These stories aren't being deleted—there was quite a large thread (in fact maybe two large threads?) about precisely that, within the last couple weeks. I'll see if I can dig up the links, or maybe someone else remembers?
The problem isn't that the major stories are deleted; it's that even if a story spends hours on the front page, the set of users who actually see it still has measure zero [1]. Then inevitably a few of the rest assume that they didn't see it because it was sinisterly suppressed, whether by mods or user flags.
Where this ends up getting us is the 'nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded' theory of HN threads! [2] It's always been like this—it's baked into the fundamentals of how HN works (the limited frontpage space, the dynamics of the internet, the fact that most people don't use HN Search). It's just showing up more intensely these days because the times are more intense and we've been in a tsunami phase for a few months now.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
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Edit: I found these ones. Admittedly most weren't on the frontpage for all that long:
EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43680556 - April 2025 (46 comments)
How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43630624 - April 2025 (338 comments)
Cell Phone OPSEC for Border Crossings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43555597 - April 2025 (36 comments)
How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43480730 - March 2025 (98 comments)
Is it safe to travel to the United States with your phone? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43452474 - March 2025 (164 comments)
EFF Border Search Pocket Guide - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43441895 - March 2025 (32 comments)
Ask HN: Are you afraid to travel to US to tech conferences? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422350 - March 2025 (198 comments)
I meant "deleted" from by being flagged, which is a deletion from the lurkers. And yes.. absolutely I have seen some of these stories get through the gauntlet.
I am really not complaining about moderation, just attempting to appeal to the users who I have assumed are doing the flagging, in general.
They're probably doing some of the flagging because they disagree (I think correctly) with a characterization of HN in which HN can be "highly detrimental to the HN user base’s understanding of what is happening". HN has newsy stuff but its purpose is not really news - there are much better sites for that. The 'News' in 'Hacker News' is more like the 'News' in Huey Lewis & The News.
The problem is capture. How many platforms for news and discussing news are not completely captured by people with an agenda of personal power?
You are funding and dang is running a forum for curiosity while the basis for curiosity is under attack.
Your dilemma is to support free inquiry and a platform for curiosity resulting in you being an enemy of the administration or to obey their wishes in order to protect yourself and your assets. What happens when everyone in every position of power rationally protects themselves in the short term by selling out their values in the long term, when they bury their head in the sand and stay in denial, or they run away to another safer country?
How many of your peers have any form of integrity? How many of them wouldn't sell out their mother for a dollar? How many of them fund and participate in building a world anyone would want to live in instead of a world where they are the supreme rulers of the ruins. Concentration camps were built by business men excited by cheap labor.
You cannot have curiosity without solidarity against forces that would submit reason to power. You cannot have curiosity without a consent based society. Curiosity fundamentally challenges power, because it elevates reason above authority. Curiosity presumes that reason is the ultimate form of legitimacy.
Hacker news has a goal of staving off Eternal September, when new students, people uninitiated to academic rigor or professional social conventions, would flood Usenet every September when they received credentials from their academic institutions. Those very same universities which helped build the type of culture you hold in high regard are under direct attack.
Curious environments won't survive neutrality. Curious environments won't survive lack of solidarity with other institutions that inspire curiosity. Systems, like authoritarianism, that demand obedience rather than reason are the default, and they require active maintenance to prevent. Neutrality under these conditions is neglect of curiosity.
You are funding
You've got me confused with someone else cause I ain't funding anything beside my burrito habit.
As to the rest of this stuff... I don't find it terribly persuasive, personally. We do all have all sorts of moral responsibilities, individual and collective ones and it behooves us to meet them. We do not have a responsibility to turn every single facet and corner of our lives into some instrument of political power and expression - those are important individual (and group) choices and there's a name for disregarding them and imposing them on others - totalitarianism.