Edit: Fscking called it (http://sli.mg/HqLVu2). Just like LambdaConf. (https://twitter.com/antispamuel/status/719907750097129473). War is peace, excluding people is inclusivity and stomping out wrongthink is welcoming.
When a post like this is flagged, it's most often because users who fall on both sides of the relevant issue feel that it doesn't belong on HN.
Either way, every time I've seen it happen, the thread is young and still rising, so this flagging mechanism cannot possibly represent a meaningful slice of the HN readership, who are prevented from finding out.
That sounds like plain old censorship and information control to me, and I'm pretty sure the moderators know it.