and maybe I'm playing to the echo chamber a bit here, it's possible that there are some subjects that HN readers are just mostly aligned on. That doesn't make the whole site an echo chamber. There are still plenty of things that HN can't agree on (JS SPAs is a good example - every thread gets split right down the middle).

• by kbos87 on 2/15/22, 8:14 PM

  Maybe a random but relevant question to ask - it recently occurred to me that I know very little about the average HN user, but I presume almost if not all of the people here to be male. Curious if that’s accurate or not.

• by bborud on 2/15/22, 8:17 PM

  If you use an echo chamber to ask if you are in an echo chamber the answer will most likely be no.

• by m348e912 on 2/15/22, 7:42 PM

  I feel like there are certainly some points of view that are difficult to espouse on HN so for that reason it does have echo chamber qualities. I don't think it's with everything, but there are some third rail topics that tend to be more controversial and for which there is little tolerance for challenging.

• by davesmylie on 2/15/22, 9:11 PM

  I'm not about the echo chamber part, but the HN I first started using was great because of it's tech news and the contributors thoughts/experience with tech news.

  I'm not sure if it's just because of the pandemic, or the rise of far-right extremism in the USA in general, but I notice (and do not enjoy) a huge increase in the amount of political opinion that people feel the need to express. Often on subjects/topics that I feel do not warrant it.

• by kart23 on 2/15/22, 8:17 PM

  Reddit is MUCH more of an echo chamber than HN. You will get downvoted on most subs if you say something that goes against that sub's majority opinion. Whereas on HN, people will usually entertain a good-faith argument.

• by smcin on 2/15/22, 8:43 PM

  Not at all, if the topic is "search relevance is getting compromised for ad revenue". I posted a similar finding yesterday [Google search relevance fail: result for “Africa longitude”](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30337563) but didn't get much traction. By the way, for that query, Bing's image results are much better, but the #1 site hit is still the same SEO-manipulated auto-generated page, not any reputable reference source like we might expect. And that is a basic query, nothing to do with Reddit, social media or YC personalities. I tried the query on Reddit, the results are a disorganized jumble. So, the surprise winner on that query is... Bing.

• by treyfitty on 2/15/22, 8:30 PM

  Yes, it's becoming an echo chamber, although not as bad as Reddit. However, I'm not sure if it's attributable to HN, broader tech attitudes, or coastal city demographics. I see politically charged opinions leaning Right, and opinions that lean left are more likely to get downvoted. For example, on comments related to H1-B, there's a tendency to see normative ("it should be this, it ought to be that") focused opinions. On the other hand, you'll see comments that state H1-B reduces wages for everyone get downvoted to oblivion, followed up with comments stating that the system is just & fair for all parties involved.

  I'm keeping it brief, but you get the idea.

• by hervature on 2/15/22, 8:28 PM

  I think the answer to whether or not HN is an echo chamber, as of this moment, is no. It seems like a weekly occurrence where two conflicting articles on the front page. Oftentimes one is a direct response. In this sense, one is exposed to a spectrum of ideas.

  What I will say is that tribalism is still incredibly strong. The amount of times I've been drive-by downvoted always makes me chuckle. The other day I was downvoted for correcting myself that Ethereum is driving up GPU prices and not Bitcoin. Presumably the person didn't mind the Bitcoin negativity but did mind for Ethereum. I kind of wish a reply is necessitated in order to downvote sometimes.

• by DoreenMichele on 2/15/22, 8:28 PM

  Like every other part of the internet where I spent any time, HN became more touchy and crabby around the start of the pandemic. The pandemic is not yet resolved. I imagine it remains more touchy than "normal" as a consequence, given that normal is a moving target and you never step in the same river twice, so to speak.

• by awb on 2/15/22, 8:30 PM

  I’d tend to say no with a caveat.

  Points and counterpoints typically both appear in full opacity, meaning multiple viewpoints and perspectives are being upvoted (or at least not downvoted).

  I also don’t see a lot of bandwagon comments, which is nice. On Reddit you’ll see one point of view and then an entire comment thread reinforcing, praising or doubling down on the original point. That feels more like an echo chamber.

