This post went from mid 20s on the front page to 37 on 2nd page in a matter of less than 5 minutes. What would cause that? Total points didn't go down. It isn't flagged.
“Of these four interventions (deleting, killing, burying, and downweighting), the only one that moderators do frequently is downweighting. We downweight posts in response to things that go against the site guidelines, such as when a submission is unsubstantive, baity or sensational. Typically such posts remain on the front page, just at a lower rank.”
You're paranoid. Do you have any evidence whatsoever of this? What is the "YC ethos," and why do you get to define it? This story has nothing to do with tech in any way, it's an opinion piece, and it's about Trump. Instant flag as political bait.
It probably hasn't had enough flags to be marked as "flagged", but likely it has been flagged by several users. IIRC, flags below the threshold still act as downranks, but they don't kill the post until there are enough flags.
There is clearly an ongoing manipulation going on on HN and outgunning the moderation (if moderation itself is not compromised by a MAGA insider). Many perfectly factual, relevant stories about the Trump administration are flagged to oblivion; same with comments.
Most of these sorts of submissions just lead to Reddit-tier shit posting and many are interested in HN _not_ becoming _yet another_ front in the political flame wars.
There isn’t some secret cabal of MAGA types censoring you.
>many are interested in HN _not_ becoming _yet another_ front in the political flame wars.
Thanks for deciding that without asking.
Stories about the Therac-25 - badly using a computer to control a radiation machine - are fine and often end on the front page. It killed 6 people.
Stories about DOGE - badly using computers, big data, AI to save "trillions" of USD - are apparently not fine. DOGE is killing tens of thousands of people, put Musk is close to Trump, so talking about it is "political" and therefore there is no interest in showing on the front page that DOGE's claims are wrong by several orders of magnitude.
Stories about Theranos - badly using computers to automate lab diagnostics - used to be fine. We talked at length about how Elizabeth Holmes was hailed as a genius, then how fishy it seemed, then the whistleblowers came and blew the lid off the deception that was going on. Holmes was condemned and sent to detention.
Will we be forbidden to talk about Theranos once she gets her pardon from Trump[0]? Because it would be "political"?
Are we forbidden to talk about Trevor Milton - co-founder and CEO of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola Motors, pardoned in March - was a fraudster[1], when he will inevitably launch a new startup? Will any mention of it be flagged because "we don't want no political flame wars"?
That’s exactly it. People are tired of every forum on the internet being turned into a soap box for whatever political cause-du-jour is in vogue that week. People are equally tired of the melodrama that comes with it (“are we forbidden to talk about xyz politically charged topics that have repeated ad nausuem for a decade”).
Talk about it all you want. Don’t be surprised when people start rolling their eyes at you like we roll our eyes at the weird uncle who always ruins family gatherings by bringing up politics at the dinner table.
I think the issue is both-sides-ism here. This article is about the Fed illegally losing it's political independence, something that could trigger terrible inflation and a recession. That's quite a bit different than Biden falling off his bicycle. I would like to humbly suggest that the US slip-sliding into fascism is something hackers should be concerned about, worthy of discussion and debate. Pushing it down the memory hole seems unworthy of this site.
This is the same tired melodramatic trope that’s played out every time anyone even remotely to the right wins an election in the United States.
It should be no surprise that many people, myself included, aren’t interested in “discussion and debate” that amounts to “anyone who is disagrees with me is cartoonishly evil”.
There were also many factual comments and stories that cast the Biden administration in a negative light that got similarly flagged and downvoted to oblivion.
I think a lot of people don’t come here for politics and would like to filter some of the noise out.
That's exactly right. Many of us are "silent flaggers" because the second we attempt to mention this, the rabid knee-jerk reactions from those stuck in the left vs. right dichotomy will destroy one's karma.
It’s funny your comment history says otherwise. In fact you engage defensively about these posts when they support your political view. Seems like you flag content that doesn’t align with your views
> Even if proven, the administration’s claim — that Cook violated the law before her time in office by designating two different homes as her primary residence when applying for mortgages — probably wouldn’t meet the test.
