That's because they have been hurt by HN. Not intentionally by HN itself, but they are also not the only target. As for how you haven't heard of them before, t

That's because they have been hurt by HN. Not intentionally by HN itself, but they are also not the only target. As for how you haven't heard of them before, that is a bit surprising. They have been mentioned here plenty of times. HN being user-driven means they are an amplification and legitimisation vector for anyone who figures out how to abuse it. It's not an easy problem to solve, and I don't think any organisation (commercial, or otherwise) has really found a way to deal with this. As a human side-effect, most people will either have to have experienced it themselves, or have this as part of their job to understand the issue at all, and will either deny it or assume it's exaggerated. Even those that are on the instigating side will not have a concept of the impact until it inevitably happens to them (as is common in that ecosystem).