Ask HN: Why was my post on cybersecurity flagged? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why was my post on cybersecurity flagged?

12 pointsCalRobert11 comments

Earlier I submitted a story about elections and cybersecurity, it got several dozen upvotes, and then was quickly flagged.

Why?

Given the sites focus on tech and hacking, I can't fathom how this isn't worthy of HN. Sure, don't upvote it, but when a story's byline is about the "US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" making big changes it definitely seems related to Hacker News.

I don't want to link for fear of getting flagged again but it's on the wired.com home page right now.

View on HN

I have noticed that a headline with an overtly biased political viewpoint remain unflagged as long as nobody comments or challenges the headline with a more balanced viewpoint.

Once you comment and disagree with the headline it becomes automatically flagged.

These politicallly biased headlines should be taken down before anyone comments.

I do not want to see, nor are interested in, one sided opinions about either the Isreali people nor the Palestinian people. This is readily available on the open internet on news websites.

For me this allows very disagreeable headlines to remain visible for everyone to see until they are commented on or challenged.

Not really freedom of speech. More like I will get away with it until someone comments.

There has been a very large amount of flagging lately. I actually search now for various terms to see which ones have been flagged in the last 24hrs. It's definitely pretty interesting. You can do it by searching the usual suspects "Musk", "Tesla", "Trump" etc

Some of the flags have triggered large conversations and it seems like the defense of the flagging comes down to these reasons:

1) Not related to tech

2) Overtly political article titles

3) Duplicated articles

4) HN users disagree with the political reference from article/title

Having seen so many articles flagged lately, it's hard not to feel like the #4 group is key. I think this makes sense given the cohort of HN that comes from Sillicon Valley VC culture and who are a bit reticent at the creeping politicization of tech topics.

It definitely feels like #4, and you're not the only one that has noticed this.

HN is weird, even GCC changelog could be flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42882343

First off, that's a very important story; and 100% appropriate to discuss here by every guideline.

> ... was quickly flagged. Why?

That's been happening a lot here lately. I have taken to adding the more relevant falsely flagged stories to my favorites, though I'm sure I miss many.

Posts which attempt to discuss this blackout here get rapidly flagged, even when generating quality discussion, ie [0].

Dang repeatedly claims that these flags are representative of what the community actually wants, using much the same blind-spot logic as ddxv here ('bad actors? here??'). When I asked dang if he would allow a discussion on false flags here that wouldn't be flagged itself, he basically said, 'lol no, read the rules' [1].

And taken in conjunction with Garry Tan [2] and Paul Graham's [3, 4] recent DOGE cheer-leading, another, deeper reason 'why' comes into view. It seems that the ultra wealthy, including in the tech sector (even people we really want to like and who have said smart things in the past) are all-in on supporting the admin which will be giving the .1% trillions in tax cuts. It's hard not to imagine those views filtering down to here.

So, expect this to get quickly flagged as well, if it wasn't already while I was writing this; and expect to be gaslit about it as well. This is HN now.

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42900560

1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43058574

2 - https://x.com/garrytan/status/1886284208894890386

3 - https://x.com/paulg/status/1887184325097242807

4 - https://x.com/paulg/status/1887186094120137042

I don’t flag except for spam and obvious flag-content, but can say that these headlines and threads look like fud and overreaction from particular groups, all in a very recognizable format. That’s why it is annoying and report-worthy. Adding tax consipracy on top of it doesn’t make it look better.

> these headlines and threads look like fud and overreaction from particular groups

No they don't. If they look like FUD or overreaction to you, that may be because sites like this have been suppressing discussion, leaving you lacking vital context.

Feel free to prove me wrong with specifics though, if you like.

> all in a very recognizable format

No they aren't. Those stories are from a wide variety of media, most of it well established (for what that's worth).

Again - if you can say what that 'recognizable format' is instead of being vague than I'll concede the point.

> Adding tax conspiracy on top of it doesn’t make it look better.

It's technically a conspiracy, yes - but it's not a theory. It's their stated goal [0, 1], from before the election [2].

And that money is coming from the middle class and the poor; from massive cuts to Medicaid and social services, and all sorts of lifeline programs.

You ought to know this stuff; it's important. Trivializing it as 'conspiracy' is harmful. This all very much affects the tech and entrepreneur community, as we have been complicit in it for one thing and are best placed to understand it for another. And we're going to be scapegoated when shit continues to hit the fan, harder and harder.

0 - https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-01-10/trump-tax...

1 - https://apnews.com/article/house-republicans-budget-blueprin...

2 - https://www.factcheck.org/2024/12/trumps-agenda-taxes/

No they don't/aren't

Recognition is subjective, so idk what to say here. You want more of this, forum wants less. I guess there's enough places to discuss it. Maybe people don't want this "vital context" here. It's not that a forum was sort of a closed city, people visit other places freely. And if they do not, they probably value how it works here.

I only visited a few links in the past weeks, but most of them shared that thing where they establish a very shaky background and then just switch to pushing their thick angsts and then users comment on conspiracies. E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43022307 I'm not trying to convince you, just explaining what I see.

You ought to know this stuff; it's important.

I don't think so.

> forum wants less

I don't think that's true, and I pointed out why above. Threads about this stuff get flagged, but have a lot of upvotes and discussion. So again, you are being given a very filtered impression of what the majority here want to see.

We could find out for sure, if dang permitted one discussion on this to survive without being flagged. He refused to do that.

>> You ought to know this stuff; it's important.

> I don't think so.

If you don't think a 4.5 trillion dollar transfer from medicaid and social programs to tech bro's pockets is important, but it is important that stories about this are flagged before you have to look at them, then Idk what to tell you. That's definitely not the HN I want to see, and I'm happy to risk being banned to say so.

Btw, a $4.5tn wealth transfer works out to over $13k from every man woman and child in the US. You will be feeling this, sooner rather than later.

Garry Tan and Paul Graham are lauding DOGE (I, like pretty much everyone else, am also all for employing new technology to optimize business and government) but have not expressed concern about the 20 million people who have lost access to lifesaving medicine except for possibly vague suggestions about "proceeding cautiously" with respect to dismantling USAID. Why would anyone want to associate with people who have such disregard for human life? Do Elon and Trump possess personally compromising information on Paul and Garry? Or is this, as you suggest, just Paul and Garry revealing their true colors?

Well, on every page on HN there is currently a link to a blurb about an AI startup school, with a sentence mentioning Elon Musk as the first of "the world’s top AI experts and founders". Make of that what you will.

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