Seriously that's the allegation? When I heard false information on a mortgage I assumed inflated income or assets or concealing the source of a downpayment. Is this even material? Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both?
One home is always the "primary residence" for legal purposes. You can have and live in as many homes as you want, but only one counts as your primary residence.
That said, the allegation is just that, an allegation. Further, it's coming from people who are highly motivated to exaggerate or lie.
You can have two homes and split your time in both but in the end if you want these kinds of finance benefits you can only claim one home as your primary and actually live there most of the time otherwise you are committing fraud. The lender's risk models and expected loan lifetimes are probably radically different if a property is going to be used as someone's primary residence versus an often-vacant vacation home versus a rental property. They'll have offered a different rate and qualification requirements if she said it was going to be a rental apartment.
It is still a pretty massive pot meet kettle argument though. Trump's a convicted fraudster. Let's remove everyone who has committed fraud from office. Can we add Ken Paxton to the list with Trump as well? Oh wait, not my guys...
I was talking with a neighbor raging about how corrupt Lisa Cook is and how these people just think they should get away with anything and how these people need to be put in prison for a long time. After pointing out Ken Paxton (someone they hope runs for Congress) claimed three houses as primary residences, well, that's different see...
I’m all for the law being applied equally to everyone no matter which political party they affiliate with. To be honest it’s ridiculous that we all just accept that politicians get to play by a different set of rules and that your side is corrupt, but it’s different when my side does it.
Politicians want to control the Fed so they can drop interest rates and cause a short-term economic and stock market boom, followed by really bad things in the long-term.
How are markets supposed to react to that?
If markets are going to go up, and then down, do you buy or sell?
If Trump is going to take over the Fed, the smart move is to buy. If there's going to be a huge party before the world ends, you go to the party.
But the cost of borrowing will go through the roof because the market knows the bad stuff will happen. So nobody is going to buy treasuries without a significant increase in return.
Yes, the cost of borrowing for the government will go through the roof.
The Fed will drop interest rates, this will make borrowing easy, people in the economy can get easy money. Inflation will rise, which makes borrowing even easier, because any debt is just inflated away. People will want to hold assets that can't be devalued by inflation, which means people will not want to hold government bonds unless the US pays a high interest rate on those bonds, and when the US government pays a high interest rate on its bonds.
So, we would expect the stock market to increase temporarily, and people will want to buy that increase. The long-term bond market would tank because people would know nobody will want to hold US bonds. Overall it would be a very schizophrenic market.
One of Trump's primary objectives is destruction of the Fed, which is what gives the US Dollar status as the world reserve currency. His objective is directly aligned with Putin's, which should come as no surprise. They both realize that the very source of the US's power is the Federal Reserve. Don't take his actions as misguided - they are malevolent and intentional, without a doubt.
Agreed. Again I ask: How different are his actions from the actions of someone trying for the complete destruction of the United States of America as a world power?
Trump is going to screw around trying to rig markets to advantage his positions and his desire for "line go up", and accidentally expose that they're actually already rigged and incredibly fragile (because of all the measures taken to hide that rigging).
Yup. Boomers be the death of all. So much of what's been done over the past 5 years-ish has been because a stock market crash would devastate the largest voting bloc at the worst possible moment; there would be no "just wait for the recovery." Ironically, many of those measures have made any potential crash much, much worse. Not just in terms of a general collapse, but with disproportionate impacts because of the nature of the interventions.
Don't look into what's actually in those retirement funds.
Obviously Trump wants more control over the Fed, but the backlash against this is also obviously propaganda. If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. All of the reporting saying that the firing isn't being done in the proper manner is just hiding behind technicalities. At some point people have to accept that throwing out all laws so your side "wins" just benefits wannabe-dictators, and I don't see many of those on the left.
In my country, she would be put on leave, then investigated, then tried, then let go, then hidden away if the felony was big or forgotten if it was minor (because white collar crime almost always pays, it's better to go hard).
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion.
