I attributed it to Googlers that had accounts here, and were running a flag-campaign to keep these articles off of HN. perhaps some of the mods could chime in

I attributed it to Googlers that had accounts here, and were running a flag-campaign to keep these articles off of HN. perhaps some of the mods could chime in as to whom was doing the bulk of the flags. Reasoning: its a political hot-potato, with their DoL lawsuit accused of paying women substantially less for the same job. Last thing they needed was more 300+ HN posts every day for a week. Rage-media has mostly moved on to N Korea, or whatever other special cringe-worthy topic.