What prize? Was it the Fields Medal or the Nobel Prize for Physics, or the Turing Award or something? If so, then that would be weird. But there are quite a few other prizes that would not be particularly relevant here, given the guidelines and the cultural norms.

Anyway, as far as I know, the HN mods manipulate the story list and rankings to try to keep the site focused on the things that the site is meant to focus on. Whether or not it is correct to call that "censorship" and whether it's a Good Thing or a Bad Thing is up for debate I guess.