I just reloaded the page and, let me see the top comments:
1. Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this ...
2. I just noticed - all anti China comments were heavily upvoted but just in last 30 mins ... (this comment thread)
3. Not just arrested but tortured ...
4. This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying ...
5. I've visited China nearly every year for the past 6 years and never had any sort of issues ...
6. I get the impression that we're now in an undeclared Cold War with China.
7. Use this to negotiate hazard pay with your company when traveling to China.
The rest are greyed out:
8. ... If this is the direction China wants to continue to go in, I no longer want anything to do with it ...
9. ... Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War" so I'm not surprised this is as upvoted as it is.
10. The current administration has been bullying China incessantly ...
So, 1/3/8 are clearly anti-China, 4/6/7 can be read either way, 5 is questioning the premise (so we could consider it mildly pro-China, if you will), and 9/10 are the only explicitly pro-China comments. They are also at the bottom.
I am seeing the same that you're seeing now. Those grayed comments are back to black.
Why do we even have such a huge oscillation? I am extremely suspicious but cautious with allegation without data.
What I am sure of is the following:
Comments start out positive, then comes the hammer and they go extremely gray (the lightest color and bottom out at -4?) and then we have them back to normal levels. This is a really concerning behavior. If we had a plot of vote vs. time, we'd see this hammer come down. I strongly suspect.
Well I'm no HN admin, but from my own experience, a comment can switch between grey/black with only a few votes. You are basically saying that a controversial comment gets upvotes, downvotes, and then upvotes. A pro-China commenter would see the exact same data as you see, and claim this is an evidence of anti-Chinese brigading ("hammer").
* While I was writing this my original comment score went from 1 to 2 to 0, which kinda proves my point...
I see, if there is benevolent behavior, I think that's fine.
What I am concerned about is a coordinated astroturfing that is perhaps state sponsored to change the western narrative. That's pretty fricking scary and should be investigated if that's the case.
1. Note that US citizens have long been warned about stuff like this ...
2. I just noticed - all anti China comments were heavily upvoted but just in last 30 mins ... (this comment thread)
3. Not just arrested but tortured ...
4. This is bad for Canadians recently, with many arrests and accusations of spying ...
5. I've visited China nearly every year for the past 6 years and never had any sort of issues ...
6. I get the impression that we're now in an undeclared Cold War with China.
7. Use this to negotiate hazard pay with your company when traveling to China.
The rest are greyed out:
8. ... If this is the direction China wants to continue to go in, I no longer want anything to do with it ...
9. ... Of course anything and everything is a sign of a "New Cold War" so I'm not surprised this is as upvoted as it is.
10. The current administration has been bullying China incessantly ...
So, 1/3/8 are clearly anti-China, 4/6/7 can be read either way, 5 is questioning the premise (so we could consider it mildly pro-China, if you will), and 9/10 are the only explicitly pro-China comments. They are also at the bottom.
So I'm not really sure what you're saying.