Banned for self-promo

I recently found out that a good tech author was banned from Lobsters (a Hacker News like platform) for "self-promotion". I've seen the same thing happen on Reddit and Hacker News (HN prefers shadow bans, which are arguably even worse). It's disgusting.

This may come as a surprise, but as a blogger, it's very difficult to reach your audience and to be heard, no matter how good or deep or useful your articles are. Unless you post "hot takes" or have a huge marketing budget, that is.

One of the few options is to post to HN/Lobsters/Reddit and hope for a (slim) chance of getting noticed. And yes, authors often have to submit their own stuff because readers rarely do (again, no matter how good the article is).

And yet the platform gatekeepers do everything in their power to keep authors from posting. They enforce these ridiculous "anti-self-promotion" policies (where's the promotion, by the way? It's not like authors are trying to sell anything, they're just trying to be heard).

Platforms like Hacker News already have powerful collaboration-based mechanisms to protect them from bad content: voting and flagging. Bad articles don't get upvoted, so no one sees them. Offensive content and spam are flagged and removed. The community is perfectly capable of deciding what content it wants to see on the platform. However, moderators choose to abuse their power by banning authors for "self-promotion".

Despite what the platform owners say, they don't give a damn about "quality content". Instead, they welcome all kinds of hype (which is what people generally submit), corporate blogs with fat budgets, and a small number of tech celebrities.

Given all this, I'm imposing my own reverse ban, effective immediately. I won't post, comment, or take part in any activity on Lobsters, Hacker News, Reddit, or any other platform that opposes self-promotion. Although my contribution is small, I don't want to support this kind of hostility toward authors.

If your platform has something against self-promotion — go to hell. You are banned.

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