Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | seattle_spring's commentslogin

RenovateBot supports a ton of languages, and ime works much better for the npm ecosystem than Dependabot. Especially true if you use an alternative package manager like yarn/pnpm.

> First, he published at least three hit pieces on the agent

Hit piece... On an agent? Would it be a "hit piece" if I wrote a blog post about the accuracy of my bathroom scale?


Do you argue with your bathroom scale?

Daily. It always tells me I'm heavier than I am

> They explained their motivations, saying they set up the AI agent as social experiment

Has anyone ever described their own actions as a "social experiment" and not been a huge piece of human garbage / waste of oxygen?


Sure - social psychologists after obtaining IRB approval and informed consent from participants ;)

> some for speech recognized as protected by international organizations.

Can you share some concrete examples from reputable sources that show these? Every examples I've seen have been clear-cut calls for violence, or unambiguous harassment.



Absolutely. There are several examples that are not calls for violence or unambiguous harassment that were documented by The Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/15/hundreds-charged...


The only semi-concrete example that article gives:

> After the Southport stabbings, several people were questioned by police over false communications for spreading claims the attacker was a Muslim immigrant. In one instance, a man pleaded guilty to the offence for a livestreamed video on TikTok where he falsely claimed he was “running for his life” from rioters in Derby.

That very much seems like an attempt to harass or invite harassment against a group of people...


There's a hate speech / violence law in the UK that is getting some people arrested for saying things like "round up all people of race X, put them into a hotel, and burn the hotel down." People like Joe Rogan and his ilk are re-packaging those examples as "people being arrested for just sharing their opinion."

Oh, is that what y'all are on about? I'm not too worried then. About Europe.

I don't know what Joe Rogan says or who his ilk are, but this is a pretty extreme characterization of the situation that I don't think is accurate.

For example, UK police track what they consider to be undesirable "non-crime" speech, build databases of people, and intimidate them for these non crimes (knock on their doors, invite them to come to police station, advise them not to say such things, etc). This is quite a new thing, within the past ~10 years.

There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case. They arrested 12,000 people in 2023 and convicted 1,100 of those. For cases where the evidence is as cut and dried as posts made online, they could only secure convictions in 8% of cases, which seems staggering to me when UK's conviction rate generally is like 80%.

Even the conviction rate, even if you say yes there are laws to prohibit certain speech, how far is too far? Are these kinds of laws and convictions needed? Why don't all other countries need them? Why didn't UK need them 20 years ago when there was still internet and social media? Is it not concerning to you that we're told this kind of action is required to hold society together? I'm not saying that calls to violence don't happen or should be tolerated, but if it is not a lie that arresting thousands of people for twitter posts and things is necessary to keep society from breaking down then it seems like putting a bandaid on top of a volcano. It's certainly not developing a resilient, anti-fragile society, quite the opposite IMO.

Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion?


Damn I keep forgetting the UK is still located in Europe. Ever since they left the union they feel like their own continent.

Actually they feel like they might secretly be the fifty first state!


> They arrested 12,000 people in 2023 and convicted 1,100 of those. For cases where the evidence is as cut and dried as posts made online, they could only secure convictions in 8% of cases, which seems staggering to me when UK's conviction rate generally is like 80%.

Isn't the conviction rate the number of people convicted divided by the number charged, not the number arrested?


> There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case

Such as?

> Is nobody allowed to be concerned about any of this without being some horrible underground extremist, in your opinion?

Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this.


> > There have also been other high profile cases of people being arrested for posting things that were not like that burn the hotel down case

> Such as?

That was the only thing in my comment you took issue with? Great, that's easy to clear up because there's a few around. Here's one

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/yorkshire-man-a...

Arrested for saying "F--- Palestine. F--- Hamas. F--- Islam. Want to protest? F--- off to Muslim country and protest."

> Horrible underground extremist? Not so much. More likely just someone who consumes a very particular slice of media that puts a dishonest (at best) spin on situations like this.

Hmm. Was your previous post a dishonest (at best) spin on it too? That would be consistent with your claim if you are a consumer of a very particular slice of media and did not know you can find articles from a whole range of publications about this stuff easily on the internet.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/19/arresting-pa...

https://www.forbes.com.au/news/world-news/people-are-being-t...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2922w73e1o (Online speech laws need to be reviewed after Linehan arrest, says Streeting)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-...

https://www.politico.eu/article/freedom-speech-suspicion-bri...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/world/europe/graham-lineh...

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/palestine-action-ruling...

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-...

https://www.fire.org/news/uk-government-issues-warning-think...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/shocking-cases-reveal-britains...

You really don't need to be some obscure basement dweller to have any kind of vague inkling that something might be a little on the nose in the proverbial state of Denmark.


