It Turkey a current popular meme is an old tweet that says “I'm so fed up with politics that I say, 'Let me just focus on this instead,' and whatever that is, they'll come and fuck that up too. You won't even be able to breathe”.
That’s what you will get by not talking politics. US is on the fast track to be like Turkey.
Some of those ICE agents will kill some AI engineer’s father or mother who has the wrong accents, wrong color or doesn’t speak “American”, it will go viral in India or China and US companies will start paying warzone premiums to hire any talent.
> > That’s what you will get by not talking politics. US is on the fast track to be like Turkey.
On the contrary, if everybody is so focused on the National Politics contests as we've been ever since 2015 , it's only natural that the winner of that popularity contest becomes a demi God with unlimited powers (on top of what were already granted him by the very generous Constitution).
It's only logic, the more followed the contest, the more popular/emboldened will the winner of the contest be.
It's true for beauty paegents, boxing matches, movie and music prizes and yes even Presidential elections.
The answer is in local politics , attention there because that's where stuff has to be applied on the territory.
> "flagged" always means that users flagged it, not moderator action. And there are a lot of readers who will flag all submissions about US politics, no matter the polarity of the article.
The thing is that dang has generally not unflagged any posts about topics like these in the past, so there's little reason to think the flagging is only a result of temporary inaction by the moderation team. Rather it is a consistent pattern permitted to exist by said team.
If you're really curious, something more effective and productive than hypothesizing into the void is emailing hn@ycombinator.com. Dang et. al. have always replied and been helpful and forthcoming in answering my questions and concerns.
I have sent an email linking to this discussion, but I think it would be more constructive if the helpful and forthcoming answers happened in public rather than in sent in private email threads to everyone wondering.
Calling discussing something on HN "hypothesizing into the void" is a strange choice of words, either meant to be patronizing toward me specifically or toward all HN users.
Whether they are helpful or forthcoming you'll have to decide. They are repetitive (and are even more tedious to write than they are to read) but here are some places to start:
If you take a look at some of those answers and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it. But it would be good to familiarize yourself with the standard explanations, because they're nearly always adequate to explain what you're seeing, although they will probably leave you frustrated if you feel strongly about the politics of a story.
FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site; which stories get flags turned off is never going to satisfy anyone's political priorities, because the community is in deep disagreement with itself and because moderation consistency is impossible.
People dislike it when a story whose politics they agree with doesn't get to stay on the frontpage, but since it's impossible for all such stories to be on HN's frontpage, this frustration is unavoidable.
> FWIW, here's a short version: users flag things for various reasons; we turn off flags on a few such stories, but not more; that's because HN isn't a political or current affairs site;
I think you have misunderstood the request. The request was not to clarify the general moderation policy, but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.
People are curious to hear the reasoning for keeping the flag on this specific post, since thought has obviously been put to it and a decision to keep it was made after thoughtful consideration. I.e. which of the several different policies you highlighted had the most weight in this decision, and which mitigating circumstances were considered as reasons for bypassing this policy and removing the flag (even if they were discarded in the end).
It is precisely because consistent moderation is not possible that this is needed (otherwise it would be easy to just refer to the consistent guidelines). The quality of the moderation depends on the judgement and reasoning of the moderators, and the only way for the users to form their own picture (good or bad) of this judgement is to ask to hear how it is applied to specific scenarios where it is ambiguous.
I am very sympathetic to the fact that it must be tedious and sometimes repetitive, but if the decision is controversial I think it is an important part of moderation and important for the community as a whole.
> but rather clarify the reasoning why this specific story was not considered as one of the few stories where such action was taken.
i think if you read more past discussions around moderation (including one dang directly linked) the reason for this would be obvious. read the search results for flags being turned off.
moderators try, as they said, to let the community moderate itself. they try to impress very little bias into the system. but they do try to promote constructive and interesting conversation, and the more things deviate from that mission, the less likely it is to be actively encouraged to be on HN
the likelihood of the conversation around this news post is very unlikely to be interesting and constructive. people have very entrenched beliefs and no one's mind is going to get changed from emotionally loaded comments on this post
additionally, this is now also the third post of this nature to be on HN in the past weeks, and there's unlikely to be anything new to the conversation added this time that wasn't covered by the previous thousands of comments on previous submissions
they are not actively reducing the visibility of this post. they're just declining to artificially inflate its visibility above the same criteria 99% of submissions also have
My post contains all the information you need to answer that question. The current story is obviously a flamewar topic, a political battle topic, and a repetitive topic. I'm not saying it isn't important—of course it's important, far more important than most things on HN's front page*. The issue is that HN's frontpage is not optimized for importance but for something else (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Optimizing for importance would make this a current affairs site, which is not its mandate. Actually we have to expend a lot of energy preventing that outcome, because the default pressures point in that direction, and are quite strong. One can really see that at moments when passions are heated, as they are in this thread.