When Al Franken resigns because of allegations of sexual misconduct, it proves Democrats are evil. When Donald Trump is convicted of dozens of felonies, it proves Republicans are victims of politically motivated witch hunts. It shouldn't be a controversial opinion that being a felon should disqualify you from public service, but because of that very opinion, labeling someone as a felon as been weaponized to the point where the label can be dismissed by supporters
It is not proven. Trump is merely alleging - it is a manufactured allegation.
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything
Apply the same logic to the 34 count felon in the office of the President. Until you apply the harshest standard to the President, none of your other complaints hold any value.
Big if, especially since she hasn't been formally charged with anything. In any case, even if she has, Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable. It would be like a mayor attempting to fire a private security guard that's contracted with the city, pending an investigation.
A couple of points: if it were a LEO, they would generally be put on leave, not fired. But, again, officer of a private entity (which the Fed) is; the mayor/president's ability to influence that entity's activity ends at the contracts/relevant statutes's stipulations - and if there's a dispute, it gets hashed out in civil court. Of course, if a felony has been committed, one could just wait for the conviction, which would likely lead to termination by one of several exigencies.
This post went from mid 20s on the front page to 37 on 2nd page in a matter of less than 5 minutes. What would cause that? Total points didn't go down. It isn't flagged.
Moderators sometimes demote submissions they deem shouldn’t be ranked that high. From https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html:
“Of these four interventions (deleting, killing, burying, and downweighting), the only one that moderators do frequently is downweighting. We downweight posts in response to things that go against the site guidelines, such as when a submission is unsubstantive, baity or sensational. Typically such posts remain on the front page, just at a lower rank.”
This seems to have gotten a bit out of control. I’m not sure who the moderators are but they now appear to be acting against YC ethos
You're paranoid. Do you have any evidence whatsoever of this? What is the "YC ethos," and why do you get to define it? This story has nothing to do with tech in any way, it's an opinion piece, and it's about Trump. Instant flag as political bait.
There is no solid evidence because there is no accountability for mod actions on this site.
It probably hasn't had enough flags to be marked as "flagged", but likely it has been flagged by several users. IIRC, flags below the threshold still act as downranks, but they don't kill the post until there are enough flags.
Other posts going up? HN is very active in the morning.
There is clearly an ongoing manipulation going on on HN and outgunning the moderation (if moderation itself is not compromised by a MAGA insider). Many perfectly factual, relevant stories about the Trump administration are flagged to oblivion; same with comments.
My personal encounter with the situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45036597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44939626
Most of these sorts of submissions just lead to Reddit-tier shit posting and many are interested in HN _not_ becoming _yet another_ front in the political flame wars.
There isn’t some secret cabal of MAGA types censoring you.
It's probably due to flagging for both reasons.
I can speak from personal experience, this site is not a bastion of MAGA beliefs.
>many are interested in HN _not_ becoming _yet another_ front in the political flame wars.
Thanks for deciding that without asking.
Stories about the Therac-25 - badly using a computer to control a radiation machine - are fine and often end on the front page. It killed 6 people.
Stories about DOGE - badly using computers, big data, AI to save "trillions" of USD - are apparently not fine. DOGE is killing tens of thousands of people, put Musk is close to Trump, so talking about it is "political" and therefore there is no interest in showing on the front page that DOGE's claims are wrong by several orders of magnitude.
Stories about Theranos - badly using computers to automate lab diagnostics - used to be fine. We talked at length about how Elizabeth Holmes was hailed as a genius, then how fishy it seemed, then the whistleblowers came and blew the lid off the deception that was going on. Holmes was condemned and sent to detention.
Will we be forbidden to talk about Theranos once she gets her pardon from Trump[0]? Because it would be "political"?
Are we forbidden to talk about Trevor Milton - co-founder and CEO of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola Motors, pardoned in March - was a fraudster[1], when he will inevitably launch a new startup? Will any mention of it be flagged because "we don't want no political flame wars"?
[0]https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/06/27/310688... [1]https://www.axios.com/2025/03/31/trump-pardons-bitmex-crypto...
That’s exactly it. People are tired of every forum on the internet being turned into a soap box for whatever political cause-du-jour is in vogue that week. People are equally tired of the melodrama that comes with it (“are we forbidden to talk about xyz politically charged topics that have repeated ad nausuem for a decade”).
