Comment by an0malous
11 hours ago
There’s a good fraction of people, especially on this forum, who are actively encouraging this. Posts that criticize the administration consistently get flagged off the front page even when they’re related to tech
11 hours ago
There’s a good fraction of people, especially on this forum, who are actively encouraging this. Posts that criticize the administration consistently get flagged off the front page even when they’re related to tech
You are severely misreading why people flag posts about that discuss the administration (whether for or against): they are tiresome to read about, and it doesn't lead to productive interesting discussion (which is supposed to be what the vote buttons are for here). Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too.
There is also a conflict of interest for many in the tech space who browse this forum. Many of the technologies we work on are being abused by this administration.
IE Flock being a ycombinator startup, Ring cameras giving free access to police and others[1], AI systems being used for targeting dissent, ad-services and the data they vacuum up being bought by agencies to build up profiles for dissenting citizens[2]. We've watched this type of technology even be used to target the families of people in warzones to explicitly perform war crimes[3].
This is a forum of people who have effectively built the panopticon but don't enjoy hearing about how the panopticon is being used. Politics is now interwoven into our careers whether we like it or not. There is no pure technology, everything we work on effects the world for better or worse. Pulling the wool over our eyes to pretend there's a pure non-political form of talking about these topics is childish and naive.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/home/security/amazons-ring-cameras-push... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/tech/the-nsa-buys-americans-i... [3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/10/questions-and-answers-is...
> There is also a conflict of interest for many in the tech space who browse this forum. Many of the technologies we work on are being abused by this administration.
Possibly true. Just irrelevant.
I already have far too much exposure to Trump, and I'm not even American. I'd like it not to come up here. You may disagree, and that's fine, but the original question was - why are stories about him flagged. I maintain that the answer, for many people if not nearly all, is simple: ugh, not again.
I understand the instinct to remove "politics" from HN but it's fuzzier than that. There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve with automation, AI, replacing old code bases etc. There was a fascinating discussion about COBOL and what DOGE didn't understand and it immediately got flagged off the front page. Same thing recently with Grok and non-consensual adult content. Folks on HN are well placed to speak knowledgeably about it yet it is instantly voted off the front page.
Difficult not to see it as folks plugging their fingers in their ears. And there are folks on here that are flagging things because they paint the administration in a bad light. There are DOGE folks here, there are Palantir folks, etc. etc., I don't think you can dismiss those motivations even if they aren't true for you personally. I think the core problem is that flagging system is too powerful and too anonymous.
> There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve
Were there? I just saw people blindly advocating and excusing their incompetence. The discussions were very polarized, not well thought out or supported with evidence, and not remotely productive. At least from what I saw.
> There were great HN-related conversations to be had around DOGE and what it was (purportedly) trying to achieve with automation, AI, replacing old code bases etc
I have a very different impression of those discussions, with more or less half of the comments being flagged and downvoted into oblivion, and the overall mood being very heavy in negativity and hostility.
I would like to see great HN-related conversations. Maybe if they disabled donwvotes and flagging, and did some heavy handed moderation against negativity and hostility. A great conversation depend on a safe environment where people feel free to express their genuine views and opinions.
The no politics rule on HN is the equivalent of "the suspect smelled like marijuana so I had probable cause to search his car." -- it gives the moderators a plausible reason to remove content they don't want on here while maintaining an air of legitimacy around the removable because thems the rules.
Donald Trump has threatened to annex my country. Are posts about that political? Sure doesn't seem like it to me. From my persective this subject seems more like an existential threat then a discussion about policy. But I suppose to Americans it is just a matter of policy and politcs.
The incessent posts about Bay Area housing regulations -- political or not? Seems pretty political to me but apparently it isn't?
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I find the political discussions on here interesting and generally of decent+ caliber. Plus so much of what’s happening is tech related / enabled.
There’s 30 posts on the front page. If someone doesn’t care about politics why can’t they just ignore that 1 post instead of flagging it into oblivion?