* If you look at some of the old links I dug up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747388, you'll find that this point has also been around a long time. Specifically these:
I think the unease many people feel here is that this strict bureaucracy taken to its extreme conclusion would become something akin to a tragicomical farce: "No posts about the controversial nukes raining over Europe allowed, such flamewars would destroy our valuable forum for discussing the really interesting and
intellectual political topics".
Clearly there must be a line somewhere. It was not here and today, but when and where is it? Trying desperately to cling onto normality at every cost when the actual reality is far from normal becomes a destructive endeavour in the end.
I have been a regular visitor on this site for 14 years, and have have never spoken up about this before. In fact I have always stood by the moderation policy and appreciated it. But I have a line where avoiding "inflammatory discussions" simply becomes obstinate and clueless, and harmful in the way that it gives convenient cover for the actors committing the real inflammatory acts, counting on people not caring enough to give them grief for it. And for me, that line has been crossed.
I'm curious: Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds of people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase to you?
> a repetitive topic
Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.
Yes, when you bring up extreme scenarios such as nuclear war (or civil war, as slg did - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746817), that's a way of saying that we're fiddling-while-rome-burns, burying-head-in-sand, etc. The problem is that you're assuming your conclusion by invoking those scenarios. That doesn't make the argument stronger.
I agree that the probability of such scenarios is not zero, and no I would not like to end up in the same bucket as the schmucks in Dr Strangelove or (more tragically) the last person in the "first they came for" meme. But none of us knows the future, and there's another scenario with nonzero probability as well. That is the scenario in which HN goes through swings and fluctuations (conditioned by macro trends), sticks to its mandate, and emerges intact.
As far as probability goes, that second scenario has the advantage of having happened many times already. Each time it's happened, I've ended up feeling that we made the right call. Does that prove it's the right call this time? Nope—we don't know the future, like I said. But at least there are close historical precedents supporting it, as well as the core principles of HN supporting it.
There's another argument too, although I quake a bit at bringing it up. Suppose the truly extreme, end-of-world scenario really is coming to pass. What contribution do we make by jettisoning HN's mandate, going to war and turning the site into a battlefield, sooner rather than later? How do more posts of angry denunciations and screaming at each other move the needle on the end of the world? That is the step in the argument, like the ??? of the underpants gnomes or the "then a miracle occurs" in that physics cartoon, which no one ever spells out.
I don't think anyone who has been inhaling the profoundly pointless triviality of the internet message board genre for as long as we have really believes that there's some unrealized potential to help society via shriller and more sarcastic flamewars. I assume also that anyone who genuinely believes that we're already in an extreme scenario has more important things to do than post angry comments on the internet. It seems clear that this is not about effecting change or effective opposition—it's about expressing feelings. I'm all in favor of feelings, but that's not the conversation that people say they're having when they have these conversations. (I'm not talking about you here! just so that's clear.)
> Have you not noticed any increase in people saying "this time it's different", or that different kinds for people are saying it now? Is it really just the same old people repeating the same old phrase
I don't think it's all the same people (though some!) but to me it's the same dynamic. But I hear you, and yes I might be wrong and live to regret it. I'm not speaking from a place of certainty.
> Small note: It has never been a repetitive topic, since all discussions about ICE performing extrajudicial killings have been quickly flagged of the front page and never (as a topic) discussed by the wider community.
Well, I was thinking of this thread: Minneapolis driver shot and killed by ICE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46531702 - Jan 2026 (351 comments), although you're right that that one wasn't on the front page (I thought it had been, because we turned off the flags on it, but apparently not.) But there have been major threads on this topic (or topic cluster): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu..., some have been on the frontpage, and that's of course only a slice of the political stories that appear here.
First of all I want to thank you for the thoughtful and candid reply. It has increased my faith in the moderation some, not because you have convinced me or I agree with you, but because it shows you are thinking in nuanced ways about this and engaging with the actual issues (and not just adhering without question to some written mandate).