Talk about it all you want. Don’t be surprised when people start rolling their eyes at you like we roll our eyes at the weird uncle who always ruins family gatherings by bringing up politics at the dinner table.
I think the issue is both-sides-ism here. This article is about the Fed illegally losing it's political independence, something that could trigger terrible inflation and a recession. That's quite a bit different than Biden falling off his bicycle. I would like to humbly suggest that the US slip-sliding into fascism is something hackers should be concerned about, worthy of discussion and debate. Pushing it down the memory hole seems unworthy of this site.
“Slip-sliding into fascism”? Please.
This is the same tired melodramatic trope that’s played out every time anyone even remotely to the right wins an election in the United States.
It should be no surprise that many people, myself included, aren’t interested in “discussion and debate” that amounts to “anyone who is disagrees with me is cartoonishly evil”.
There were also many factual comments and stories that cast the Biden administration in a negative light that got similarly flagged and downvoted to oblivion.
I think a lot of people don’t come here for politics and would like to filter some of the noise out.
That's exactly right. Many of us are "silent flaggers" because the second we attempt to mention this, the rabid knee-jerk reactions from those stuck in the left vs. right dichotomy will destroy one's karma.
i want nothing political here. its never interesting at all. the deranged want to inject politics everywhere
It’s funny your comment history says otherwise. In fact you engage defensively about these posts when they support your political view. Seems like you flag content that doesn’t align with your views
0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837358
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43823018
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43499550
There are much more important pop science articles that need the well deserved publicity. Nothing to see here.
https://archive.is/CjIdE
The number of things ordinary people consider to be risks, but are nevertheless not priced in by the market, is rather high right now.
> Even if proven, the administration’s claim — that Cook violated the law before her time in office by designating two different homes as her primary residence when applying for mortgages — probably wouldn’t meet the test.
Seriously that's the allegation? When I heard false information on a mortgage I assumed inflated income or assets or concealing the source of a downpayment. Is this even material? Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both?
> Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both?
One home is always the "primary residence" for legal purposes. You can have and live in as many homes as you want, but only one counts as your primary residence.
That said, the allegation is just that, an allegation. Further, it's coming from people who are highly motivated to exaggerate or lie.
> Seriously that's the allegation?
3 strikes: Black. Woman. Appointed by Biden.
You can have two homes and split your time in both but in the end if you want these kinds of finance benefits you can only claim one home as your primary and actually live there most of the time otherwise you are committing fraud. The lender's risk models and expected loan lifetimes are probably radically different if a property is going to be used as someone's primary residence versus an often-vacant vacation home versus a rental property. They'll have offered a different rate and qualification requirements if she said it was going to be a rental apartment.
It is still a pretty massive pot meet kettle argument though. Trump's a convicted fraudster. Let's remove everyone who has committed fraud from office. Can we add Ken Paxton to the list with Trump as well? Oh wait, not my guys...
I was talking with a neighbor raging about how corrupt Lisa Cook is and how these people just think they should get away with anything and how these people need to be put in prison for a long time. After pointing out Ken Paxton (someone they hope runs for Congress) claimed three houses as primary residences, well, that's different see...
I’m all for the law being applied equally to everyone no matter which political party they affiliate with. To be honest it’s ridiculous that we all just accept that politicians get to play by a different set of rules and that your side is corrupt, but it’s different when my side does it.
Politicians want to control the Fed so they can drop interest rates and cause a short-term economic and stock market boom, followed by really bad things in the long-term.
How are markets supposed to react to that?
If markets are going to go up, and then down, do you buy or sell?
If Trump is going to take over the Fed, the smart move is to buy. If there's going to be a huge party before the world ends, you go to the party.
But the cost of borrowing will go through the roof because the market knows the bad stuff will happen. So nobody is going to buy treasuries without a significant increase in return.
Yes, the cost of borrowing for the government will go through the roof.
The Fed will drop interest rates, this will make borrowing easy, people in the economy can get easy money. Inflation will rise, which makes borrowing even easier, because any debt is just inflated away. People will want to hold assets that can't be devalued by inflation, which means people will not want to hold government bonds unless the US pays a high interest rate on those bonds, and when the US government pays a high interest rate on its bonds.
