And of course it's flagged. Because the use of technology built from companies funded by VC has nothing to do with Hacker News and Ycombinator.
Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.
The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.
Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.
After having been here a long time and paid close attention to what gets flagged: They're not a joke. They're collaborators. The wave of flags around everything Thiel and Musk and Israel in the last year has been extraordinarily disturbing, and the rationalizations for it have been tissue thin.
When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.
Moderators are ultimately responsible for moderation. The moderation system is failing when it comes to technology issues with a political tint. (In contrast, it has been pretty good with rage bait foreign policy stuff. Genuinely good discussions around quality content.)
If folks are bandwagon flagging content with a consistent bias, the system should shadow ban their flags for a while.
For a more proactive approach, browse https://news.ycombinator.com/active to catch these kinds of stories. As far as I know, it ignores flags completely.
> for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged
I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.
I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.
Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.
Yeah, that's some Gestapo level business... or since they don't like that word, Stasi.
As in, there were loads of people in the DDR (East Germany, 1949-1989) whose job it was to read people's personal mail, along with the network of neighborhood snitches.
All those out of work programmers here's an opprotunity to create some disruption, pad your resume, and possibly create a job.
While we still have a free internet, it would be great to see efforts to create technology to replace centralized social media, cloud-tech, and businesses.
We need to make it so fucking hard for the gov, advertisers to get access to your data that it very expensive to maintain a system like this. And please please please do not work for or lend talent these jerks!
The network effect and the funding is the hard part. People want to be on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram because they spend billions hosting images for free and they have a million para social friends there
Any competitor will have to compete not on technical competence or privacy, but on "can I upload lots of HD video?" and "are my favorite celebrities there?"
Offramps to let people migrate easier, syndication to let people leave and still do POSSE, a solution to the problem that all free image hosting eventually attracts CSAM, those are difficult problems
They really should just create "report your fellow users" snitching website.
Oh, I should make such a website and sell it to the Stasi, I'm going to be rich!
Easier would be to hint at Zuck that Trump wants that feature built-in on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, and the subservient billionaire will get right on it.
With the right sorts of access given by companies seeking to avoid the ire of the administration, I'm pretty sure even private profiles could be considered to be public.
I fully expect to see them take on more and more roles that e.g. the FBI traditionally performed. The strategy appears to be to expand, empower, and control them as the "MAGA law enforcement agency" and bypass all the rest, either seconding them to ICE or diminishing them to a tiny role.
Look to see them expand to general "counter-terrorism" enforcement in the near future, with only the barest veneer (if that) of its having anything to do with immigration enforcement. After all, if you can stop practically anyone on baseless suspicion of being in the country illegally (see: recent precedent that apparently "they looked foreign" is enough) then charge them with whatever after-the-fact even if they turned out to be legal residents or citizens, that sure looks like a neat little work-around for due process. Or you can just "accidentally" disappear them to El Salvador....
I think about the minor plot point of the President having dissolved the FBI, in the film Civil War, a lot more this year than I ever thought I would when I watched that movie the first time.
A force with significant capability to surveil US citizens.
> Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests. [...] The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok. [...]
> They would also be armed with powerful commercial databases such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, which knit together property records, phone bills, utilities, vehicle registrations, and other personal details into searchable files.
Which capability has been iteratively built out for decades across multiple administrations against the consistent professional recommendation and public outcry of engineers, civil rights advocates, and some citizenry, and has at last landed in the malicious hands we've been warning about.
Nothing here is either surprising or unpredicted. It's just ugly because it's finally happening.
And just in case people scrolling by haven't heard about the atrocities ICE has committed in Chicago, they were, quite literally, zip-tying naked children. They raided a residential building, detained multiple US citizens, wasted tax payer money, all to arrest a group of people who are statistically less violent than actual citizens.
And if anyone is still under the illusion that this is about "law enforcement" or "immigration", this should be a giant waving red flag that it's about racism and authoritarian control.
It'll be interesting to see how the Democrats use this ramped-up and militarized ICE when they're next in power. I don't imagine they'll be disbanding it.
