if google, yahoo, ebay, reddit, mozilla, zynga, AOL, twitter, facebook, linkedIn, etc can do it then i can't see why HN (being all about dev and startup community) can't do it.
But that sort of editorializing does not seem consistent with the culture which has grown up around HN.
Under SOPA, HN could be taken down with a simple link. One could create an account, post a link to some copyrighted material and then ask that HN be removed blocked at the DNS level.
So if HN is not willing to stand for that, what is willing to stand for?
Last I checked, the HN hostname is inside the ycombinator.com DNS zone.
Please note that I am assuming that YC, and not HN, is the primary enterprise of the person or persons in a position to deal with these matters.
Of all of the above companies you listed, as of right now, it's only on reddit.com
Check out the logos at the bottom.
The comment I am commenting on says:
"if google, yahoo, ebay, reddit, mozilla, zynga, AOL, twitter, facebook, linkedIn, etc can do it then i can't see why HN (being all about dev and startup community) can't do it."
So "can do it" doesn't refer to signing a letter (which can't be done now anyway) it refers to putting the censorship label over the logo. The majority of the companies mentioned did not do that which was the point that I was making.