Ask HN: Does HN Remove Posts?

[flerovium]

Does hn silently remove vaccine misinformation? I'm used to seeing "flagged" or downvoted to hell.

NOTE: I believe vaccines work. I'm not a nutter. I'm curious only because I didn't know hn silently removed things.

I clicked the following link and the post was gone. It turns out it was by a vaccine VC nutter Steve Kirsch.

The page is blank: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29156049

I don't believe it's deleted because it doesn't say [deleted].

[mtmail]

See " What does [dead] mean? " on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html You can enable 'showdead' in your profile.

[flerovium → mtmail]

The linked resource says "dead" means "a post is killed"...I suppose that's literally true, but what rules does hn use to determine whether to kill a post?

I applaud hn, but I didn't realize they'd taken a stand to remove misinformation?

EDIT: not sure why the downvote. I wanted to know the criteria for something getting killed. Helpfully answered below in this specific instance (not just the general case).

The post is obviously false. I didn't realize if someone posted a random base64 string it would get deleted. Nice to know. I'm not sure most users do.

[version_five → flerovium]

> taken a stand to remove misinformation

From what I've seen this doesn't enter into it, HN isnt some ideological arbiter of "misinformation". Posts get killed (still visible with showdead on as the parent says) when they are unsuitable for the site. It applies equally to random job postings, celebrity gossip, dupes, and other random stuff that is inappropriate for the site. In general, inflammatory posts that will just result in fighting instead of some meaningful discussion are also killed.

All this to say, there is no "taking a stand" to support your politics, it's just removing posts that will degrade the quality of the discussion. This approach is much better than having moderators try and decide what it "true".

[gus_massa → flerovium]

This post says "[flagged] [dead]" because was automatic lay killed because it was flagged by too many users. Users can click the "vouch" link, and enough vouches unkill the post.

I had not read or flagged the article, but I took a look now. It looks like a lot of unsupported speculation and heresy, no way I'm pressing the vouch button.

Also, articles about problem with vaccines are flagged a lot. I prefer to keep a nice conversation when the info is good or at least reliable, and try to explain where is the problem with the post instead of flagging. But in this case it looks like a lot of unsupported speculation and heresy as said before.

[WalterGR → gus_massa]

Presumably you mean hearsay and not heresy. :)

[gus_massa → WalterGR]

Yes, hearsay. Thanks for the correction.