Given that previous comments by that user are dead, it seems more like a case of "banned user makes comment on article, (possibly: third user vouches for comment), another user considers said comment off-topic and comments on it". Nothing indicates a user was banned for this.
I think it's unrelated to politics. It looks like a too general anti-Googe comment that is not related to the article, and these kind of comments are usually downvoted here.
We don't ban people for that reason or anything close to it, nor does this to do with the current one-week break from political stories.
We ban people when they repeatedly post uncivil, unsubstantive comments and ignore our requests to stop. As happened here. We also post publicly in most cases that we do that, so people who want to understand how this site operates can do so.
We also implemented a feature called vouching so that even banned users can have their comments restored when they post comments that community members consider valuable. As happened here. So I think HN is functioning as intended in this case.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 14.5 ms ] threadWe ban people when they repeatedly post uncivil, unsubstantive comments and ignore our requests to stop. As happened here. We also post publicly in most cases that we do that, so people who want to understand how this site operates can do so.
We also implemented a feature called vouching so that even banned users can have their comments restored when they post comments that community members consider valuable. As happened here. So I think HN is functioning as intended in this case.