from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why is there such little political discourse on HN at the moment?

by creativenolo on 2/5/25, 11:41 PM with 36 comments

• by dang on 2/6/25, 5:44 AM

  There's quite a bit. Here's a recent sample:

  20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950790 - Feb 2025 (456 comments)

  The FAA’s Hiring Scandal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42944203 - Feb 2025 (537 comments)

  What's happening inside the NIH and NSF - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42940257 - Feb 2025 (1422 comments)

  GitHub reveals how software engineers are purging federal databases - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42936940 - Feb 2025 (308 comments)

  Payments crisis of 2025: Not “read only” access anymore - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42933219 - Feb 2025 (634 comments)

  The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910 - Feb 2025 (2901 comments)

  CDC: Unpublished manuscripts mentioning certain topics must be pulled or revised - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42905937 - Feb 2025 (714 comments)

  NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with executive orders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42886661 - Jan 2025 (485 comments)

  That's not a comprehensive list—there are quite a few others—but whether it's the right amount of not is something each HN user will have a different opinion about.

• by nico on 2/5/25, 11:47 PM

  Two main factors:

  * automatic downranks and delisting from FP, algorithmically by HN

  * manual flagging by the users

  @dang says there’s little to no manual moderation, but over the years the site has been tuned to only allow a little bit of political discussion

  Here are a few useful recent comments by @dang about it:

  * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949237

  * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011

• by ggm on 2/6/25, 12:03 AM

  I would say (despite my own personal engagement) that its about the right amount.

  I say despite.. because I judge engagement as a net negative much of the time: I prefer to read HN than write into it, and when I write, I judge myself harshly. I'm writing too much into the politics discussions.

• by breckenedge on 2/5/25, 11:44 PM

  Because they are off topic. See paragraph 2 here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

• by archagon on 2/6/25, 9:16 AM

  You should consider https://news.ycombinator.com/active the real front page.

• by red-iron-pine on 2/6/25, 2:49 PM

  Officially: no politics. That rule is not always enforced.

  Likely: the owners of ycombinator and hackernews have very specific views and connections to people in the tech industry with very specific views. Tech Bros are taking over, and ycombinator is squarely in the tech-bro camp -- that's the point of the site!

• by talldayo on 2/5/25, 11:42 PM

  Most of it is visible by enabling showdead on your profile

• by morpheos137 on 2/6/25, 12:08 AM

  I think Elon Musk is funny as hell. Snake oil salesmen attract each other. I am apolitical btw. It's just funny to me how people buy into politics tribes as meaningful when the reality is just groups of primates jockeying for power the same as for the last several million years, except now some blow hards have twitter.

• by anigbrowl on 2/5/25, 11:45 PM

  Flagging rings, basically.