The key thing to understand is that Europeans want clear rules around hate speech, online harassment and such. Thus lawmakers are acting to find laws which encapsulate these. In Germany, we have some simple ones surrounding using Nazi symbols and speech. These rules generally work well in our civil law context. Civil law usually is rather broad strokes and there might be cases where something injust happens which requires tuning laws.

If you come from a common law context the whole idea might seem strange.


> The key thing to understand is that Europeans want clear rules around hate speech

Regardless of my personal thoughts on this (complicated), simply putting "many" in front of "Europeans" does a lot to diminish further alienation of those who don't, helping you achieve your goals. It takes 0.5 seconds.


Agreed

> The key thing to understand is that Europeans want clear rules around hate speech, online harassment and such.

Do they? Or is it being pushed upon them? And why is it "the key thing" here?

> Thus lawmakers are acting to find laws which encapsulate these.

I suspect it has been the reverse, the ruling class desperately wants those powers and if the common people are now in favor of them it is more than likely because of intensive campaigns from their governments and corporations to change their minds.

> In Germany, we have some simple ones surrounding using Nazi symbols and speech. These rules generally work well in our civil law context. Civil law usually is rather broad strokes and there might be cases where something injust happens which requires tuning laws.

Some laws existing does not mean some other laws won't be unjust. Or that legislated laws will always be right and not require "some tuning".

> If you come from a common law context the whole idea might seem strange.

The different systems of law don't seem all that strange to me at least, but the thread you are replying to is discussing censorship in the European nation of the UK.

Further, what we are discussing involves executive police powers (intimidation, arrests, compiling lists), as well as legislated laws, so it is not really just some quirk of common law at all.


I think if you come from a German context the concept of free speech is probably strange to you in general - because no one in living memory has ever had it. Not in Weimar, not in the Nazi period, not in East Germany and not in the Federal Republic.

Unless you understand concepts like "Natural Rights" the idea of a government not being able to curtail what you say will remain completely foreign to you.


That isn't really what we perceive (at least if educated). We see that Free Speech is not an absolute right, but is secondary to the most important right which for Germans is Human Dignity. It might be foreign to you because your constitution and history doesn't put the same value on it than our history taught us.

I'm not American but I similarly don't care for the meek subservience to the government which characterizes European attitude on this.

Human dignity is not foreign to me at all, I just don't believe a life where the state protects your feelings from words, and that dictates what you may and may not talk about is not a dignified one.


It is often easy to assume this position if you are majority, white, employed, etc.

Your argument is similar to saying that we shouldn't have rules when driving cars. "Why life cannot be dignified if I have to observe stop signs."

In every are of life there are balances to be struck. I am sure your country has rules for slandering individuals (because most have). What's the difference to also having rules against slandering entire people?


> It is often easy to assume this position if you are majority, white, employed, etc.

What is your evidence to that claim?

I think it is actually not easy to assume that position, as evidenced by vast numbers of Europeans who do not assume that position. I think that it is in fact far easier (as a majority, white, employed, etc.), to go through life believing your government will solve everything and protect your feelings from being hurt by hearing what other people think. I just think it is an undignified existence.

> Your argument is similar to saying that we shouldn't have rules when driving cars. "Why life cannot be dignified if I have to observe stop signs."

I can see how bewildering this is for you, but my "argument" is also quite different in important ways.

> In every are of life there are balances to be struck. I am sure your country has rules for slandering individuals (because most have).

Adjudicating disputes between private parties is clearly one of the real roles of government.

> What's the difference to also having rules against slandering entire people?

I'm not sure if you are being rhetorical and actually want me to list the differences because you are unaware of them? Civil actions brought by private parties are different from government censorship and criminalization of speech. And I can be sued in civil court for what I say, I never said or even hinted that this should be disallowed that seems to be a strawman you have made up.

I don't think it should be easy to be found liable for damage if you tell the truth or give your opinion though.

What about you? Do you think calling AfD voters in general racists or extremists or selfish or xenophobic should be censored and criminalized by your government?


How could German history have taught you anything about human dignity?

You went from a military dictatorship to an unstable republic to a fascist state, then you split into military occupation zones, and then one of your military occupation zones annexed the other, the militaries left but you kept the laws, and now you arrest people for saying "from the river to the sea".

Using your German-ness to talk to anyone else about freedom or human dignity is patently ridiculous. If you have an ideological point to make, make it, but the whole "as a German" angle just does not hold water. "As a German" your history shows you don't understand this.

Your concept of Freedom of Speech is much closer to the Mainland Chinese model than an Anglo one.


A little less hyperbole would maybe help your arguments, but trying to argue that one of the most liberal democracies in the world is comparable to one of the most repressive regimes is hurting your argument (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/liberal-democracy-index).

Nobody is perfect, but Germans have learned a lot in the last century and a half. One of the things is that Freedom of Speech doesn't deserve the pedestal that primarily US Americans put it on. It has boundaries and one of those is calling for the displacement of an entire nation.

