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Can we talk about how HN's "flag" feature is being used to suppress topics that tech-right folks don't want to hear? Every single post critical of Musk or Trump

Can we talk about how HN's "flag" feature is being used to suppress topics that tech-right folks don't want to hear? Every single post critical of Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days.

tda 1y ago
I have transitioned to news.ycombinator.com/active now, works for me now
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  I use hckrnews.com
  - kayge 1y ago
    Same, and FWIW I just recently noticed that [flagged] stories will continue showing up on the 'Top X' feeds (if they're popular enough), but they drop off if you're browsing the 'Homepage' feed.
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
I think it's more that every single post about Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days. (I mean, that's about the same thing, because just about every post that's about them is critical of them.) Some of it is Musk fanboys and Trump shills and Russian political operatives and such. I'm sure some of that is going on. But some of it is just regular HN users who are sick and tired of political stories. There have been a huge increase in political stories in the past three months. And even if some of the stories are interesting, to some people, the second story in 12 hours isn't interesting, and the third similar story this week also isn't interesting. Some people are here instead of Reddit for a reason. They don't want HN to turn into Reddit. So they tend to flag political (or politics-adjacent) stories, unless they are directly tech-relevant - and maybe even then.
- Karrot_Kream 1y ago
  I agree with you but FWIW I think a lot of folks on this site want HN to be Reddit. I think a lot of people these days use HN as another big subreddit and modulate their content and voting behavior on that basis. If anything, I think a lot of people left Reddit because they disapproved of the API changes and began to use HN the same way they used Reddit because they felt that HN's ownership aligned with their ideas of how to run a site better. The draw to them is the different ownership not different decorum or voting behaviors. If anything, the decorum and voting behavior on Reddit is probably their expectation for engaging with upvote-based social media. You can see this behavior leaking into a lot of other threads on this site, not just the political ones. I don't flag these stories, but I do think this "fight" is one we'll eventually lose. The majority of users here want to use HN as another Reddit. They don't really care about what made HN different. As such I think it's time for us to accept the new normal. Our party is over.
erxam 1y ago
To be entirely fair... have you seen who's headlining the AI startup school pinned at the bottom of this site? It's Musk. Rather obviously they're going to try avoiding alienating him as much as possible.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  I wish Musk put as much effort into not alienating all non-Nazis

Can we talk about how HN's "flag" feature is being used to suppress topics that tech-right folks don't want to hear? Every single post critical of Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days.

tda 1y ago

I have transitioned to news.ycombinator.com/active now, works for me now

bryanlarsen 1y ago
I use hckrnews.com
- kayge 1y ago
  Same, and FWIW I just recently noticed that [flagged] stories will continue showing up on the 'Top X' feeds (if they're popular enough), but they drop off if you're browsing the 'Homepage' feed.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

I think it's more that every single post about Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days. (I mean, that's about the same thing, because just about every post that's about them is critical of them.) Some of it is Musk fanboys and Trump shills and Russian political operatives and such. I'm sure some of that is going on. But some of it is just regular HN users who are sick and tired of political stories. There have been a huge increase in political stories in the past three months. And even if some of the stories are interesting, to some people, the second story in 12 hours isn't interesting, and the third similar story this week also isn't interesting. Some people are here instead of Reddit for a reason. They don't want HN to turn into Reddit. So they tend to flag political (or politics-adjacent) stories, unless they are directly tech-relevant - and maybe even then.

Karrot_Kream 1y ago
I agree with you but FWIW I think a lot of folks on this site want HN to be Reddit. I think a lot of people these days use HN as another big subreddit and modulate their content and voting behavior on that basis. If anything, I think a lot of people left Reddit because they disapproved of the API changes and began to use HN the same way they used Reddit because they felt that HN's ownership aligned with their ideas of how to run a site better. The draw to them is the different ownership not different decorum or voting behaviors. If anything, the decorum and voting behavior on Reddit is probably their expectation for engaging with upvote-based social media. You can see this behavior leaking into a lot of other threads on this site, not just the political ones. I don't flag these stories, but I do think this "fight" is one we'll eventually lose. The majority of users here want to use HN as another Reddit. They don't really care about what made HN different. As such I think it's time for us to accept the new normal. Our party is over.

erxam 1y ago

To be entirely fair... have you seen who's headlining the AI startup school pinned at the bottom of this site? It's Musk. Rather obviously they're going to try avoiding alienating him as much as possible.

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
I wish Musk put as much effort into not alienating all non-Nazis