Top all-time · #11005
Ella Dawson
Personal blog · ellacydawson.wordpress.comculturewritingpolitics
Ella Dawson's personal blog at ellacydawson.wordpress.com covers culture, writing and politics. Since 2015, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 7 times, most often “How News Genius Silences Writers”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-14, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ella Dawson's blog for her 2016 account of being harassed via News Genius annotations and blocking on Twitter. Commenters cite it when discussing annotation features, blocking and online harassment.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- How News Genius Silences Writers5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-03-26
What Hacker News says?
I'm especially worried about harassment, honestly. The fact that your domain can be marked up in a browser with no moderation capabilities is just going to lead to worse gamergate style brigading and harassment. https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-geniu...
Comment linking /2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/
on “Annotation is now a web standard”Submitted Why Peeple Is Dangerous to Survivors and, Really, Anyone as a story · 39 points
HN discussionSo people can pretend the "abusive" user (e.g. ones posting "harmful emojis") doesn't exist. It's a mindset, I think. See, for instance, this woman complaining about News Genius[1], discussed here [2]. At one point, she's upset that a blocked Twitter user can see her public tweets . People should be able to moderate and exclude people. It's just funny how powerful they think that capability should be. 1: https://ell…
Comment linking /2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/
on “Organizations can now block abusive users”Submitted Peeple Launches Today. Here's Its Plan to Profit from Harassment as a story · 10 points
HN discussionOriginal article here: https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-geniu... Interesting snippet: > After some back and forth, Ella blocked this person, who then took to News Genius to annotate the article, noting it may be "punching down a little bit here." The editor of News Genius joined in with snarky and hostile comments. Despite having blocked both individuals on Twitter, they linked to Ella's tweets…
Comment linking /2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/
on “News Genius Picks Up Again Where Failures Left Off”Submitted How News Genius Silences Writers as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> What is the motivation behind this? The README links to the explanation: https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-geniu...
Comment linking /2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/
on “Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations”