I actually also agree fully with your analysis of the fundamentals here, just not your wider perspective.
Yes, I fully agree there is a risk of changing HN to the worse for no reason. But doing the right thing in uncertain times always carries a risk. As seen in this very story we are discussing: Alex Pretti risked his life filming the violent ICE agents, for very uncertain gain, and ultimately paid the price. I still think he did the right thing. Compared to the price Alex paid, "a worse HN" seems like a risk worth taking.
And no, I don't think allowing more controversial topics on HN will make a major difference in the context of world politics (or prevent the apocalypse). But when it comes to things like these everyone will always feel too "small" to matter, and the end result if we listen to that feeling will be that no one does anything instead of everyone doing something to improve the situation.
I'm not spending my time arguing here because I think it will change the course of history, that my posts will actually change the moderation policies of HN, or because I think that by doing so I would save the world. I'm doing it because it's a minor line in the sand I could draw in a community I am active in, and it's better to try to do what we can (however minor) than just giving up. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something, etc etc.
I don't think we will reach any agreement regarding the wider perspective today, but I do feel like I have gotten the nuanced answer I requested regarding the moderation policy of HN in the context of the current mayhem going on (beyond just avoiding flamewars). So, again, thank you for that.
>There's another argument too, although I quake a bit at bringing it up. Suppose the truly extreme, end-of-world scenario really is coming to pass. What contribution do we make by jettisoning HN's mandate, going to war and turning the site into a battlefield, sooner rather than later? How do more posts of angry denunciations and screaming at each other move the needle on the end of the world?
This is spoken like a mere observer. The benefit of "jettisoning HN's mandate" is to prevent the worst case scenario that you depict. You and HN have power. Some of the richest and most powerful people in this country and on this planet look at this website. These stories being on the front page and people reading the comments can actually lead to change which could decrease the odds of true disaster.
People need to stop pretending that the internet isn't real. This ordeal in Minnesota is in large part because a Youtuber showed up at preschools demanding to see children because he believed some conspiracy he saw on the internet. The stuff said on the internet does have real world ramifications and I'm frankly shocked how someone in your position that has seen the world change to the degree that is has in your time as the moderator here is still falling back to the "profoundly pointless triviality of the internet message board".
That's helpful in that it clarifies a difference in assumptions. I don't believe that HN, or its admins, have anything like the power you're attributing to it/us. We're basically janitors.
That's not a criticism. I understand how a perception like what you're expressing can arise, but it can only arise from afar.
Alex Pretti was a nurse. What power did he have? I'm not attributing ultimate power over the fate of the nation to you or HN. You are a tiny cog in a huge machine, but you're still a bigger cog than me. So I'm asking you to consider when you will use the power you do have. Current events should have us all considering that question
It's a mistake to think that deep pocket YC investors will suddenly become aware of current events that otherwise escaped their notice if only current event stories made it to "the front page of HN".
Another mistake would be to think that [flagged] and down weighted submissions do not get many many eyeballs and that C-suits of large SV and other tech companies don't take part.
Every reminder that powerful people see that the status quo is unacceptable has value. It's also obvious that a post being flagged reduces the number of people who will see that post, that's the whole purpose of flagging.
If it's really true that "some of the richest and most powerful people in this country and on this planet look at this website", what do we want them to see here? Do we want them to see enraged people saying the same things that they keep hearing over and over and thus dismiss as background noise? Or do we want them to see intelligent, thoughtful people having sophisticated discussions and making new points that might give them pause and provoke them to think about things in a different way?
We were discussing post level moderation and not comment level moderation. I'm suggesting the site allow more politics, I'm not condoning abandoning all the site’s rules. I don't think the level of discourse in the comments is being improved by the current level of post level moderation. The most noticeable impact is simply prompting tangents into the post level moderation itself like it did here which arguably lowers the level of discourse.
Let's be honest: you're doing much more than "suggesting".
The whole reason we can't have these posts on the front page is that the comments in the threads so frequently break the guidelines and turn the site into a place that repels people who want to have thoughtful discussions. So there is no yet-known way to have our cake and eat it; the presence of these stories on the front page means abandoning the site's rules, because so many commenters are unable discuss them in a way that respects the site's rules. And the outcome of this is that it pushes HN towards being irrelevant, precisely because these discussions offer so little that powerful people would find persuasive.
