
Ask HN: Why are “Google memo” links being flagged and hidden? - notliketherest
Two major articles were shared on HN today regarding the Google memo: &quot;Google CEO should resign&quot; and &quot;Why I was fired from Google.&quot; Both were flagged and hidden within an hour. I understand this is a deeply divisive topic, but it&#x27;s clearly relevant to a large majority of readers on HN. Are we comfortable being a &quot;close my plug my ears&quot; echo chamber community? Or should we be brave enough to have lengthy discussions about hard issues that give others a chance to hear both sides of an argument. I like the approach we took when the original article was submitted - the thread was locked to new users.
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mtmail
I see the "Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google’s C.E.O"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990494)
from 5 hours ago with comments from 2 hours ago, so flagged within an hour
doesn't match. 400+ comments.

"Why I Was Fired by Google (wsj.com)"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993683)
isn't flagged. Or maybe it was and now no longer is.

Personally I get tired of yet more opinion pieces on the same topic. After
reading through 5 long threads I feel like I've seen every opinion and counter
opinion.

~~~
notliketherest
Sorry I meant "flagged and hidden". Just because it's flagged doesn't mean
that people can't stop commenting on it. It just doesn't show up on the front
page anymore.

~~~
mtmail
Weird indeed. That makes it the only flagged story in the top 100
[https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best) list. A
lot, like hundreds, of users must have flagged it. (I don't know how ranking
works, I just assume that there must be a ratio of upvotes vs flagging and the
more upvotes the harder it is to flag).

~~~
notliketherest
Yeah, and I think it also has to do with weight of the user (more points =
higher weight). That's why I'm asking this question because we give an
outsized weight to higher karma users who effectively have censor power (which
is a good thing when used against spam). But I'm worried we're curating our
own "echo chamber" here.

~~~
ratsmack
This is especially true when people down vote on disagreement rather than
quality.

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ratsmack
Is Hacker News deeply rooted in Silicon Valley, and isn't it well known that
Silicon Valley do not share conservative views? I think the answer can be
derived herein.

~~~
krapp
>and isn't it well known that Silicon Valley do not share conservative views

If Silicon Valley didn't share conservative views, there wouldn't be so many
articles and comments defending said memos, and the views expressed therein.
Certainly, what's "well known" about HN and SV seems to depend on what set of
cultural or political strawmen one wants to punch down. I've seen both
described as wretched hives of leftist cultural marxism and alt-right fascism.

>I think the answer can be derived herein.

Yes, but not for the reasons your comment implies. People who are strongly
ideologically driven are more likely to engage with these threads - they're
likely being flagged by people who are tired of seeing the deluge of content
which they feel is off topic, or no longer delivering anything of insight or
quality.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Defending the memo does not require having conservative views.

~~~
krapp
As the GP implies, either defending or denouncing it will get you sorted into
one or the other camp.

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Bucephalus355
Google, to some extent, sanitizes the web of comments they do not feel should
be on the web.

I have no clue how much this is done, but the best example is Glassdoor. I've
had multiple friends post their Google interview reviews, some posting
multiple times and getting in (to Google that is) on their 3rd try.

Those reviews have vanished from Glassdoor (for both people not hired and also
the people hired). It is the most bizarre thing, and I tried so hard to find
them after being challenged once to do so because I did not believe Google
would delete them.

At first I thought it was Glassdoor deleting them, but that's not the case at
all. Look up reviews for Amazon Web Services, you'll see they blatantly give
answers to questions, list terms, and summarize how the interview cycles go,
and those are all up for anyone in the world to see.

~~~
dunkelheit
I don't quite follow. So who deletes them in the end and how?

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fav_collector
Opinion pieces aren't taken kindly in these parts of the woods.

~~~
notliketherest
That's true. Opinion pieces manifest themselves in all sorts of ways on
hackernews though, and it's only these high profile contentious debate pieces
that get flagged, even in the face of overwhelming user engagement (see other
comment). I argue that this topic merits special considering by the mods to
remove the flag.

------
soared
Personal opinions aside, they are technically against guidelines, as is this
post.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

> Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us
> questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If
> you want to say something to us, please send it to hn@ycombinator.com.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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tnone
This is a long standing pattern. Whenever a thread about a social justice
topic gets too far away from the orthodoxy, it gets flagged and hidden. In
some cases I've seen a thread without any noticable flags and with a high
score nevertheless drop hundreds of places so it sits between week old
content. The official response to the LambdaConf controversy was the most
glaring example.

At this point the HN moderators are either incompetently letting the system
get gamed for obvious political purposes by one particular camp, or they are
quietly looking the other way when it goes down. Either way, it's a pretty
open secret by now.

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InTheArena
I also find it intriguing that both under my account, and under a incognito
anonymous, it never hit the front page of reddit either.

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whipoodle
Because it's just the same shit over and over again

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J-dawg
Thanks for asking this. Here's another one that was posted and then
disappeared without a trace:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6t1cpx/if_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6t1cpx/if_we_can_believe_zunger_software_development_may/)

~~~
notliketherest
Hackernews doesn't allow you to "downvote" submissions, but users with higher
"karma" can flag posts, effectively giving the most active (or popular) users
censoring powering.

~~~
soared
I think it requires 750 or 1k karma, which isn't a huge amount. I'd image a
decent percent (~20%) of users have flagging power.

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jxramos
I was surprised when any of it got flagged given that I'm pretty sure I read
earlier posts on HN that spoke about sex or race diversity in tech. I remember
getting into a few comment threads on some so I'm sure there's prior stuff in
this arena on HN. I guess this one was just too taboo or something.

