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They get flagged for a variety of reasons: - They are considered "off-topic" as outlined by the HN guidelines (Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime
by thatsamonad 5y ago
They get flagged for a variety of reasons:
- They are considered "off-topic" as outlined by the HN guidelines (Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, 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.)
- They are unlikely to result in "good faith" debates about the case given how politically charged the subject matter is
- The comments very quickly devolve into flamewars and/or trolling
I honestly don't think anyone is trying to "squash" debate about the case due to some personal agenda. It's just unlikely that the comment sections on those articles are going to be productive and/or result in anything new or interesting.
- NoPie 5y agoStrange that this discussion also got flagged. Besides this trial has demonstrated us that the big tech has too much power over politics and that is something we all need to discuss urgently.
- Chris2048 5y agoIf they are flagged b/c they are unlikely to result in "good faith" debates, isn't that effectively the squashing of debate? Because the alternative is allowing the post, and down-voting individual, bad-faith comments. I'd also note that there are a lot of articles about FB, privacy laws etc that arguably are about "politics" (if not distinct from "law").