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Ask HN: Why does HN delete any threads about Sam Altman's sister, Annie?

12 points by chirau 3y ago

It seems Threads by her or about her are immediately deleted from this platform. She has been vehement in her allegations of sexual abuse by her brother Sam.

dirtyhippiefree 3y ago
Never heard of this story, but if you Google her name, this post says it’s flagged but it’s on the first page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311509&ref=upstract.com https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311509&ref=upstract.c... The first post is correct…unless she’s unverified. In truth, dang should step up and clear the confusion. Much Love, everyone.
- dang 3y ago
  It's already answered in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. The stories are flagged because users are flagging them. FWIW, I agree with those users. HN is supposed to be for intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). This is not a subject that can be discussed in that spirit on a large public forum. It will only turn into a conflict between people with different feelings about such stories in general and/or the $celebrity whose name makes the story significant. Would any of us want our most painful family conflicts argued about like that, by angry strangers who know nothing about it?
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    > Would any of us want our most painful family conflicts argued about like that, by angry strangers who actually know nothing about it? I think Annie has been posting about this publicly because she wants it known. And I don't like seeing her story dismissed as "not a subject that can be discussed" because it's not "intellectually curious" enough for dang.
    - dang 3y ago
      > not a subject that can be discussed You seem to have interpreted this as a judgment, but it's not—it's an empirical observation: this topic is guaranteed not to get an intellectually curious discussion on a large internet forum like HN. Actually "guaranteed" is too strong - no empirical observation is that certain. But the odds are so close to 100% as to make no difference.
jjgreen 3y ago
A search "annie altman site:ycombinator.com" gets quite a few pages which are flagged, so flagged by users. Those are then hidden unless you have "showdead" enabled in your settings.
OJFord 3y ago
They get flagged (by regular users with the quite low necessary karma to do so) and then aren't visible unless you deliberately looked for them, negative signal in ranking, etc. For something big enough already at the time, just controversial I think it would (require more flags and) attract mod attention so they'd say open it up but pin a comment telling everyone to chill out. Basically they're almost certainly just flagged to death before they get any traction, no big conspiracy. It's too personal, nobody knows anything new or unbiased and that isn't hearsay, etc.
vbeeaz 3y ago
[flagged]

12 points by chirau 3y ago

It seems Threads by her or about her are immediately deleted from this platform. She has been vehement in her allegations of sexual abuse by her brother Sam.

dirtyhippiefree 3y ago

Never heard of this story, but if you Google her name, this post says it’s flagged but it’s on the first page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311509&ref=upstract.com https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311509&ref=upstract.c... The first post is correct…unless she’s unverified. In truth, dang should step up and clear the confusion. Much Love, everyone.

dang 3y ago
It's already answered in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. The stories are flagged because users are flagging them. FWIW, I agree with those users. HN is supposed to be for intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). This is not a subject that can be discussed in that spirit on a large public forum. It will only turn into a conflict between people with different feelings about such stories in general and/or the $celebrity whose name makes the story significant. Would any of us want our most painful family conflicts argued about like that, by angry strangers who know nothing about it?
- mandmandam 3y ago
  > Would any of us want our most painful family conflicts argued about like that, by angry strangers who actually know nothing about it? I think Annie has been posting about this publicly because she wants it known. And I don't like seeing her story dismissed as "not a subject that can be discussed" because it's not "intellectually curious" enough for dang.
  - dang 3y ago
    > not a subject that can be discussed You seem to have interpreted this as a judgment, but it's not—it's an empirical observation: this topic is guaranteed not to get an intellectually curious discussion on a large internet forum like HN. Actually "guaranteed" is too strong - no empirical observation is that certain. But the odds are so close to 100% as to make no difference.

jjgreen 3y ago

A search "annie altman site:ycombinator.com" gets quite a few pages which are flagged, so flagged by users. Those are then hidden unless you have "showdead" enabled in your settings.

OJFord 3y ago

They get flagged (by regular users with the quite low necessary karma to do so) and then aren't visible unless you deliberately looked for them, negative signal in ranking, etc. For something big enough already at the time, just controversial I think it would (require more flags and) attract mod attention so they'd say open it up but pin a comment telling everyone to chill out. Basically they're almost certainly just flagged to death before they get any traction, no big conspiracy. It's too personal, nobody knows anything new or unbiased and that isn't hearsay, etc.

vbeeaz 3y ago

[flagged]