I had recently submitted part 2 of a WSJ report about Jeffery Epstein's calendar including his meetings with Reid Hoffman. Part 1 was previously submitted to HN:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35762731" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35762731</a><p>My post quickly went to the front-page where it mysteriously vanished. A few hours later it got tagged with [flagged] but that was after it had been manually removed from the front-page:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35806599" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35806599</a><p>I know that YC does a lot of work with Hoffman so I was disappointed, but not surprised.<p>Fast forward to today and I see the official YC account actually <i>promoting</i> Hoffman:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ycombinator/status/1656675146588110850" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ycombinator/status/1656675146588110850</a><p>So I think it's worth noting that this site is complicit with covering for Epstein's network and has direct relationships with it. Worth keeping in mind when you see what is and isn't allowed on HN.<p>EDIT: And now <i>this</i> post has been [flagged]. This seems like something we need to talk about a lot more on and off this site.
Yikes. And re <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35906511" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35906511</a> - double yikes.<p>YC isn't censoring your posts, and they didn't fall in rank or get flagged because of "Epstein's network". It's just the same standard forces that every thread here is subject to.<p>HN users heavily flagged all of the posts that you've linked to—including the current post and all the others you posted today (which, please stop! it's both off topic and against the site guidelines, which ask you to email us at hn@ycombinator.com if you have a question about what's going on on the site. I only saw this thread by accident.)<p>In the case of <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35762731" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35762731</a>, it also set off the flamewar detector and got a standard penalty from a moderator that we apply to sensational and/or repetitive stories. Those penalties have nothing to do with Epstein or any other specific content - it's just a standard moderation function that helps clear space for the more intellectually interesting stories that HN is supposed to be for. If we didn't do this, the front page would be dominated by sensationalism, indignation, and rage - which would be a very different site.<p>In any case, the most important factor affecting your posts was user flags. Why would users flag your posts? They're obviously not all part of "Epstein's network". It's because they don't think this story is on topic for Hacker News.<p>HN actually had quite a few Epstein threads (see <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=epstein%20-barr%20comments%3E10&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...</a>), but the topic has long been running up against the fatigue of the community, which kicks in when something has been repeated a lot and isn't yielding interesting new information.<p><i>You</i> may feel it's interesting—I assume you do or you wouldn't have posted the articles—but the bulk of the community just doesn't agree with you about that. That's why your posts aren't getting traction—not because of HN mods and certainly not because of shadowy powers inside YC.<p>As for <a href="https://twitter.com/ycombinator/status/1656675146588110850" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ycombinator/status/1656675146588110850</a> - that's just a staffer doing their job, posting content about YC funded startups, and I doubt they have the slightest idea about Epstein associations.