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Comment by willis936 | Hacker News Reader

I do think it’s strange that HN has a supposed stance against political discussion, but allows discussion of the one popular policy from a very unpopular administration. Seems like a double standard leaning to the right.

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Exactly this. It has been frustrating watching basically any other news about this administration get flagged to death (or at least shoved off the front page) because "politics isn't allowed on HN." Then, we get an article like this and are expected to pretend that it isn't politics when it's happening in the context of the election being weeks away and while people are literally at the polls casting their votes as we speak.

There's loads of interesting news coming from the administration each day, but when only the items that least offend people's sensibilities make it through the flagging brigade, it acts as a politically biased filter.

Discussing policies and discussing politics is hardly the same thing.

Then there are plenty of equally-or-more pertinent policies that should also be discussed. Immigration is the 6th most important topic to American voters this election [0,1]. Trump has unpopular stances on the top 5 topics [2] but headlines related to that are not allowed on HN because they are political. This is the double standard.

Finally, Trump’s legal immigration policy is very anti-immigration [3]. This is a stunt to get an uptick in votes. The reality is that this policy sounds nice on paper but will make it even harder for people to immigrate to the US.

0. https://news.gallup.com/poll/276932/several-issues-tie-impor...

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/08/13/important-is...

2. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/where-president-trump-...

3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/26/fact-...

Pertinent how? H1B visas are exceptionally relevant to Silicon Valley/Y Combinator, and the topic is understandably treated exceptionally.

How are changes to H1B's a political issue in the same vein as say the president going to the hospital? H1B's are huge in the tech industry and so of course of huge interest to the tech community directly.

My point is that no presidential policy ratified a month prior to a general election is apolitical, even in normal times.

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