Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#1

Post by anon_salary_1 » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:22 AM UTC

Maybe it was happening before, but I've noticed it a lot in the last few days - every time there is a thread about Elon Musk, it disappears from the front page extremely quickly, regardless of how many upvotes it has (or the speed of them).

I knew Hacker News had built in abilities for their moderators to promote and suppress content, but I am very surprised at the topic/consistency of this suppression in this instance. What gives?

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#2

Post by detaro » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:26 AM UTC

I assume people are annoyed by seeing every small iteration of the same overarching story and flag them. A bunch of the stories probably also tripped the flamewar detection, which downranks them automatically.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#3

Post by NigelThornberry » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:27 AM UTC

HN is currently being spammed with anti-Musk propaganda, there is one anti-Musk post after another about the same two topics

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#4

Post by monsecchris » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:38 AM UTC

Mods desperately trying to avoid becoming Reddit.

The change is inevitable though, the quality and variation of comments are in line with Reddit already.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#5

Post by theCrowing » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:39 AM UTC

Sorry but we don't need to discuss every little shitty thing that happens three times per day just because you missed the thread with hundreds of replies when it was on the frontpage.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#6

Post by Jensson » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:39 AM UTC

HN downranks threads with many comments, that is the main thing. Think of each comment as a downvote and it makes more sense why those quickly disappears from the frontpage.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#7

Post by Cheiree » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:44 AM UTC

The world does not revolve around Elon Musk.

And it says Hacker News in the title, not Twitter/Elon News. In fact if I would not see anything about Elon Musk or Twitter for a week then it would make me supremely happy.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#8

Post by Narretz » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:47 AM UTC

theCrowing wrote: post #5

Sorry but we don't need to discuss every little shitty thing that happens three times per day just because you missed the thread with hundreds of replies when it was on the frontpage.

The new submissions are about Musk banning journalists that he claims to have doxxed him, i.e. shared links to the flight tracker for his jet. However, some journalists have already come out and said they never shared the link. So it does seem worthy of discussion beyond the general change in Twitter policy.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#9

Post by proc0 » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:48 AM UTC

I'm seeing a lot of Musk posts, but they're mostly negative. I'm just saying, I visit dozens of online aggregators, and I've yet to come across one that is "balanced". It's almost impossible at this point. The polarization is real.

Re: Ask HN: Why are the Elon Musk topic submissions being suppressed?

#10

Post by Quequau » Fri, Dec 16, 2022, 8:52 AM UTC

I do not believe it is fair to characterise the moderation of stories related to Elon Musk and Twitter as "being suppressed". There are currently dozens upon dozens of submissions about Musk & Twitter, most of which are either low effort, low info, or outright duplicates.

Looking at what is being posted and comparing that what is allowed vs removed, it's clear that what is being removed are almost entirely duplicate submissions. This is an entirely reasonable and uncontroversial moderation policy / practice.