Ask HN: Why can't we discuss Israel on HN?
I just had a post shot to #2 on the front page, only to have it flagged 5 minutes later: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46218640
It’s clearly relevant to this audience but it feels like there’s a very coordinated attack on any post that exposes Israeli crimes. Can we get some more moderation protection against brigading such posts? It doesn’t look good on HN that we’re essentially operating as an Israeli propaganda arm, censorship and all. I don’t think it’s the mods doing this, but they’re not stopping it.
10 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 28.9 ms ] threadThose weren't devices for personal - or civilian - use, after all.
The irony is that if there was less effort to turn HN into settler-colonial studies, the odd story would be better received. Instead there are a handful of accounts that post nothing but Israel leading to other readers, flagging them on-sight, knowing that nothing good will come of the "debate" that will feature in the comments. Just the same ppl rehashing the same arguments & positions until everyone exhausts themselves.
8 of your last 10 posts are about the middle east - why? The site name is hacker news not israel news and not palestine news.
If you want a more general answer about how we moderate this topic, try https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46227485 (from a few minutes ago). For older explanations, here's a sample:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403947 (June 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920732 (April 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 (March 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435324 (Feb 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435024 (Feb 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39237176 (Feb 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947003 (Jan 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38749162 (Dec 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38657527 (Dec 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27252765 (May 2021)
p.s. Your submission history https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=cramsession is obviously against the site guidelines because you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Normally we'd ban such an account or take submission privileges away from it. We haven't done that in your case and I'm not going to do it right now (it feels unsporting to bust people in an extraneous context, even if they've been breaking the rules badly). But you should understand that using HN only to prosecute a political cause, even a just one, is a violation of this site.