You make it sound like that Germany is just a puppet without its own mind, but in reality it is just some 80m people all with their own mind, history and education. The reality is that Germans are more aware of their history and the impact seemingly small decisions can have on the life of millions. That's why I talk about the German-ness, because many other countries can't or don't want to understand the weight of responsibility which arises from being the perpetrator of two world wars and the holocaust.


This is a textbook case of German Schuldstolz - you feel having been militaristic and having mass human right abuses entitles you to lecture others.

All you learned in the last centuries and a half is that you dont have the logistics to fight massive wars. You did not abandon anything due to your own enlightenment, you abandoned it because of massive foreign military interventions, where every single one of your newspaper, radio and television stations were replaced by your military occupiers.

The worst part about your Schuldstolz is that... the regime who did the most to end yours was even less moral and killed even more people than your own. Meaning you aren't even the best at being awful.

So no, I do not care what you have to see about freedom "as a German". You were militarily, ideologically and mentally conquered. Lecturing Anglos is this is just reflecing back our own beliefs but distorted with a German mindset that has no history or tradition of freedom of speech.



Considering the degree of "hate speech" a Tweet would have to contain to land someone in jail includes direct incitements of violence, I'm scared to ask what sort of opinion you'd like to share that you feel you legally cannot.

The claim that you get thrown in jail in London "just for sharing your opinion" is a myth, unless your opinion is, "round up everyone of race X, put them in a hotel, and burn the hotel down."


the amount of people arrested for online activity in England is not the best example to use if you're arguing that such events are rare.

otherwise, your incredulity to such a belief is why the far-right continues to gain a constituency in Europe and elsewhere. so instead of dismissing the concern, which fuels the far-right, you could just acknowledge it is a real thing people are experiencing, and that it doesn't help a liberal free society to criminalize thoughts that are unsavory to the political elite.


Your comment carries some major "Oh you know the ones" vibes.

https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744?lang...

Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views

Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?

Con: LOL no...no not those views

Me: So....deregulation?

Con: Haha no not those views either

Me: Which views, exactly?

Con: Oh, you know the ones


The "real thing people are experiencing" is posting unambiguous hate speech or calls for violence, and then getting in legal trouble for it. Calling it "online activity" or "just sharing their opinion online" is the actual blatant misrepresentation of what's happening on the ground, akin to saying someone robbing a store was "jailed merely for getting food for dinner that night."

By far the worst part. By far.

Though having to push out a huge fart at the request of the nurse while they stare at you when you wake up is a close 2nd.


I've never heard of that. Is it standard?

Everyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

I notice a reticence for people to speak plainly about things these days, because certain topics must be danced around at the edges in order for there to be any productive conversation.

Canada's PM Carney spoke recently about the Power of the Powerless essay and the shared lie, when the Green Grocer puts up the "Workers of the world unite" sign. And I kind of fear that shared reticence to speak plainly is causing an even larger inability to talk about the matter at hand than trying to approach it delicately around the edges to convince those who are so hard to communicate with.


It's been ~10 years. Everything has been hashed and rehashed to death. America knew exactly who he was on day 1. He came down the stairs calling Mexicans rapists.

He also came down the stairs calling Obama a secret Muslim Kenyan.

No, he called some Mexican migrants into the US rapists.

Trump has done plenty of real things that are worthy of criticism. Calling Mexicans in general rapists is not something he did.


> No, he called some Mexican migrants into the US rapists.

It was more than that.

In his own words, 'some' of those migrants[1] are good people (/maybe/ - he's apparently never met one), but everyone else...

"They're not sending their best. They're sending people with lots of problems. And they're bringing those problems with us[sic]. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some - I assume - are good people."

[1] being 'sent' here, apparently?


No. His full quote:

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

This statement first asserted that mexico was deliberately exporting its people to the US (as opposed to people deciding to come of their own accord) and then generalized that they were importing social problems, before making a concession that some of them might not be.

This would be like if I said your HN posts consisted of lies, propaganda, and invective but that I assume some of them were worth reading. I doubt you'd feel the little conciliatory bit at the end balanced out the unfair allegations that preceded it.


It's because there has been a chilling effect because of the stochastic (and literal) terrorism of the state - YC's own Peter Theil uses Palantir services to pinpoint "domestic terrorists" (read: anyone who exercises their rights to protest or speaks dissent in real life or online) to ICE, who then extrajudicially disappear people.

Yes seems like a good precedent for democracies globally

That it was a dodgy vindaloo that is causing these cramps?

Yes. I am surprised too

Aiming for the bushes?

Portugal. The man. The empire.

Absolutely inappropriate and disgusting. The government is literally trying to force companies to push tabloid-level garbage. Fox themselves claim they're "entertainment" and not news, and anyone with a 3rd-grade education would be able to point out how truly unserious Breitbart is as an outlet for true information.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: