You might enable the showdead feature, you'll start to see a lot of dead posts.
In theory this happens because a lot of people flag posts. In theory.
One thing, for sure, is that I noticed in the trump era, that there seemed to be some kind of pro-trump task force that flagged everything non-positive about trump and its administration
Very interesting! I intentionally did not mention the topic as I was already accused of taking sides in the matter due to poor wording.
In fact that accusation is what made notice this disappearance, but now thinking about it it must come from the community as you say and not from mods.
I guess that answers my question with a no, there is no censorship on HN but bias of the community on certain topics.
In theory this happens because a lot of people flag posts. In theory.
One thing, for sure, is that I noticed in the trump era, that there seemed to be some kind of pro-trump task force that flagged everything non-positive about trump and its administration