I would love it if HN could be the very best place for discussing difficult topics and be a place where we really could push politics in the right direction. That can't happen if the discussions about the most important topics rapidly devolve into easily-ignored background noise.
The discussion on this thread has actually been fine, apart from one account that has been all over the place repeating absolute nonsense (consistent with their overall recent post history on political topics). Most of their posts have already been flagged, and much of the resulting noise could have been avoided by rate limiting them. So I’m not sure that this particular discussion really proves your point (though it is only one example). You could easily find more contentious discussions about Rust or Apple.
Provocative political articles about the UK seem more likely to escape flagging, which has the strange consequence that HN sometimes seems to spend more energy decrying the current state of the UK than that of the US, despite the relative imbalance in user numbers.
> HN sometimes seems to spend more energy decrying the current state of the UK than that of the US, despite the relative imbalance in user numbers.
I have to assume this perception has mostly to do with the time of day you're normally looking at HN. As someone who is looking at the threads for hours each day, there's certainly far more politics-related discussion about the U.S. than any other country.
There's more overall discussion of US politics for sure, but it tends to occur tangentially (as articles about US politics are pretty reliably flagged). To give a concrete example, the following article was not flagged and got quite a lot of discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600194 I do not think an article on an obscure website with a similarly 'provocative' headline relating to current US politics would escape flagging.
Single instances and hypotheticals don't tell us much. That particular topic spent only four hours on the front page, and it was times that are peak for the U.K. and off-peak for the U.S. Plenty of stories related to U.S. politics spend at least that amount of time on the front page. People often remember the stories that are flagged that they strongly felt should have been given front page time, but forget about the stories that did get plenty of exposure.
>Let's be honest: you're doing much more than "suggesting".
Lol, I don't know what that is supposed to mean. I'll admit to including an undercurrent of shaming with that suggestion to hopefully cause some introspection, but it's still just a suggestion.
Beyond that, I just fundamentally disagree with the point you seem to be making People can't be trusted to talk nicely so they won't get any place to talk at all just doesn't feel like the right principle for the moment.
Regardless, my original point stands. Everyone's unique role in life grants them a certain amount of power. Now is the time to consider what it will take before you use your power to exert whatever positive influence you can.
With the direction we're headed, there's a non-zero chance that some day soon I'll click on over to https://news.ycombinator.com/active and see "[flagged][dead] US Erupts in Civil War" and I'll click on the comments to see a copied and pasted comment from dang with a link to a dozen other comments explaining why this political story doesn't belong on HN.
"Politics" doesn't care about your apolitical spaces. It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere.
People have been making a version of this argument for as long as I've been doing this job. There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different, how-can-you-not urgency. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there's a counterargument. The counterargument is that political flames have a way of consuming everything they touch and that if we had listened to this argument in the past, HN would have ceased to exist years ago.
I believe that the bulk of this community favors the counterargument, and that it would be a big mistake to let political passions dominate how the site is operated, since that would be the end of HN qua HN. We think a website that's not overwhelmed by politics and political battle—that clears space for other things that gratify curiosity—has a right to exist. I believe most HN readers agree with that and are grateful that we haven't pulled the plug at moments of pressure.
I'm not saying anything radical here - this is the standard way that HN has always operated, and I'm repeating what I've always said:
You seem to be a little sidetracked from my original point so let me reiterate it, "It's coming for everything and you'll have to draw the line somewhere."
I understand you can dismiss that with "There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different", but what happens when it's truly different? Have you set a line for yourself of when it will be different or are you the frog telling everyone else that the water's not that hot? Or are you claiming there is no line and even if there is an all out civil war you won’t want any discussion of it on this site?
Asking people where the final line is with a nuclear option is a classic question with no satisfying answer, and the classical answer is that there is no line for when the button will be pressed.
I didn't ask where the line was, I asked if it existed. "The line" is a rhetorical device meant to encourage the reader to consider whether their previously held opinions should be held in perpetuity or whether they need to be reevaluated.
I don't see any sidetrack. That's the same argument, and I can only repeat the same counterargument.
I'm not saying that your argument is wrong—I would have to know the future in order to say that, which I don't. All I can do is give the reasons why the counterargument holds more sway from an HN-admin point of view. (Which, btw, is not some sort of disagreement about the politics of this story or other stories.)