So, we would expect the stock market to increase temporarily, and people will want to buy that increase. The long-term bond market would tank because people would know nobody will want to hold US bonds. Overall it would be a very schizophrenic market.
Audit the fed?
The point of GP is that market-external mechanisms like that will only affect the price when they seem likely to happen.
I don't know what you mean. What would an audit check for? What would be the goals of an audit?
The downvote because you don't understand is a bit silly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_A...
One of Trump's primary objectives is destruction of the Fed, which is what gives the US Dollar status as the world reserve currency. His objective is directly aligned with Putin's, which should come as no surprise. They both realize that the very source of the US's power is the Federal Reserve. Don't take his actions as misguided - they are malevolent and intentional, without a doubt.
Agreed. Again I ask: How different are his actions from the actions of someone trying for the complete destruction of the United States of America as a world power?
"Muh Russia".
C'mon, that's such a cheap take. The Fed has done nothing but destroy the value of the dollar since its founding in 1913.
Trump is going to screw around trying to rig markets to advantage his positions and his desire for "line go up", and accidentally expose that they're actually already rigged and incredibly fragile (because of all the measures taken to hide that rigging).
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
I suppose we could paraphrase that by changing "salary" to "retirement" or "national economic health".
>Retirement
Yup. Boomers be the death of all. So much of what's been done over the past 5 years-ish has been because a stock market crash would devastate the largest voting bloc at the worst possible moment; there would be no "just wait for the recovery." Ironically, many of those measures have made any potential crash much, much worse. Not just in terms of a general collapse, but with disproportionate impacts because of the nature of the interventions.
Don't look into what's actually in those retirement funds.
Obviously Trump wants more control over the Fed, but the backlash against this is also obviously propaganda. If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. All of the reporting saying that the firing isn't being done in the proper manner is just hiding behind technicalities. At some point people have to accept that throwing out all laws so your side "wins" just benefits wannabe-dictators, and I don't see many of those on the left.
“If she committed a felony…”
This has been asserted but not proven to be true.
“…she shouldn't be in charge of anything.“
Even if sensible, this is clearly not a heuristic that is being applied universally.
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion.
Given the players involved, that honestly seems to be quite controversial.
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything.
She should be the POTUS if she's really a felon.
I heard "lawfare" a lot when allegations against prominent Republicans were proven in court.
How is due process a technicality?
In my country, she would be put on leave, then investigated, then tried, then let go, then hidden away if the felony was big or forgotten if it was minor (because white collar crime almost always pays, it's better to go hard).
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion.
When Al Franken resigns because of allegations of sexual misconduct, it proves Democrats are evil. When Donald Trump is convicted of dozens of felonies, it proves Republicans are victims of politically motivated witch hunts. It shouldn't be a controversial opinion that being a felon should disqualify you from public service, but because of that very opinion, labeling someone as a felon as been weaponized to the point where the label can be dismissed by supporters
"If" being a keyword here.
> If she committed a felony,
It is not proven. Trump is merely alleging - it is a manufactured allegation.
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything
Apply the same logic to the 34 count felon in the office of the President. Until you apply the harshest standard to the President, none of your other complaints hold any value.
>If she committed a felony
Big if, especially since she hasn't been formally charged with anything. In any case, even if she has, Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable. It would be like a mayor attempting to fire a private security guard that's contracted with the city, pending an investigation.
A couple of points: if it were a LEO, they would generally be put on leave, not fired. But, again, officer of a private entity (which the Fed) is; the mayor/president's ability to influence that entity's activity ends at the contracts/relevant statutes's stipulations - and if there's a dispute, it gets hashed out in civil court. Of course, if a felony has been committed, one could just wait for the conviction, which would likely lead to termination by one of several exigencies.
But, again, big if.
AI, grounded in high-quality data, could run the Fed more effectively. We often over-defer to officials despite a mixed record on inflation control.
> grounded in high-quality data
Good thing we're replacing BLS staff with sycophants!