Random: Why is HN so insanely, painfully slow to load lately?
Test this by logging out and see if it loads quickly again. If so, then yeah, you're being artificially slowed down.
Edit: I actually just noticed it was slow for me too, logged out and it was still slow. No idea then.
Edit: Actually I just realized your theory never really made any sense. What site throttles bandwidth just to you when you get downvoted? Nutty theory actually.
After getting down-voted a certain amount you get hell-banned. Your posts are still posted, except only people with "show dead" enabled see them.
Before that however you just get throttled and the site loads more slowly.
(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-h...)