6 ms·
Ask HN: Are we allowed to discuss Israel on HN?
It happens too often that a story like this one [0] gets a great amount of traction and interest then it is banished from the front page. Can we get greater clarity as to what topics are not allowed? Respectfully, it seems inorganic for stories like this to go from #10 to #1005 in seconds.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44947572
- Jimmc414 1y agoI'm sure this will be flagged in seconds but I'm fed up with it to be honest and I think it is damaging the integrity of a brand I had come to trust.
- cebert 1y agoWhy? It doesn’t have much to do with tech or startups. Go to Reddit or a forum if you want to discuss geopolitical topics.
- Jimmc414 1y agoLook at how many posts currently in the top 500 that meet that definition regarding Brazil, Ukraine or China. I was logged out of HN for even asking this, so I am likely on the cusp of being banned. I've been a member of this site for years and have always strived to be respectful and a good faith contributor.
- its-summertime 1y agofor stories of the past year, and due to algolia not presenting removed threads: "Palistin" returns 142 results (typo tolerance to catch both relevant endings) "Brazil" returns 366 results "Israel" returns 401 "Ukraine" returns 632 "Gaza" returns 842 "China" returns 3,436 Could probably total the points as well, see how many points per story, etc
- gus_massa 1y agoNote that in this list China may include: fake title> Researchers in China create new type of solar panel fake title> Military in China make new weapon preparing invasion
- dang 1y ago> I was logged out of HN for even asking this We don't do that. What did you see that made you think it happened? (Specifically, HN has no software that would log any user out for asking a question, nor any moderator who would do that manually.)
- Jimmc414 1y agoI appreciate you taking the time to respond. I was immediately logged out right after posting which I had never experienced before. I would consider myself a daily user. I assumed I had just received a ban or suspension and was surprised when I was able to log in on another device. If HN doesn't do that, I take you at your word and chalk it up as an anomaly with unfortunate timing.
- dang 1y agoWe definitely don't. Btw if you ever have a question like this or see something weird on HN, etc., you can always email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll be happy to look into it. With comments in the threads, it's pretty random what we happen to run across, and we can't respond to what we don't see. Not yet anyway!
- dang 1y agoHN is about more than just tech and startups. That's why https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html has always said "more than hacking and startups" right in the opening paragraph. In fact, that's the genesis of HN: pg got bored of reading only about tech and startups and renamed Startup News to Hacker News back in 2007 (https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html). There's room for stories with political overlap. At the same time, we can't have too many, or HN would turn into a current affairs site and cease to be HN. That's a tough set of constraints. We've found an approach over the years which balances the tradeoffs well enough (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), but it has the disadvantage of not satisfying everybody. Actually, it has the disadvantage of not satisfying anybody who feels passionately about a given topic. That's especially true of the Israel/Gaza topic. There are many readers who feel like HN is unfairly suppressing it, and there are also many readers who feel like HN is unfairly featuring it. The other disadvantage is that there's no effective way to communicate about this to the community. No matter how many explanations we post, the set of users who actually get the message always seems to have measure zero (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20measure%20zero&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
- dang 1y agoAs tomhow pointed out above, HN has hosted quite a few major frontpage threads about Israel/Gaza. It's not off topic here, and I've posted many explanations about why: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20israel%20gaza%20flags&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... The problem is that this site has a limited capacity to host such discussions. The people who (quite rightly, of course) feel passionately about this topic want it to be covered far more than that capacity can tolerate. Meanwhile there are others who want it to be covered much less. It's really hard to get this explanation across to the community; no matter how many times we explain, most users don't even hear the explanation, quite apart from whether they would like/dislike it or agree/disagree. Still, if anyone wants to know how we approach this, the above link will take you to many detailed explanations that also link to the moderation principles from which our approach is derived. If you (or anyone) familiarize yourself with those explanations and still have a question that isn't answered there, tomhow and I will be happy to take a crack at it.
- akerl_ 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html is the reference point. Potentially relevant: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
- vFunct 1y agoThe Israel tech official that got caught being a pedophile and was freed by Trump didn’t get covered by TV or any mainstream media…
- philipkglass 1y agoI don't know about TV news, but it was covered by many mainstream news outlets: https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Tom+Alexandrovich https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Tom+Alexandrovich I found stories about it in The Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Las Vegas Sun, The Guardian, The Independent, Reuters, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, Gizmodo, Yahoo News, MSN, AOL, Haaretz, US News and World Report, and New York Post as well as several smaller outlets. His Wikipedia page has already been updated with a section "2025 arrest in Nevada."
- ThrowawayR2 1y agoFrom the guidelines linked at the bottom of the page: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
- ethan_smith 1y agoHN generally allows factual, technical or business discussions related to Israel, but tends to moderate out political flamewars, opinion pieces, and conflict news that generate more heat than light.
- tomhow 1y agoThe major stories we've had that are related to Israel, Gaza, IDF, or Palestine in the recent times are: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 - June 2025 (1122 comments - 13 hours on front page) ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 - July 2025 (1278 comments - 13 hours on front page) Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44302752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44302752 - June 2025 (509 comments - 10 hours on front page) Grok: Searching X for "From:Elonmusk (Israel or Palestine or Hamas or Gaza)" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44527190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44527190 - July 2025 (546 comments - 10 hours on front page) NYPD bypassed facial recognition ban to ID pro-Palestinian student protester - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44604328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44604328 - July 2025 (172 comments - 4 hours on front page) ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44731958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44731958 - July 2025 (831 comments - 7 hours on front page) Several others have spent less time on the front page but have been visible and active for many hours via the /active page. We want to give the topic of Israel and Gaza fair exposure, as it's obviously an important story and it would feel wrong to pretend it's not happening. At the same time, every time we have one of these stories on the front page, it turns in to a hellish flamewar, we have to spend all day moderating it, and we still get accusations from either side of the debate that HN is being brigaded or manipulated by activists or operatives for the opposing side. So, there's never any way to make many, or any people feel like HN is covering this topic the right amount, or that the right side of the debate is being given adequate weight in the discussion. Still, we do our best to give the key developments in this awful event sufficient coverage, and to make the discussion threads as free of toxicity as possible. Regarding the story you're appealing about in this question: it's just got too many triggering aspects to lead to a healthy discussion on HN. Also, it's a several-years-old article, and when we give exposure to major world news, the qualifying criterion is that the story contains "significant new information".