I’m not sure the flagging happened due to controversy. That piece of news was posted a bunch of times, including one which has over three times as many points and over six times as many comments:
The link in question may have been flagged for there already being other discussions in place. People can “vouch” a topic to unflag it. Only moderators can mark something as a dupe.
> The site has voting for a reason - just let downvoted topics slide down, don't remove them entirely.
You cannot downvote topics, only comments. This looks to be by design and is covered in the FAQ:
1 comment
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 10.3 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39712618
Another has almost as many points, more comments, and was marked as duplicate:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39715161
Add to that at even more duplicates:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39716863
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39716507
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39713164
The link in question may have been flagged for there already being other discussions in place. People can “vouch” a topic to unflag it. Only moderators can mark something as a dupe.
> The site has voting for a reason - just let downvoted topics slide down, don't remove them entirely.
You cannot downvote topics, only comments. This looks to be by design and is covered in the FAQ:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html