Ask HN: How does shadow banning on HN work?

2 pointsbriefcomment4 comments

I submitted a marginally contentious article recently, and was surprised to see that it is only visible under New when I am logged in. When I look for it without being logged in, it's not there. It's not even flagged.

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Like detaro said it looks like it's the domain that got banned.

"Overall, we rate GlobalResearch a Tin Foil Hat Conspiracy and Strong Pseudoscience website based on the promotion of unproven information such as the dangers of Vaccines and 9-11 as a false flag operation." https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/global-research/

It seems the domain your submission is from has been banned years ago, so all submissions from it get autokilled.

Got it, thanks. I'll search for a better source.

Do you know if there's a list of banned domains?

I doubt there is a list, since it's also to a large degree an anti-spam measure, and the point of doing it as a shadowban is not telling spammers immediately that you blocked them.

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