Discarding values

Using an underscore as the first character in a value-level identifier conventionally signifies that the value is unused. Although the Haskell language specification is technically silent about this convention, it is informally enshrined in Haskell Report: Haskell 2010, section 2.4: Identifiers and Operators

Compilers that offer warnings for unused identifiers are encouraged to suppress such warnings for identifiers beginning with underscore.

And indeed this is what GHC does. The compiler will issue a warning about an unused definition because it is likely a sign of a mistake.