Yes, it's what many hackers would do, and have done, and HN has had, and does have, many threads about that kind of thing.
I realize these distinctions get lost when people are feeling heated, but HN has never been an apolitical site and we don't describe it that way. There are more options than just (1) being apolitical and (2) being completely aflame. Not that they're easy squares to occupy.
Hacker News is from YC, which is a US organization with some power. As a US organization, it must limit discussion to things that are legal in the US. If you want to plan terrorism, you need to go elsewhere.
But reading all those old threads, I got three interpretations of "on topic":
1. Trivial intellectual trinkets,
2. Important topics that happen to overlap with intellectual interest,
3. Important topics that we somehow manage to have a thoughtful discussion about.
Is "off-topic" really about the standard of discussion and not about the topic?
There's a lot of mysterious influences in the dynamics between topic type, community culture, and standard of discussion. I mean to say that allowing thoughtful discussions of controversial topics is not a pipe dream, but it only happens occasionally and we're not really capable of sustained flight, so to speak. It seems like the interesting (worthy, important) adventures into inflammatory topics are parasitic on the comfortable trivial intellectual fluff, which keeps the forum-wide inflammation level down.
There is always a feeling of this-time-is-different
I don't know, Dan. This does feel different. Innocent people are being killed on the street, under color of law and sanctioned at the very highest levels of government.
When's the last time something like this happened? Kent State? This incident and the Renee Good killing seem worse than Kent State, somehow. Maybe because they were so up-close-and-personal, because they were recorded in real time, and because of the executive branch's overt, sustained gaslighting about what happened. Lies easily debunked by the recordings, yet still accepted as truth by a terrifying, unreachable chunk of our population.
My fear is that the flames being lit now will consume everything they touch. That seems to be Trump's intention, and he almost always gets what he wants somehow, doesn't he?
I think that's what sig was suggesting. There will be no refuge in neutrality. We will all be forced to stand on one side of the line or the other, and use whatever resources are at our disposal to hold that line.
When your door is kicked down, your partner is dragged away and citizens are executed on your street, will you feel proud about how you have helped suppress these discussions?
It’s starting to feel like you’re part of the problem, actively making it worse.
I feel fairly confident that the bulk of this community would not want us to operate HN based on feelings like this, regardless of how right you are, or feel you are, on the issues.
In much of what I’ve read about the fall of rule of law and dictators rising to power in other countries, people very often talk about one of two things - how they wish they had done more to stop it, or how they’re proud of what they did and they feel they made a difference - even if small.
Even the parents of Alex Pretti who was killed yesterday said in a statement they’re very proud that Alex was protecting a women at the time he was killed, helping others like he always did.
Given what you just said above, I can only think you either don’t really understand how much power you have to enable or curtail discussions or you know exactly and last night when you closed your eyes and thought about it you realized you aren’t / won’t be proud if it gets real bad.
I’m sure you’ve read a lot of history Dan.
Has there ever been a case where stopping citizens talking about what their government is doing has worked out well for the people? I’m not aware of one.
I know these discussions are “off topic” for HN Dan, but I’m shocked you don’t see that literally nothing else will be important for a decade or more if the dictator takes full control or starts a civil or world war.
The lives of a vast number of people will change drastically for the worse, and you’ll have to live knowing you stopped people talking about it when there was still something to be done.
I hope on the life of my little girl none of this happens, but man you’re going to have a hard time looking in the mirror if it does.
I don’t envy you, and I understand you’re between a rock and a hard place.
Doing the right thing is often the hardest path.
Do you genuinely feel you are doing the right thing?
I appreciate that there's a gap between what people intend to say and what they actually say, but I'm not sure I've ever seen the gap as large as what you posted above vs. what you posted here.
In case it helps at all, "When your door is kicked down, your partner is dragged away and citizens are executed on your street, will you feel proud about how you have helped suppress these discussions?" struck me as grammatically, rhetorically, and emotionally more aggressive than even "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" as an incriminating cross-examination.
You’re right Dan that it is an aggressive statement.
The much more important and concerning observation is that it’s real. It’s not hypothetical. That is happing to real people in the US right now. Today.
I wasn’t exaggerating, I wasn’t being aggressive for effect or to intimidate.
I was asking how you would feel when what it’s happening to your fellow countrymen happens to you.
I’m very aware it’s a hard hitting statement and question, and that’s because reality in your country is currently hard hitting. It’s life right now, like it or not.
