Is HN Censoring Posts?

It appears HN users are flagging to suppress posts, yes, not HN or its mods.

https://github.com/vitoplantamura/HackerNewsRemovals might be helpful for tracking some of this, feel free to bookmark.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39231537 is helpful to understand some mechanics of the above.

Let "You shouldn't flag things just because you don't like them, but you should flag them if they go against the site guidelines." be your guide.

(as pvg's links to dang's comments mention, this is not HN/mod action; this is user sourced moderation activity)

You can see some recent mod commentary on this. It's more or less how HN works and is supposed to work:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42777298

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775648

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775535

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42775519

OP: I just submitted a similar question, with a neutral title. While I think your topic is valid, the biased headline probably contributed to the flags.

I use hn.algolia.com and flagging doesn't seem to have an effect. I still see top voted and commented stories.

HN works based on flagging. If a few users flag a story, it gets hidden. The algorithm errs on the side of being safe than sorry.

Did you see how the discussion went on the first submission of the video/clip/story? Not so well.

There isn't much room for discussion or any real 'question' to get into on that particular story. Many, perhaps most, would rather not lend validation to it and move on. And the rest, well, as mentioned, the discussion devolves into insults and weird 'othersideism' and well, doesn't go anywhere.

An alternative option is also you're welcome to bring it up/seek to address it further, or even flag, the numerous Musk/Telsa/X related stories that come up around here elsewhere.

I'm flagging it on LinkedIn, here I don't care so much, I can dive in when I want (but I don't really), it's not in the way of me finding assignments.

Anyway, to me it's obvious Elon was overly enthusiastic and emotional ("My heart goes out to you"), as he was when that astronaut chided him. To some it's not. I guess we know when he keeps saluting in this way. Until that time, cool down everyone.

I suppose HN generally doesn't want political posts here, with exceptions

That's absolutely the kind of thing I would flag and I'm very much a left winger. The posting guidelines⁰ explicitly say: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." You don't need a conspiracy to account for this kind of thing disappearing swiftly.

⁰ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We ain't playing that game anymore.