Anti-Semitism at Hacker News

EDIT: I wrote a new more detailed article about this.

Paul Graham created the social news website Hacker News (HN), associated it with his company Y Combinator, and ran it until recently. Graham's website contains anti-Israel material. Graham also compares Winston Churchill's speeches to a German "purge". As head HN moderator, Graham banned the user qqq for referring to an inflammatory, off-topic anti-semitic article as "anti-semitism" and suggesting it shouldn't be on a non-political technology news site. The article stayed on HN; anti-semitism, Graham (username pg) believes, is merely legitimate "criticism of Israel".

The article, by Paul Reynolds, applies double standards to Israel, such as calling their public relations "propaganda", when the same public relations by the USA would not be called "propaganda". Reynolds also questions whatever Israel's accountable, democratic government says, while promoting the unsubstantiated claims of a random, unaccountable Palestinian. That is an evidential double standard. Double standards like this are not merely "criticism of Israel", they are anti-semitism.

Reynolds posted updates admitting it was an inflammatory political article that caused outrage. Reynolds acknowledged and commented on the accusation that he was siding with the anti-semitic terrorist organization Hamas. To his slight credit, Reynolds considered it par-for-the-course that his article – which took some similar positions to Hamas – could draw serious complaints, so he spoke to the issue. Graham, on the other hand, has more extreme views than Reynolds and won't admit there's any controversy. Graham banned a user for a criticism that even Reynolds would find understandable, thus trying to silence any defense of Israel on HN.


The new head moderator of HN, Daniel Gackle (username dang), is following in Graham's footsteps. He took moderator action against a recent USA Today article reporting on anti-semitism. Then he applied a double standard by refusing to take action against an anti-Israel article meeting the same criteria which he had said justified burying the other article.

Gackle ignored a prompt email explaining the problem in time to act. At the same time, he replied at great length to some minor comments about downvoting, proving he was available to moderate. When pressed about the issue, Gackle admitted two days later that he had made an intentional decision as HN's head moderator. Gackle told the user who raised the issue to stop sending emails; Gackle is unwilling to consider facts or arguments which contradict him about Israel.

How bad is it? Gackle's best defense was to claim the anti-Israel article was a "fairly substantive historical piece". But we are talking about a site which Gackle had already been informed publishes extreme anti-semitic revisionist history like this:

First, Israel cannot be said to face an existential threat when, in the many Arab-Israeli conflicts that have occurred since World War II, Israel has almost always been the aggressor.

Gackle closed his eyes to his role in spreading this kind of material. HN moderation has a clear bias. It's fair to call it anti-semitism.