Ask HN: Why do some links start out [dead]? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do some links start out [dead]?

12 pointsarchagon8 comments

I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647126 and the link was [dead] on arrival. I am certain that nobody had time to flag it: the post was dead as soon as I hit Submit and the page refreshed. Why did this happen? Is this some sort of controversial topic detector or source filter?

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Pretty sure 404 media is automatically killed, possibly because it doesn't have a paywall bypass. Same as if you post a link to "the information" - it's something nobody can read so not worth linking.

That's odd, because this other link I wanted to post from 404 (someone beat me to it) wasn't killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43646920

(Unless it was vouched back to life.)

Interesting, I've seen lots of 404 submission [dead] and assumed that was why. I notice that the link you posted above is not paywalled but the dead one is, though I'd be surprised if that's actually detected somehow.

That article isn't registerwalled, it's also a good quality article, not sensationalistic, not breathless, not about sex.

I assume "not sensationalistic, not breathless, not about sex" is not something an automated HN filter can flag. Or paywalls, for that matter.

20 years ago it was science fiction, with BERT models and LSTM it is easy. The hard part is getting a collection of 5000 articles that are "sensationalistic/breathless/about sex" and another 5000 that aren't. You could beat 90% on that one easily, probably 95%. Or you could just block 404media and have accuracy about that good.

It was posted [dead] and vouched.

Usually because something looks spammy. The most common reason for this complaint is that somebody posts links to their personal blog and nothing but their personal blog.

I think 404media has a low level of regard on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co

Not least because most of their content is behind a registerwall which is particularly ironic because 95% of what they write about is something privacy sensitive or about sex, I want to register to read that stuff about as much as I want to register for a porn site. If it is not that it is the kind of breathless political stuff that will wind up [dead] in a few minutes.

My biggest complaint about them is that they leaked a list of web sites being monitored by ICE to Google Docs so in the process of my viewing that list Google recorded that I read the document and now it appears in my feed when I use Google. Google is on that list so if I'm paranoid I have to assume ICE contractors know I read that list, great work 404 media!

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