  That said, the HN demographics are probably majority 20-40yo US-based males interested in tech and startups. That in and of itself will create at least some echo chamber effect as we almost certainly don’t adequately represent the demographic of any state or country, or the world.

  That said for a relatively homogeneous demographic compared to the world as a whole I think multiple viewpoints are encouraged and respected to a degree I don’t see on other public discussion boards.

• by PaulHoule on 2/15/22, 7:45 PM

  You mean HNers hate Google but don't think Reddit is like going from the frying pan to the fire?

• by themodelplumber on 2/15/22, 7:53 PM

  Is this such a bad thing?

  IMO echo chambers are underrated for psychological support. If you can be aware of the effect, that's ideal. You can come here when the world is just way too off-kilter for your taste, and have your entire info-person past reaffirmed.

  But if you turn away from certain types of echo chambers just because they're echo chambers, you'll naturally and more frequently find yourself in an unnatural stance, psychologically speaking. You'll more freqently find that your perspectives, brought forward from your own past, are untenable. That could be disastrous and possibly exacerbate conditions like anxiety.

  So, culturally we teach ourselves that echo chambers are "bad" but I think they're doing a really helpful thing by providing a baseline layer of community-knowledge feedback with a subjective effect which is moderated by the individual's own experience level. It could be something like the informational equivalent of someone saying, "yeah baby I know" when you're crying. You know they know, they know you know they know, etc. But if you chase the echo it starts to look like blaming a support structure, and that's a poor point of access to solutions in the context.

  I also don't think it's ironic that you're asking that here. This should happen naturally as members of a community compare themselves against their perception of the community itself. There is sometimes a lot of emotional content in this kind of setup. You joined N time-units ago, you've changed since then, and now look--the community is still doing this thing or that? A perspective on one's own identity as an "identity of productive change" can reinforce this differential perspective/judgment.

  I wonder if it could be though that an expectation of creative or cognitive variety may have been violated. Maybe that's worth exploring--how do we get more of that. It's more like it's the community system's own qualities that raise this kind of echo chamber discussion periodically, and I'd offer that this happens more frequently the less meaningful traction is perceived. (I think the chamber effect could be easily moderated by moving away from the up/down voting dichotomy, among other things)

• by dc-programmer on 2/15/22, 8:25 PM

  The reactionary political takes can be pretty exhausting to be honest. There is a stark contrast between the nuance and depth of the technical conversations compared to the politically adjacent ones.

• by n00bface on 2/15/22, 8:32 PM

  Cloistered communities suck, but so does eternal September.

  HN seems to have a homogenous user demographic while sustaining a diverse set of perspectives. I'd make the argument that's due to the general level of education on HN likely being higher than other forums; evidenced on my non-scientific observations of denser syntax and broader vocabulary on HN vs. Reddit and a tolerance for well articulated challenges to the status quo on HN.

  So yes, HN an echo chamber, but it's not one that resists changes in popular opinion if the changes have merit.

• by dave333 on 2/15/22, 11:34 PM

  Technology runs in cycles from Cambrian Explosion moments like the dot com bubble and the current NFT insanity where gazillions of tiny startups try every angle to Golden Age dominated by hyper growth of the main players to Extinction/Decline when critics all see the same flaws and start to sound the same.

• by xeromal on 2/15/22, 8:42 PM

  Nah, this place is wonderful. Just ignore the BS and stop worrying about correcting everyone.

• by loudtieblahblah on 2/15/22, 9:11 PM

  all i know is 90% of you folks, who are mostly young, mostly live in urban environments, mostly are left leaning, mostly work at fairly large corporations, mostly who spend your lives connected to a desk all day, have some opinions that are meme-like, as if you all were dolls with pull-strings on your backs.

  It doesn't even need to be technical. Get you folks going on about leaf blowers and you all sound like the same whiny teenagers still mad as adults that your dads made you do yard work and as time has passed you warped that resentment into some facade of a political opinion.

• by fortran77 on 2/17/22, 2:39 PM

  Why was this flagged? Because it asks a question against the party line?

