My $0.02, but it seems like the moderation team (dang in particular) has been less active over the last 24 hours.
Usually there are reminders in large threads to click the "more" button to see all comments, but there was no such comment on the huge "Facebook-owned sites were down" post yesterday. They usually also merge duplicates and add top level comments with links to the other conversations taking place on the same topic.
The moderation team usually does a lot to reign in problem behavior, but there seems to have been a lot questionable comments making it through lately.
I have also noticed a lot of comments by users with "throwaway" in their usernames - seems like a shift in who is using HN and how they are using it.