They've been saying 11 million for at least a couple decades that I can remember. It's probably a lot higher now, but no one in a position to find out has ever wanted to know.
A key lesson is that there is always a large proportion of the population which will cheer this kind of action.
You can't lay blame on the people doing this and feel like you're done. Unfortunately they're always going to exist. You have to lay blame on the people defending against them. They failed in their defense and here we are.
The difficulty in stopping it scales with how long you let it fester.
Last time it was a world war which could have threatened extinction.
We're still in the phase where people are hoping doing nothing will make it all better or denying outright the threat.
Liberals and conservatives don't split support in the country 50/50.
It's more like 20/20 and then that apathetic majority who can't be bothered to care enough to even vote is the rest. Given the nature of liberal and conservative policies, we can all probably see why many of them would be apathetic if we're being honest. But I'm sure those people aren't cheering. They're moreso saying, "See. I told ya so." To any friends and family who thought Trump would be any different. Probably gleefully pointing out to friends who are liberal or conservative that now things are worse.
For that "apathetic majority", they probably now feel vindicated in their decision not to vote and their sense of hopelessness.
The question is when in this timeline will you get arrested or at least detained for questioning for it? We’re already at the point where you might get fired or deported for it.
So if they are using information people freely share to social media sites as the seeds for their investigatory and enforcement actions it follows that there is a simple trick people can employ or minimize their effectiveness.
Nationwide secret police with paramilitary capabilities only answerable to a few people in the executive branch? Completely unconstitutional, violating all the clauses on warrantless searches, detention without trial, etc.?
Looks like ICE should be abolished and its entire staff fired, just have INS take over all immigration issues.
Given how many accounts online are bots or anonymous, will they ever be able to shake out which real people which personas belong to? Or will it be a case of "we said this is you, so that makes it you"?
The latter. Checking for identity won't matter to ICE. They already break into apartment buildings without warrants and arrest children and US citizens. There's 0 logical reason to believe ICE will do anything in good faith considering their past and current behavior as well as by the words of Trump himself.
Yes, they’ll use bots to detect the bots. I guarantee it’s not hard to detect outliers (bots) via many different heuristics at this point. It’s going to turn into a perpetual game of whack a mole just like SEO and ad blocking.
There are already attribution technologies that are reliable and definitive. There's no real technical reason that they wouldn't have the capability to directly attribute accounts.
Now..
is any of that gonna stop John or Joan Q Public who has a running disagreement with their asian or hispanic neighbor from calling in a "tip"? Probably not.
Will that tip result in an automated digital proctology exam that may land them, or people they may have been communicating with (like grandma), in ICE custody?
I'm thinking probably so.
The danger here is not really technology. The danger here is people. They are essentially automating the "snitch-to-detainment" pipeline.
Readit News
Dang and company are such a joke (yes, that's a direct violation of the rules, maybe it'll get their attention) for allowing these sorts of stories to be flagged.
The idea that this is only about "politics" or it's "controversial" and thus should be hidden from view is such a copout. These are the important stories that should absolutely be discussed in a place like this.
Save your breath in replying: "well, it might make people upset and we want to have nice conversations here." And whatever other platitudes arguing for censorship of obviously important topics that deal directly with the technology, companies and employess that frequent this site.
When people call it out they tend to quickly catch bans for minor slights (plausible deniability). Start working on some alts with a VPN now if you want to keep a voice here.
If you believe a story shouldn't have been flagged, email mods at hn@ycombinator.com.
(Mods also don't see mentions of their names, email is how you attract moderators' attention.)
Moderators are ultimately responsible for moderation. The moderation system is failing when it comes to technology issues with a political tint. (In contrast, it has been pretty good with rage bait foreign policy stuff. Genuinely good discussions around quality content.)
If folks are bandwagon flagging content with a consistent bias, the system should shadow ban their flags for a while.
I believe, from reading responses on other stories, that they need to manually do something to prevent a story being flagged. So there's no allowing, it just happens.
I don't disagree with you though. I haven't found "flagged" a good indicator on whether a story is interesting or has worthwhile discussion in it. It's just "some small number of people don't want this link here". It would be nice if instead people put their energy into upvoting the stories they do like.
