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Comment by formerly_proven | Hacker News Reader

This got buried impressively quickly from #1 to #80 in <5 minutes and less than half an hour to rank #160+ https://hnrankings.info/37689959/

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It's been very obvious for years now on hacker news that anything critical of Musk, especially something showing how his companies abuse workers, gets immediately buried if it gets close to the top.

I'm not sure if it's a group of power users flagging these articles or if someone with more administrative control does it, but there is no question that someone or multiple people work to suppress anything that shines a negative light on Musk.

Polite & reasonable idea: HN is flying no "Eternal Champion of Truth and Justice" banners on its masthead. Nor is it turning a tidy profit from all the advertising and annual membership fees here. Nor is it under any legal obligation to favor/disfavor people or ideas which many of the users here might like/dislike. Mr. Musk is very wealthy, and has an irrationally nasty side. Our Fair Leader Paul Graham may not care to be our "Pay any Legal Bill, Bear any Anger" meat shield when topics come up that could draw unwelcome attention in his direction.

I don't see any reason to believe that Tesla stories are specifically targeted for suppression by the HN software or mods/admin. The topic is highly polarized, lots of people always get downvoted and flagged in these discussions and this triggers automatic systems for flamewar suppression. Compare the rank trajectory of this discussion to other equally polarized and contentious discussions and you'll see that nothing special is going on here.

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