Comment by kevmo
10 days ago
You realize HN is a Y Combinator project, right? It is functionally run by Big Tech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
Posts critical of oligarchy often shoot to number 1, then magically disappear from the homepage. It's a moderation decision.
"The revolution will not be televised."
I doubt it is a moderation decision. But there are plenty of people in big-tech here that have flagging powers and there are also plenty of people who may decide it doesn't belong here. HN has a strange relationship to politics. On the one hand HN wants to be an a-political safe space where you can discuss technology without politics and without considering the political ramifications of various actions, on the other it is abundantly clear that many of the people active here have a direct effect on the outcome of some of this stuff, either because they are employed with the companies (and by the people) that do so, because they invest in them or because they are big names when it comes to technology. It takes - by my estimate - about 40 flags to push an article with this many upvotes off the homepage.
I wrote about it in 2017:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14468554
The hypocrisy is - to me, at least - evident: you can't claim to be 'improving the world' according to your own vision of what that world should look like without serious consideration of the political angle. At the same time this is precisely the fig leaf many of the biggest politically influential companies hide behind. Flock, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX and many others make their bread and butter out of various aspects of the surveillance state and they wield their political clout like every other weapon in their arsenal. Having a forum like HN question your choices in life can't be easy. So the flag button is a simple way to get rid of any personal doubts.
edit: I just re-read that thread, it is really interesting to do so in the light of the present day political climate and the upcoming elections. Also interesting how the view on Elon Musk changed over the years.
The comments in the HN post you linked do a very good job of explaining why HN is working as expected when political posts get flagged
Quoting tptacek from your link: “Politics often literally prevents us from discussing technical stories, by forcing us to wade through banal political detritus to get to the comments that have anything to do with the technical issues.”
HN guidelines make it clear: “Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.”
It may be that there are politics in everything, but that doesn’t mean we need to discuss those politics here. Especially because those politics usually drown out the curiosity. Curiosity is what makes HN interesting for so many
Flagging powers is moderation.
Yea, a lot of people blame HN, but when these articles get flag-censored, it's because human beings are abusing the "flag" button as a mega-downvote to try to erase things, often things that make them feel uneasy about their politics or their employer or how they choose to make their money. Or, they are just hero worshipers who flag anything critical of their hero.
HN's system of treating flagging as a mega-downvote doesn't help, but ultimately I don't think they are putting that much weight on the scale themselves.
Either that or it is set up in such a way that that isn't necessary. Because if certain articles get flagged disproportionally and you have the ability to selectively revive them then you achieve the same thing. It's always difficult to separate HN from YC and YC is investor in more than one company that does very questionable things.
Keep in mind that Start-up School featured Musk, Zuckerberg and Altman, that Altman at some point ran YC and that they're investors in Flock. All of these guys use their money to influence politics and legislation, I think it is safe to assume that there is a link, even though we don't know how much of a link there is, just like it is safe to assume that both Tom and Dan are doing their level best to keep HN working despite an onslaught of trash. None of these are mutually exclusive. But I really think it is a step too far to assume that they put their thumb on the scale in an active way.