Or add a downvote instead of flag so we actually have a consensus.
This. A thousand times this.
Deleted Comment
As in, there were loads of people in the DDR (East Germany, 1949-1989) whose job it was to read people's personal mail, along with the network of neighborhood snitches.
While we still have a free internet, it would be great to see efforts to create technology to replace centralized social media, cloud-tech, and businesses.
We need to make it so fucking hard for the gov, advertisers to get access to your data that it very expensive to maintain a system like this. And please please please do not work for or lend talent these jerks!
Any competitor will have to compete not on technical competence or privacy, but on "can I upload lots of HD video?" and "are my favorite celebrities there?"
Offramps to let people migrate easier, syndication to let people leave and still do POSSE, a solution to the problem that all free image hosting eventually attracts CSAM, those are difficult problems
https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
Anyone who builds what they describe there can expect it to take off faster than ever.
In case you missed it, check out the movie _The Lives of Others_.
Oh, I should make such a website and sell it to the Stasi, I'm going to be rich!
Easier would be to hint at Zuck that Trump wants that feature built-in on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, and the subservient billionaire will get right on it.
Deleted Comment
With the right sorts of access given by companies seeking to avoid the ire of the administration, I'm pretty sure even private profiles could be considered to be public.
Look to see them expand to general "counter-terrorism" enforcement in the near future, with only the barest veneer (if that) of its having anything to do with immigration enforcement. After all, if you can stop practically anyone on baseless suspicion of being in the country illegally (see: recent precedent that apparently "they looked foreign" is enough) then charge them with whatever after-the-fact even if they turned out to be legal residents or citizens, that sure looks like a neat little work-around for due process. Or you can just "accidentally" disappear them to El Salvador....
I think about the minor plot point of the President having dissolved the FBI, in the film Civil War, a lot more this year than I ever thought I would when I watched that movie the first time.
> Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests. [...] The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok. [...]
> They would also be armed with powerful commercial databases such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, which knit together property records, phone bills, utilities, vehicle registrations, and other personal details into searchable files.
Nothing here is either surprising or unpredicted. It's just ugly because it's finally happening.
And if anyone is still under the illusion that this is about "law enforcement" or "immigration", this should be a giant waving red flag that it's about racism and authoritarian control.
I admire your optimism.
I thought there were like 1 million max.
Dead Comment
You can't lay blame on the people doing this and feel like you're done. Unfortunately they're always going to exist. You have to lay blame on the people defending against them. They failed in their defense and here we are.
The difficulty in stopping it scales with how long you let it fester.
Last time it was a world war which could have threatened extinction.
We're still in the phase where people are hoping doing nothing will make it all better or denying outright the threat.
It's more like 20/20 and then that apathetic majority who can't be bothered to care enough to even vote is the rest. Given the nature of liberal and conservative policies, we can all probably see why many of them would be apathetic if we're being honest. But I'm sure those people aren't cheering. They're moreso saying, "See. I told ya so." To any friends and family who thought Trump would be any different. Probably gleefully pointing out to friends who are liberal or conservative that now things are worse.
For that "apathetic majority", they probably now feel vindicated in their decision not to vote and their sense of hopelessness.
And that's sad.
2025: Get downvoted on HN for comparing Charlie Kirk to Horst Wessel
2026: Get upvoted for it
2027: Get banned for it
2028: No voting allowed, here or anywhere else
https://signal.org/download/
Looks like ICE should be abolished and its entire staff fired, just have INS take over all immigration issues.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-...
Now..
is any of that gonna stop John or Joan Q Public who has a running disagreement with their asian or hispanic neighbor from calling in a "tip"? Probably not.
Will that tip result in an automated digital proctology exam that may land them, or people they may have been communicating with (like grandma), in ICE custody?
I'm thinking probably so.
The danger here is not really technology. The danger here is people. They are essentially automating the "snitch-to-detainment" pipeline.
Gonna stop you right there and ask you to back that up. It's not plausible. Especially not if people are actively trying to mess up the "attribution".