I wonder why there isn't more discussion of this on HN; a mutiny by Russia's largest mercenary company is a significant event that could have a big effect on the world, given Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. It's also not a very politically sensitive topic.
Because flagging is effectively a super-down-vote available to low karma posters and HN does not seem to have any meaningful response to topics being silenced via flagging for political reasons. I suppose from the YC/dang perspective anything contentious enough to draw orchestrated flagging is contentious enough to draw trolls, shills, etc so perhaps it is viewed as a non-issue that these topics get silenced.
There has been one big thread already but it is flagged.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36452290
Im genuinely curious why they are getting flagged. Like seriously are IRA members HN moderators or something?
I just flagged this. First time I ever flag something on HN. When I try to access it I get:
"Sorry, you have been blocked. You are unable to access censor.net. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data."
But I totally understand people who flag political articles. It turns HN into reddit. I actually wish I had the discipline not to click them, because I end up seeing the typical infuriating neo-lib HN comments and I can't help but reply.
What's wrong with wanting HN not to have politics and keep a tech/education focus? Every other social media on the Internet is packed to the brim with political content, we can go literally anywhere else if we want that. (And please don't answer "being apolitical is being political" or "oh, look at the privileged fatcat who can afford to be apolitical" that's just the sort of lib cliches that annoy me)
Indeed. This is important, and I pray Ukraine prevails in the broader conflict. But HN doesn't do well with breaking news, and this submission in particular was of rather poor quality: three sentences and a Telegram embed, all behind a Cloudflare CAPTCHA wall. Not that I'm any arbiter of HN's content, but I'd flag that kind of submission regardless of topic.
Everything is an exception to the rule! There is nothing so contrary to the Guidelines that it won't show up. I see "Taboola" items on the default Microsoft front page of Edge and they appear on HN.
I grant that the worst of it comes in waves, but I just do not see this place as remotely being what it aspires to be.
Whatever conspiratorial activity exists at the moment on HN is clearly devoted to the silly accusations of censorship.
Any real geopolitical events will continue tomorrow and be widely reported on all over the world.
No necessarily. You just need relatively small amount of accounts who are trying to suppress this information. I don't think that HN was ever built to counter full blown informational warfare.
Armored vehicles are brought into Russian city of Rostov. Media reports on implementation of "Fortress" plan in city due to armed rebellion of Wagner PMC. VIDEO&PHOTOS
damn ... seems rather half-baked. can't believe they are now actually marching all the way back. was sure he wouldn't take that risk without a strong support right in moscow.
> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I agree that it's intellectually gratifying, but Hacker News is supposed to be more of a tech interest board more than an "internet funnel" like Reddit or Twitter.
I think tech news should not feel like it's somehow above normal human experiences, and there's benefit in observing mainstream news together. For example, the slashdot thread on 9/11 was well known.
There was a lot of discussion here when the war between Russia and Ukraine began, so why not also discussion about an event (Russian military coup) that may well end the war?
Habr - roughly the most prominent russian-speaking counterpart of HN - had a longstanding "no politics" policy too, which in hindsight only benefited the authoritarian regime by keeping more people "apolitical". When they came for the IT crowd, political threads became the hottest discussed topic there. Personally, that's the only reason for me to visit Habr anymore, to observe the effects the war and the mood among my colleagues and fellow citizens. Political threads on HN serve the same purpose. I believe banning politics outright from media is shortsighted, major events will - and already did - affect the industry, same as, for example, the climate change. Instead of banning, I believe steering the discussion towards these potential effects would prove more beneficial. Besides, not every HN visitor lives in US, the situation can serve as a viable lesson for those promoting absence from local politics: don't repeat the mistake citizens of RF did.
