HN is a community-driven news aggregator, where the community decides what stuff they want to see on the front page. "I want this on the front page" is done usi

HN is a community-driven news aggregator, where the community decides what stuff they want to see on the front page. "I want this on the front page" is done using upvotes, while "I don't want this on the front page" is done using flags - which are weighted more heavily than upvotes. Also, as others have said, the HN algorithm penalizes things with more comments than upvotes. Finally, the mods (dang and...one other) tend to take a very light touch with respect to moderation. You can decide that you don't like the community (personally, I think that HN started its Eternal September 5-ish years ago), but I don't think that this counts as "manipulated discourse".