To close the loop on your example above, if your question was asked to a twice convicted wife-beater it would be a perfectly reasonable question.
The same applies here.
Those things in my question are real, and it’s important for you to think about them and plan for them and think of the future through that lens.
You have an enormous responsibility in this because you, an individual, have the power to stop discussions by educated people that may lead to all this being prevented.
Of course it’s easy to say “there are plenty of other places to discuss this stuff, which is true. But people are here and they want to talk about it. People have a community here, and people are reaching out to that community in desperate times.
It seems you’re so focused on keeping “low value” comments and discussions off HN you’ve forgotten how important it is for people to be able to discuss such important topics before it’s too late.
So I ask again - do you think you’ll be proud of shutting down discussions around the collapse of society for millions of people if and when the consequences are in your house?
unless you alays have your email open on your device, its a tiny PITA to fire it up, login, remember your issue, and compose a proper message.
so when you [@user] tag a user rather than email its kinda like a rhetorical question, your not expecting a reply, but if someone just happens to pass by and notice your tag, they might answer.
also @user might mean wasted desire to some, but other users here might see a previously agreed upon heuristic is in play, and act in that context.
for example if someone from a very small subset of usernames that i recognize, were to @rolph me, i might SMS them at a previously agreed mobile number, if i see the signal in a reasonable time.
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Pardon me, but summary executions in the United States taking place in broad daylight, with seeming impunity, is very much a new and novel phenomenon, and incredibly interesting to many of us.
I guess the novel part is that it happens to white people now. Used to happen a lot to black people, less so after mobile phone cameras but still happened.
It seems you are purposefully removing all the specific context to be willfully indifferent.
You would need to actually grapple with the specific context to be convincing. Otherwise you could just as well respond to a police officer smuggling an automatic weapon into the senate chamber and unloading the magazine into the lawmakers with "hate to break it to you - but officers killing people in the US is not new".
I second this question, @dang. I would like some explanation of the moderation policy here to at least understand the reasoning.
With posts such as "Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S." and "Trump wins presidency for second time" being allowed (just to pick the top two Trump submissions), there is a clear precedent that big events in American politics are considered suitable for the front page.
I can see only two stances justifying removal here
(1) someone winning the presidency is considered an important event, but that same president then organizing a paramilitary force of lackeys to unlawfully execute protesters in "enemy states" without any repercussion is not considered as an important event but simply normal politics (which is not an apolitical position but rather a radical and controversial political opinion enforced by the moderation team)
(2) the topic is expected to cause anger, and only well-mannered and jovial discussions are suitable for the front page. This completely disregards that sometimes the rational and constructive response to these kinds of developments are anger, and a discussion about how to direct and act on such anger within the tech community should happen.
Everything is politics. And enforcing (or not correcting) mandatory silence on certain political topics is a political decision by the moderation team, colored by their priorities and their word view.
I also want to re-iterate and highlight the excellent summary made by lynndotpy:
> For anyone wondering why this is relevant to HackerNews:
> - There are tech companies and workers in companies outside California,
> - A government deploying a militarized police force to execute people in the streets is bad for the economy,
> - That government is the United States, and so this is bad for the world economy,
> - A lot of the people in our industry are immigrants from outside the United States,
> - If you're a HackerNews user in the United States, you can be shot and killed just like this.
People say there are users who don't want politics on their frontpage, but I think it's just simpler: we have a nontrivial minority of users who are pro-MAGA and like what's going on, so they downvote anything that makes Trump's action look bad. :/
And some HN users are being paid a lot of money to write software that facilitates the actions of this administration and/or further destabilizes democracy.
As for the existence of "censors" that don't "allow" you to see anything. That's not how this site works, and your lack of carefulness stating that leads me to downvote that.
As much as I hate that anything regarding the rise of fascism in the US get's insta-flagged (by a community, not a "censor"), it's still very easy to find such posts, for example on an aggregator [1] and on the /active subpage you just mentioned.
It will also be broadly shared on regular (social) media, which is an oft stated reason this kind of stories get flagged by the community, although I think there are many other reasons.
>@dang and other mods - when ICE abduct your kids on the way home from school, kick in your door and shoot people in your street will you feel proud of your cowardly behaviour here?
It won't happen to them because their boss (Garry Tan) is associated with the power behind the thrown (Peter Thiel).
