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Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

Also, your post will get weighted down if it contains certain words or is from a certain domain. I believe at one point 'NSA' got you penalised (due to the high number of NSA links coming in at one point in time), and Medium posts have a tougher time getting onto the front page (due to the lower signal:noise ratio I guess).

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from a certain domain

There's more than a bit of leftist elitism at work. E.g. I once made the mistake of submitting something from breitbart.com. It never appeared in 'new'.

When I'm logged in, it shows me that I've submitted 5 items. Examining my submissions anonymously only shows 4 items. Perhaps there are 5 if someone has 'showdead' on?

Putin's external propaganda site, rt.com, is OK, heaven forbid that Breitbart be afforded that same privilege.

I think the simpler reason is for a similar reasons as to why Medium get's penalised by the algo - links from Breitbart (and Medium) generate less useful discussions than other sites, thus they must 'work harder' to 'earn' their place on the front page.

Similar to the 'flame war detection' that flags posts with more comments than (up)votes.

NSA got me penalized from 2013 onward if I said anything positive about them on about any security or IT forum. Evidence or accuracy didn't matter due to polarization. So, this is more true than you say. Less now but the effect is still there.

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