I think you’re making a major unspoken assumption which is that all of the downvotes / flags are from real users. HN has no form of identity verification and is functionally equivalent to 4chan. Theres no telling how many bot farms exist on here with the sole purpose of manipulating discourse to be favorable to the current US administration and also Israel.
You always have plenty of excuses when you get called out. Looking the other way while bot armies mass downvote pro Palestine / anti ICE / anti PayPal mafia content is complicity. I’m sure you have the data to suss out what is obvious to anyone watching these threads in real time.
Think about what you are saying for a moment. Why would "bot armies" come to Hacker News of all places to flag pro-Palestine articles? Don't you think it's a much more reasonable conclusion that people read the site guidelines[1], which clearly say that political posts are off-topic, and then flagged for that reason instead?
There are a million places to discuss politics online. If I wanted to discuss politics, I would go to any one of them. Claiming any HN moderator is 'complicit' in atrocities is absurd.
In 2026 I don't for one second think it organized inauthentic activity is implausible. I think in fact it's probably pretty extensive these days, though I'm not especially sure about penetration of HN in particular. But everything from marketing to state actors to organized political actors to anarchic but politically motivated online groups are mobilized to influence online forums and I think these phenomena are reasonably well characterized by academic research. It can also be people who aren't organized but abuse flagging out of political commitments.
I also don't think your read of it as an organic outcome of a post that obviously violates guidelines is the natural conclusion here, I actually think that interpretation strains credulity more. Where I agree is that I don't think moderators are being heavy-handed on issues like this, but I do think high level political events do merit attention at least once in a while and I don't think the HN pattern has been toward oversaturation.
And in terms of things that make this story unique, I think it's the highest standard of specificity I've ever seen in reporting of this kind, it's using impressive technological reconstruction of the scene, it's actually quite unlike typical news reporting on the topic and it's hosted on a platform that was YC-incubated, and I think DropSite News is in an ascendant moment as a major news breaker. There's lots to talk about here imo.
I mean doesn't your take strain credulity as well? Let's actually think where most discussion happens these days, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, the few remaining newspaper comments sections. I'd struggle to list more off the top of my head.
Why wouldn't influence campaigns, we know every big country to be running, target this site? What reason would they have to leave it out from their list? Why not target a major news forum for the more wealthy and connected (predominantly) Americans in tech? This is not an uwu smol bean site anymore and the cost of (undetectably) botting any given site is rapidly approaching cents.
I just see the same thing over again. I flag some article, then later I look at the comments and everyone is saying "rah rah there's a cabal of vote bots that flag articles". Obviously not - it was me? Is it so unthinkable that normal people on HN are flagging political articles because they are explicitly disallowed by the site guidelines?
That’s good to know. I agree the cameras are the root problem. Flock exacerbated that problem and I think it’s good for them to get some negative publicity.
You could say similar things about Palantir - that it’s just a figurehead and that the NSA / TIA has similar capabilities but it’s still important to use the figurehead as an example to others.
But yes in general I think it’s important to not let this stop here. Denver needs to be pressured to remove the cameras entirely. This is a defensive move on Denver’s part and it shows they’re on their back foot.
That’s exactly right. The second I determine something was written by AI is the second I close the tab / scroll past. It’s beyond disrespectful to expect others to read wordslop that you only barely created via prompt.
Your vocabulary indicates that this information will go right above your head and I anticipate a lot of illogical rationalization in response so this is more for the edification of others reading.
Profiling - which we probably agree is not a good thing - in the course of a stop, is not the same as deporting someone. Cold day in hell (on earth) when Supreme Court says you can be deported based on race, accent, job or location.
right, and an ICE agent stopping has little correlation to said ICE agent deporting you. you're surely reasonably intelligent, you can connect the dots
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