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

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.