Why were all the posts about Kobe Bryant’s death flagged and removed?

I’m seeing some comments in various posts that news of Kobe Bryant’s death violated site policy because it has nothing to do with tech, but a quick search of search term “has died” over past year shows posts on many people who were public figures but not necessarily linked to tech, including Grumpy Cat, I.M. Pei, Terry Jones, and another athlete Niki Lauda (Formula 1 racer).

For those flagging: is it really necessary? Why not just ignore or, at worst, downvote if it’s not of interest to you?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=false&query=has%20died&sort=byPopularity&type=story