Comment by nathanyz

Except when it's not. If you don't think groups within organizations all message each other to quickly flag posts that are negative towards them, then you may be looking through this with an idealistic lens that hasn't been shattered yet.

I'm not denying your premise that yes sometimes independent people with no coordination, all flag an article. That is how the system should work. But there are also articles that will quickly get flagged through coordination of interested parties.

Hacker News has a lot more power than many think in terms of tastemaking in the tech industry. So there is a lot of motivation and benefit for people to manipulate its functionality to either boost or protect their business.