Try to find this thread on the front pages of HN...
It's not there, at least in the first 150 results.
It seems to have been unflagged, then "shadow flagged". Which is even more fucked up.
Your first two links are the same btw, did you mean to link to this one,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16577485 , where I asked for a discussion on removal of such an important story? According to moderator 'dang', I was just "creating drama".
>The only unusual thing in this case is the drama you've created about it.
I haven't created any drama at all. Many people feel strongly about this and have said so, are they all "creating drama" as well, or is it possible people really give a fuck that this torturer will have an incredible amount of power?
>there's no question that the above submission and your comments are breaking the site guidelines
The only guideline I have broken is the one about vote totals, which I was unaware of and which has special relevance here. You could have asked me to remove it, there was no need to allow the whole thread to be flagged over a straw-man.
It is telling that you claim there is 'no question' about this, when people are questioning it all over this thread.
>Not all political stories are off topic, but the ones that only stir up outrage, however justifiably, and don't also gratify intellectual curiosity, are particularly important to flag.
What?? So, no matter how important a story is, if enough people pretend to be 'outraged' the story must be flagged? Please tell me you see the many things that are wrong with that line of argument. What a despicable thing to say.
There are many comments that agree this is worthy of discussion, the least you can do is allow the conversation to happen - the very least.
This is a critical discussion to have. As it stands, conversation on this topic has been strongly suppressed, and rather than being concerned about that, you're patronizing me, accusing me of creating drama, and implying I want HN to work according to my political views. Please take this all a little bit more seriously and recognize that it's nothing to do with me; but all of us, globally.
I also believe this is a terribly important topic to discuss, with special relevance for the HN community (not that I need to prove that, the number of comments speaks for itself).
I have emailed the mods, and will update with the reply I get (if I don't end up banned).
The CIA employ what percentage of the tech community again? Maybe this shouldn't be considered an entirely political story, given the ramifications it has for all of us.
There were plenty of active commenters, most of them considering this a very serious issue.
And no one has been able to offer any explanation why my comment is permanently collapsed even when opened on a different browser, despite no obvious flag and a healthy amount of positive votes.
Finally, as I've said elsewhere here, there appears to be evidence of "silent de-ranking" where stories like the one about Google's censorship are not flagged in any way but won't show up on the front pages.
As a community HN deserves better, by far. Normalising this behaviour will lead to dark and bad places.
This story from 3 months ago is as tech-related (Google changing their algorithm) as you can get. It wasn't visibly flagged, but was almost certainly de-ranked, and it wasn't just me who commented about it.
Even if you can buy the excuse that this isn't related to tech or start-ups, and ignore the very active commenting on it, you're still left with the utter refusal to allow any transparency about what is flagged and de-ranked. Why shouldn't we demand better?
Oh look it's happening again. The people who think this article might not be "drivel" are being grayed within minutes.
And by the way, this censorship happens on tech stories too. This article from three months ago wasn't even flagged, just didn't show up until page 3 or 4 despite being new and having tons of comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363.
"These type of posts"... Posts on incredibly important topics with incredibly active discussion?
I haven't seen one flagged and treated like this since 3 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15745363) - but that's the problem isn't it - we don't see them because they've been flagged.
As I said then, a little transparency isn't too much to ask for a "Hacker Community". And it's really weird how my comment is compressed, even in new browsers, despite having 11 points.
My comment is compressed even when opened in a brand new browser, and this thread no longer shows up on the News pages at all, at least the first seven pages.
If I'm not mistaken, there has been no reason for this given whatsoever.
My other comment on this page got 11 points in 6 minutes. But since then, every time I refresh the page my comment shows up as 'compressed' (as if it had been flagged), and it has been been on 11 points every time I've checked (now an hour old).
>It's impressive that we've fallen so low that we're blaming the Obama administration for not fixing what the Bush administration did.
Why The Fuck shouldn't we, he campaigned on ending that shit. His similar actions on the banking crisis continue to have horrific consequences.
Who gives a fuck about the GOP, we know they're nutso - Obama pretended to be sane though. Obama is also directly responsible for the DNC owing so much money that they were forced to sign a deal with Hillary before the nominations even started.
I'm sick of hearing that I have the politicians I deserve - the amount of money spent by special interests to warp the minds of citizens is at an all time high. The authorities supposed to regulate and hold these people accountable are captured.
And it's all extremely systematic.
The interests of the super-wealthy are aligned against education, cooperation and the health of the planet, and we don't have time for throwing blame at the victims.
Exactafuckingmundo. Those PR scumbags in Monsanto have been extremely effective at equating being anti-GMO with being anti-science, and it'd be real nice to see some accountability for them.