They get flagged for a variety of reasons:

- They are considered "off-topic" as outlined by the HN guidelines (Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.)

- They are unlikely to result in "good faith" debates about the case given how politically charged the subject matter is

- The comments very quickly devolve into flamewars and/or trolling

I honestly don't think anyone is trying to "squash" debate about the case due to some personal agenda. It's just unlikely that the comment sections on those articles are going to be productive and/or result in anything new or interesting.

If they are flagged b/c they are unlikely to result in "good faith" debates, isn't that effectively the squashing of debate? Because the alternative is allowing the post, and down-voting individual, bad-faith comments.

I'd also note that there are a lot of articles about FB, privacy laws etc that arguably are about "politics" (if not distinct from "law").

It’s pretty obvious if you look at the guidelines. These posts are highly politicized, covered by other news sources extensively, and do not spark/sate intellectual curiosity.

HN is not a general interest forum, and honestly a Kyle Rittenhouse thread would be a shitshow of no actual value that would accomplish nothing.

there was some discussions, especially of the "pinch to zoom" stories; but there's guildelines against "current news" and it's still a totally flame bait topic.

I'm not sure where non-partisan discussion of the trail might be welcomed. The facts are still very much at issue in the media so its hard to even have a basis for discussion.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

It is because it is not the result they wanted. Here is another example:

Truth Social recently open sourced their mastodon fork [0] and that was immediately flagged and not covered by the news even though when they were found to have violated the license, that was heavily voted top of this website. With that, not only HN is already breaking their own guidelines, the bias could not be more clearer.

On another note, just notice how The Verge / Vox had heavily covered the trial and now after the verdict was out, they seemed to have become real quiet about it. It is simply because it is not the result they wanted.

Typical self defence isn't shocking to report is it?

[0] https://truthsocial.com/open-source

I don't know who "they" is, but HN moderation doesn't work that way.

We don't usually turn off flags on hot-blockbuster-controversy stories because those don't usually lead to intellectually curious conversation.

The other site is banned the same way other primarily-political sites are banned on HN, regardless of their politics.

Would you please stop using HN for ideological battle? We've asked you repeatedly and you're still doing it. If you keep it up, that is going to get you banned here. No, not out of political disagreement (or "them") - it would be just the same if your politics went the other way.

> had heavily covered the trial and now after the verdict was out, they seemed to have become real quiet about it

Imagine you're a news agency covering a trial. Once that trial ends, would you expect the number of articles you publish about it (a) go up, (b) go down, or (c) stay about the same?

I supported the verdict, and even I don't think that discussion belongs here.

Because they're off-topic?