It is generally not cool to accuse HN users of astro-turfing. And given the size and influence of this platform, I would be kind of surprised if the Israeli cyber unit would even bother.
I think it is much more likely these are actual HN users, a mix of those that a) don’t want to see Israel accused of anything, or probably even more common, b) really don’t want to see this issue pop up on HN—even when it is tech related, and even when it is from a beloved source like EFF.
The 'even' parts make it sound like you think those users are doing something wrong but neither of those things are really how HN works or is even supposed to work.
By “even” I simply meant I don’t agree with those users on a personal level. Specifically, I find this philosophy of copping out of difficult subjects lame. Obviously they aren’t doing anything wrong by HN standards/culture.
Ok but what do those things have to do with 'difficult subjects'? 'related to tech' or 'published by the EFF' are not in themselves criteria for an automatic spot on the front page. Lots of things in either category get moderated away by users and moderators all the time.
If this was not of interest to the HN community it wouldn’t be voted to the front page. HN has a bias which favors some sources, including the EFF, so that in it self makes it more likely to be voted to the front page. But if the EFF would release a story about a puppy playing with a kitten at a tech conference I doubt HN users would find it interesting enough to vote it to the front page, so being from the EFF or being about tech isn’t enough.
This story in particular has something which appeals to many HN users, so they up vote it. It also has something which others users don’t like, so they flag it. I’ve given my thoughts on the latter group, but as for the former group, I suspect this story is about a government meddling in social media, and that social media complied. It is a expose on current event, demonstrating with data what many people here expected. It contains quotes like:
> Between October 7 and November 14, a total of 9,500 takedown requests were sent from the Israeli authorities to social media platforms, of which 60 percent went to Meta with a reported 94% compliance rate.
This obviously appeals to a lot of HN users so they vote it up.
I don’t disagree with the moderation policies on HN. This story got unflagged by moderators eventually, and I agree with that decision. I don’t disagree that users should should be able to flag stories to death for whichever reasons. All I think here is that I find some of these reasons lame.
EDIT (a confession): I my self have flagged stories for very petty reasons some which would probably be considered lame by other HN users. So I’m actually a bit of a hypocrite here.
I'm pushing back against the conclusion based on effectively unverifiable or questionable assumptions, mostly. I think it mostly leads to just so stories about why something is or isn't ranked at whatever and most of them don't stand up to fairy gentle stickpoking.
If this was not of interest to the HN community it wouldn’t be voted to the front page.
This is one is at least easy and inaccurate - it takes very little to end up on the front page, at least briefly. You can't draw sensible conclusions about the hivemind from half a dozen votes.
HN has a bias which favors some sources, including the EFF, so that in it self makes it more likely to be voted to the front page.
That's an extra thing on top of the already inaccurate thing and I don't think it's particularly accurate itself. Plenty of other EFF stuff has been regularly criticized, downranked, occasionally even flagged.
From that point of view, it's impossible to know whether the rest of your theory of the trajectory of this story makes any sense since the premises themselves are faulty.
I’d like to understand why you find this unlikely. This is a very popular site, read by a large number of wealthy people. Its readership likely exceeds that of many mainstream news outlets. It is also fairly easy to maliciously influence - there’s just one stream of posts and the site is easily scriptable. If I ran a disinformation/psyop unit, it’d receive close attention. And yes you have to be a user to flag things here, that doesn’t absolve anyone of anything.