• by AutoDisorder on 2/15/22, 8:34 PM

  [1] No, not any more than it has been for years

  [2] Its always been an echo chamber

  [3] Its always been very right wing, very euro/american centric, very male, very white, very middle class.

  Its not something you can really fix you might as well just own it and run with it. Huge corporations spend millions on diversity drives and they cant fix the racism and sexism problem, so why would you be able to? You cant. So just accept it and move forward. America was built for white guys. If youre a white guy enjoy it, because the rest of us dont.

  If you saw western "civilization" from the outside you would know the whole thing is an echo chamber. So just have fun with it and quit worrying about it.

  I usually dont interact on this forum because I get extremely hostile responses to the point that in the rare times when I do write something I never make the mistake of checking the replies. They are always filled with racist, sexist, right wing political abuse

  - An actual outsider

• by systemvoltage on 2/15/22, 8:25 PM

  More non-liberal views would be interesting. The common notion on HN is that anything that's not liberal is automatically Fascist or __insert_the_worst_interpretations__.

• by tempnow987 on 2/15/22, 8:20 PM

  I would say HN is trending a bit away from inquiring conversation to like really absolute strong statements. Things like "google is lieing" or "it's a crime if facebook takes EU data outside of EU" or "apple is evil".

  In short -> it feels like it's getting a bit more reddit / moral outrage oriented these days vs inquiry and discussion?

  And unpopular opinions definitely get downvoted (vs just off topic / no content posts). It's worth reading the downvoted discussions as they are often interesting these days.

• by imwillofficial on 2/15/22, 8:25 PM

  This is literally addressed in documentation.

• by anonleb4 on 2/15/22, 8:19 PM

  HN is in love with anything Apple-related.

• by bobobob420 on 2/15/22, 8:07 PM

  No I make sure to criticize every comment I see. You're welcome as my karma takes the hit for the rest of us

• by contextfree on 2/15/22, 8:10 PM

  to me it doesn't feel like any more of an echo chamber than it always has.

• by yeeetz on 2/15/22, 8:21 PM

  only the good echos

• by throwawaynay on 2/15/22, 8:14 PM

  google is not "dying"

  but its quality is getting worse because they have no real economic incentive to get better as long as lots of people don't start using other engines

  average people don't care or even notice whether their search results about kim kardashian and football are seo-optimized garbage, convincing semi-automatic gpt-3 based content or actually quality content

  people like us whose entire jobs couldn't be done decently (or at all)without really efficient search engines tend to notice declines in quality a lot faster

  so no, not an echo chamber, at least not at all in regard to this kind of topics

• by sleepingadmin on 2/16/22, 1:08 PM

  >Is HN becoming more of an "echo chamber"?

  My previous account had people following me to downvote me and the occasional threats. This has much more to do with topics that you're not allowed to criticize. They would even follow to unrelated subjects. Got flagged constantly for no valid reason.

  Created new account, no problem anymore.

  >2. If yes[2], how big of an "echo chamber" you think HN has become (or is becoming)?

  I thought so, but it would seem it's really just 1 main topic. this one side considers this an extinction event and therefore anyone who criticizes their movement is literally killing them.

  >How wide-spread is this issue? Is it limited to certain topics only? If yes, what are those topics?

  New one seems to have been created basically a day ago. Canada declared martial law in order to end peaceful protests. The far left commie antifa folks were even shocked and freaked out. Obviously right-wing disagree as well.

  The problem is that Trudeau and the propaganda media have been smearing the protests as Nazis, Racists, Sexists, etc. It's to the point that Bill Maher started comparing Trudeau to Hitler. Then days after Bill Maher said this, he misuses the martial law emergency act. Worse yet, the wording in his speech mirrored Hitler's speech in 1933.

  I dont think Trudeau is planning to be Hitler, I think he's only consuming the propaganda that his own 'government accredited media' is putting out.

  The problem is... so is so many other people falling for this propaganda. Those people are calling on the police to break up the peaceful protests. Here we are though, first time during my life time ever being under martial law.

  I have never invested in crypto before but sure as shit am now.