Ask HN: Is HN Censoring Posts?

[bdndndndbve]

I saw a post about employees of Musk's companies and their reactions to his Nazi salute at the inauguration. The rise of fascism in America is definitely an interesting and pertinent question, but the post was insta-flagged into oblivion.

Is HN suppressing negative posts about Elon Musk?

[toomuchtodo]

It appears HN users are flagging to suppress posts, yes, not HN or its mods.

https://github.com/vitoplantamura/HackerNewsRemovals might be helpful for tracking some of this, feel free to bookmark.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39231537 is helpful to understand some mechanics of the above.

Let "You shouldn't flag things just because you don't like them, but you should flag them if they go against the site guidelines." be your guide.

(as pvg's links to dang's comments mention, this is not HN/mod action; this is user sourced moderation activity)

[pvg]

You can see some recent mod commentary on this. It's more or less how HN works and is supposed to work:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42777298

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775648

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775535

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775519

[memesarecool]

There's a lot of discussion here about work environment and startup culture and I thought it was a valid question to current SpaceX and Tesla employees. I am genuinely curious and thought HN would be the best place to ask this and get some genuine answers.

[dttze]

So, avoid all transparency and accountability around moderation and then reference vague and subjective terms to dismiss those who rightly complain.

[consumer451]

The interesting thing is that when the topic is "important," there are extreme measures taken by HN moderation.

These measures have previously included overriding user flagging of an arguably shady story, and more often pruning an entire branch of comments out of a post's comment thread.

What we have learned from this event is that HN moderation does not believe that the clear and obvious nazi salutes done by "the richest man in the world," behind the Presidential seal, is an important topic.

HN is a news org. This news event was a litmus test of news orgs. Only a few orgs passed for identifying "important" reality, and HN was not one of them.

I have been a fan of this website's moderation in the past, even when it went against my opinion. Now, I am sorry to say this, but I am truly disgusted.

[mandmandam]

The richest plutocrat on Earth, now in charge of cutting government regulations, makes multiple emphatic Nazi salutes Day 1 at the inauguration...

Paul Graham: Censoring multiple rapidly popular posts of this is "how HN works and is supposed to work".

... Good to know.

[josefresco]

OP: I just submitted a similar question, with a neutral title. While I think your topic is valid, the biased headline probably contributed to the flags.

[memesarecool]

Just to clarify: I'm OP of the post asking the question being discussed; I did not submit this question about censorship.

[nojvek]

I use hn.algolia.com and flagging doesn't seem to have an effect. I still see top voted and commented stories.

HN works based on flagging. If a few users flag a story, it gets hidden. The algorithm errs on the side of being safe than sorry.

[ChrisArchitect]

Did you see how the discussion went on the first submission of the video/clip/story? Not so well.

There isn't much room for discussion or any real 'question' to get into on that particular story. Many, perhaps most, would rather not lend validation to it and move on. And the rest, well, as mentioned, the discussion devolves into insults and weird 'othersideism' and well, doesn't go anywhere.

An alternative option is also you're welcome to bring it up/seek to address it further, or even flag, the numerous Musk/Telsa/X related stories that come up around here elsewhere.

[Zigurd]

I would readily believe "Not so well" but there is over a trillion dollars in enterprise value based largely on a cult of an unstable personality. The underlying business has stopped growing which almost always signals a collapse in valuation in high-growth tech companies.

Stock market bubbles that depend on temporary manias about whole tech sectors, like routers or e-commerce aren't that big. If BMW somehow got a valuation of over a trillion and their CEO was behaving erratically and using ketamine, that would be a big topic of discussion.

It's the bomb that could blow a big hole in tech, in general.

[teekert]

I'm flagging it on LinkedIn, here I don't care so much, I can dive in when I want (but I don't really), it's not in the way of me finding assignments.

Anyway, to me it's obvious Elon was overly enthusiastic and emotional ("My heart goes out to you"), as he was when that astronaut chided him. To some it's not. I guess we know when he keeps saluting in this way. Until that time, cool down everyone.

[shortrounddev2]

I suppose HN generally doesn't want political posts here, with exceptions

[dcminter]

That's absolutely the kind of thing I would flag and I'm very much a left winger. The posting guidelines⁰ explicitly say: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." You don't need a conspiracy to account for this kind of thing disappearing swiftly.

⁰ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[memesarecool]

I'm not a left winger just anti-fascist; and I posted the question because I am curious about the thoughts of the employees. I don't want to discuss the gesture. There's a lot of discussion here about work environment and career decisions and this is what I was asking about. I think it was a valid question and a shame it got self-censored by part of the community.

edit: this was the OP btw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42781509

[computerthings]

They do the same hand waving in the news mostly. They are not "covering" it any more someone saying "install malware, it's fine!" would be "covering" the subject of computer security. They're covering it up more than covering it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42777716

^ And do you think this is covered in the news? Of course it is, the same is true for thousands of other topics discussed last year. You don't need a conspiracy to apply the generic verbiage in the guidelines arbitrarily, just double standards.

[memesarecool]

That is a roman salute, yes. And a swastika is also a buddhist symbol.

[dayyan]

We ain't playing that game anymore.