
Ask HN: Why was the BBC story about human trafficking removed? - eindiran
There was a BBC story [0] about an illegal online slave market enabled by Google, Apple and Instagram; the story was rapidly moving to the top when it was suddenly marked as flagged and removed.<p>This story passes the HN submission guidelines tests [1]: it is deeply interesting, tied directly to technology, and can provoke interesting discussion about the role of moderation in technology.<p>In the interest of transparency, why was this story removed, if it was done intentionally? If it was organically flagged, can people who flagged the story explain their motivations for doing so?<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;technology-50228549<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html
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MaysonL
It wasn't removed, merely didn't get upvoted.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21415204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21415204)

~~~
eindiran
There was a version of it that had 20 something points and was the second
story on the front page before being flagged and removed. The link is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21416368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21416368)

------
dang
Users flagged it.

~~~
eindiran
Hi dang, I want to say first that I think you do a great job of moderating the
site, which I imagine is an enormous and difficult task.

Is it always "enough" for users to flag an article for it to be removed? I
remember the highly contentious Amelia Bassano article from a few months ago
and in that case, the article wasn't removed (perhaps by your specific
intervention). Given that this article seems to be on-topic and was rapidly
gaining points (20ish in the first 30 minutes after being posted), it seems
like the community was legitimately interested in the topic. I'd go so far as
it say that this seems like a case of flag-based brigading to prevent the
story from gaining traction. So I guess my question is, when is flagging by
users enough to kill a story and when is it not enough?

~~~
dang
Not always. We turn off flags in some cases, if the article is intellectually
interesting and substantive and there's a chance the community can discuss it
sanely.

You can't go just by points, unfortunately. Users upvote lots of things that
are either off-topic or otherwise bad for HN. Indignation routinely attracts
upvotes [1], and not every riler-upper makes for a good HN submission; most
don't. The site guidelines, flagging, and moderation are necessary
counterweights to the voting system, which can't regulate itself. HN can't
live by upvotes alone. Life would be easier if it could!

In this case, I took a quick look last night and only saw the baity title
("How Silicon Valley enables online slave markets") and a video. That's a
terrible combination. Most users won't watch a video, and the combination of
that and provocative subject matter makes a shallow, divisive discussion
inevitable.

I missed that there was a substantive article below the video, though. At
least I assume I missed it, since it seems unlikely they would have added it
later. That, together with the fact that there's a better title now, makes a
significant difference, so I'm going to turn off the flags on one submission
of that story (there were several) and put it in the second-chance pool
(described at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380)).

Please do not post about "brigading" and similar abuses unless you have
specific evidence of abuse. This is an important site guideline [2]. In this
case it was clear from the few comments people did post that some users
objected to the story—or more likely the title—as unsubstantive. I know you
disagree with that, but other users having an opposing view is not an abuse,
it's the way any sufficiently large population sample works. Internet users
are too quick—orders of magnitude too quick—to jump to the conclusion that
sinister manipulations like brigading or astroturfing or government
disinformation are responsible when they see things they don't like on the
internet. This has a poisonous effect on discussion, so we ask people not to
do it on HN. Lots more explanation at [3].

Also, if you'll review the site guidelines, you'll note that they ask you to
email hn@ycombinator.com instead of making a post like this on the site. For
one thing, if you post on the site, odds are we won't see it. We don't come
close to seeing everything that gets posted here, and I only saw this by
chance. But also, it's off topic and repetitive to make posts like this to HN
itself. A story getting flagged is not an "interesting new phenomenon", to
quote the guidelines again.

1\.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20indignation%20upvotes&sort=byDate&type=comment)

2\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

3\.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturf&sort=byDat...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturf&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0)

