Comment by consumer451
8 months ago
Follow-up: I should add that in 2025, deleting stories with a tinge of US politics is highly detrimental to the HN user base’s understanding of what is happening in the business world.
Case in-point: a US-based family member employed at a FAANG just told me that his Canadian coworkers now reset their phones prior to entering the USA, then restore from backup. This is somewhat similar to what happens when they go to China.
This is terrible for business. This kind of information should not be ignored.
These stories aren't being deleted—there was quite a large thread (in fact maybe two large threads?) about precisely that, within the last couple weeks. I'll see if I can dig up the links, or maybe someone else remembers?
The problem isn't that the major stories are deleted; it's that even if a story spends hours on the front page, the set of users who actually see it still has measure zero [1]. Then inevitably a few of the rest assume that they didn't see it because it was sinisterly suppressed, whether by mods or user flags.
Where this ends up getting us is the 'nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded' theory of HN threads! [2] It's always been like this—it's baked into the fundamentals of how HN works (the limited frontpage space, the dynamics of the internet, the fact that most people don't use HN Search). It's just showing up more intensely these days because the times are more intense and we've been in a tsunami phase for a few months now.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422350 - March 2025 (198 comments)
I meant "deleted" from by being flagged, which is a deletion from the lurkers. And yes.. absolutely I have seen some of these stories get through the gauntlet.
I am really not complaining about moderation, just attempting to appeal to the users who I have assumed are doing the flagging, in general.
They're probably doing some of the flagging because they disagree (I think correctly) with a characterization of HN in which HN can be "highly detrimental to the HN user base’s understanding of what is happening". HN has newsy stuff but its purpose is not really news - there are much better sites for that. The 'News' in 'Hacker News' is more like the 'News' in Huey Lewis & The News.
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[flagged]
I can assure you that it has not been the standard corporate advice when I had to regularly travel from Canada to US for business meetings on a regular basis 15 years ago while working at a big tech company. Nor do I recall anyone else who was traveling doing that on their own. If it is the standard procedure now, then yes, that is definitely a reason to be concerned.
So I've had this in mind for ages, but my coworkers have only just realized it and started implementing it. Thus for most people, it's *new*s.
The question is why was this prompted by DOGE? What DOGE action has caused a Canadian citizen employed by a US company to suddenly feel the need to protect their smart device?
That is... other than sensationalism, which appears to be the story here.
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> What shouldn't be ignored? Some small subset of foreign workers decided to take security seriously?
That FAANG employed Canadians are suddenly taking these precautions when entering the USA, as standard practice, when coming to a meeting. Nobody can gaslight me into believing that this is a not a new thing.
I still don't understand your point.
Some people, who happen to be employed at a FAANG corp, have recently decided to protect their smart device during a border crossing, and this is cause for alarm?
What exactly is on their smart device they are afraid CBP might be interested in? Why did they not protect their device before? Why now? Are there occurrences of FAANG employees having their devices taken during border crossings? For what purpose?
Unless you have something definitive, this sounds like some alarmist individuals deciding to take their own personal security to the level that was already recommended of them.
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