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Comment by upwardbound | Hacker News Reader

With 144 points, this story suddenly went from being ~#12 on the front page to now being #70, on page 3. If any journalists or regulators are reading this I recommend that possible astroturfing behavior (collusive downvoting (flagging)) be investigated, and I'm happy to cooperate with any investigation if contacted.

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As it happens with every discussion touching on sufficiently sensitive skin ("offending" some people, countries, etc.). One can't imagine that an article trashing a former president of Y Combinator will survive well especially on HN where burying any discussion in the "flagged" category is absolutely trivial.

It doesn't mean the information in any of these articles is true or false, just that the mere existence of the discussion offends, so it's promptly pushed under the table through a voting system that is exceptionally ripe for abuse.

If you are really into it, write a blog post about the reddit thread (and the flagging of this thread?) and post here.

Nearly simultaneously, the comment in this thread which explains what Yishan was saying suddenly dropped from being the #1 comment to being below a bunch of other comments, which makes this whole thread harder to understand unless you scroll down. This is despite the comment having 17 points and high engagement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41657014

The fact that these two things which both benefit Sam happened simultaneously (the story dropping from the front page and the explanatory comment dropping from the top of the comments) is suggestive of collusive downvoting/flagging and once again I want to state that I have screenshots showing this playing out minute by minute and I am happy to collaborate with journalists or regulators.

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