I agree that it is slightly better than Reddit but often it just turns into a mess that doesn't touch on tech.
They are plenty of places for political discussions. HN is a rare great place for tech so personally I'd rather keep it that way.
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> Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too.
I sympathize, relate, and I'm not about to lecture you like some corners of the internet about "the privilege" to try and ignore stuff like this, but it is important to keep stuff like this at the forefront. We continue to experience unprecedented life events.
On the contrary, there's no need whatsoever to even deal with this since it already happens everywhere else, it's not some niche, subtle matter, it's probably the most talked about subject in the last decade.
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There are many topics discussed on HN that I find tiresome to read about. For example, diet and fitness topics. You could swap the comments from one article to another and not even notice.
That's why I stopped reading them.
It's never once occurred to me that I should rather open them up, dive into the comments section, and tell the participants that I'm trying to get away from boring discussions about diet and fitness.
Some people do that, yes.
Others do what the parent post described.
HN is certainly not a monolith, and we've got our share of loons on all extremes of the political spectrum.
This is just conjecture
Flagging off news about current events (whether you support the regime or not) is counterproductive to a forum nominally for the startup community. Startup founders need to be aware of the environment they are operating in, so if the current environment is a corrupt fascist authoritarian one then you need to be prepared to operate in that type of business environment. If you now need to bribe certain officials in the regime in order for your startup to succeed, for example, flagging posts about how that's necessary is counterproductive.
> Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too.
Whilst I sympathise, it's a bit hard to avoid politics on here, when the tech oligarchs of Silicon Valley are actively supporting a corrupt administration to line their own pockets.
A statement of fact that will no doubt earn the ire of many tech-bro's.
Yeah, because "AI is so great guys!!" is any better.
Maybe we'll be able to flag more than 1 type of post someday :/
Is this thread not about the administration? The FBI currently acts at the will of the White House / GOP / Trump. Stick your head in the sand all you want, but don't betray the people who are standing up against oppression.
> they are tiresome to read about, and it doesn't lead to productive interesting discussion (which is supposed to be what the vote buttons are for here). Politics isn't 100% off topic for HN but mostly I come here to get away from it and I'm sure others do too.
I don't agree. Crypto scams get discussed at length here for days, but when it's a Trump crypto scam, it gets flagged and disappears.
It's pretty shocking how many people on HN are ok with government officials killing citizens in the streets, but writing diversity statements is just too far.
Well it really depends on what was leaked.
Sadly, a lot of people in Silicon Valley now subscribe to this "dark enlightenment" nonsense.
I fear the answer, but what the fuck is "dark enlightenment" ?
The seeds of fascism are in the hearts of well over 50% of the people around you.
It's flagged because its historically not Hacker News. Many of the newer accounts seem to bias towards using this forum as a "reddit" to discuss how much they hate the current administration or their mental issues. The technical "hacker" content is getting less and less -- thank God for https://lobste.rs/. So that's all fine and maybe hackers should just change be a reddit forum, but don't take it personally or be surprised if 15 old accounts are flagging your posts. I say this noting that the account you posted from is only 9 months old.
We historically haven't had an administration like this either. People need to get over politics creeping into their every day life because that's what it's actually doing. We're at the point where the government is using tech to police and surveil the public and many of the CEOs of tech companies are openly coordinating with the President. Tech is politics at this point.
Sadly politics in the US has reached the point where it is impossible to separate, particularly if you're involved in any kind of business.
Hating the current administration is one of the top technical issues on my mind. There is a substantial chance that all US-EU software collaboration is going to get blown up in the next few months if Trump makes good on his threats to invade Greenland, just as international trade has been reoriented around his illegal tariffs and responses to them.
When Trump decides to destroy your life, as he's destroyed so many others, I hope you'll find supporters who aren't so determined to ignore the inconvenience as you.
Wow, thanks for this! I normally don't login to HN and comment anymore due to all the reddit-style comments - especially the constant hate for the US and the President. Thanks for giving me another outlet to review tech-related stuff.
<logging off now>