The Mysterious Forces Steering Views on Hacker News

18 December 2025 at 11:06 by marius@xn–gckvb8fzb.com (Marius)

JP. マリウス

I was initially torn about whether to publish this story, as I don’t have a clear or constructive recommendation on how to resolve the issue. I also didn’t want to come across as a paranoid conspiracy theorist – birds aren’t real, by the way. However, after repeatedly witnessing firsthand how Y Combinator’s Hacker News platform influences the spread of information and, consequently, opinions within the tech scene, I believe this topic deserves to be discussed, even if only briefly.

I approached this subject rationally, aiming to explain certain metrics I observed in my log files. I began exploring the Hacker News algorithms, along with related posts by other authors and, naturally, the comment sections of those discussions. Although I hadn’t previously delved into the topic, the deeper I went, the more I realized it wasn’t just a case of me being overly paranoid or seeing ghosts. It became increasingly clear that some form of censorship, whether through subtle slowing or outright blocking, does seem to be a recurring issue on the Hacker News platform. By censorship, I don’t mean the removal of deceptive or harmful content, but rather the suppression of factual material that happens to be critical of, let’s say, friends of Y Combinator.

I began writing this post after noticing unusual behavior when another one of my articles was shared on Hacker News. It triggered an immediate spike in traffic, which then dropped off abruptly for no apparent reason. While the post in question appeared to resonate with many readers, it rapidly fell from the top ranks of the Hacker News front page to the second, then third, and within minutes to the fourth page.

The decline was so sudden that even the very people whose product my post was criticizing, and who understandably weren’t pleased with it, stepped in to dispute any claims of censorship. Nevertheless, the data from my analytics clearly shows a traffic chart in a shape that couldn’t be further from being organic, leading to the assumption that the post was demoted from the front page both sharply and deliberately.

Note: The Element CEO’s comment reads:

neither YC nor any YC-intermediary is an investor in NV

This statement, however, doesn’t appear to be factually true. Protocol Labs, who is the lead investor of the Series B funding round of Element (New Vector), was initially founded as part of the Y Combinator S14 program.

This means that Y Combinator invested money into Protocol Labs, who in turn is a lead investor in New Vector, the company behind Element. One could argue that there is in fact an interest by Y Combinator, or at the very least by their friends over at Protocol Labs to protect Element from negative publicity – if you can even call my post that.

Similarly, I analyzed gigabytes of log files and traffic behavior for another post of mine that gathered some attention on news.ycombinator.com just recently. In this case, however, the censorship became more evident, even to the casual reader on Hacker News. If you’re looking at the post today, though, you might not fully understand the comments, as the post is clearly no longer flagged.

This critical deep dive into a specific project by a well-known tech figure took off within minutes of being shared on Hacker News. My analytics immediately alerted me to a surge in traffic, which is when I first noticed. The post reached the Top 5 list (on X) on Hacker News’ front page within minutes, accumulating over 40 upvotes in a short period. Then, abruptly, the traffic came to a complete stop when the post was suddenly flagged by Hacker News for no apparent reason.

Even though the post was flagged and essentially became invisible on the platform, community interest remained so high that the post went from about 50 upvotes to over 100, all while still being effectively censored. It wasn’t until several hours later (amid puzzled comments from the HN community and others) that Hacker News seemingly decided to silently unflag the post, as if nothing had ever happened and the post simply didn’t gain a lot of traction. And it worked:

The post had dropped from the visible ranks and wasn’t going to return. Hacker News had effectively stopped it at just the right the moment, when it could have gained serious traction, as it was scrutinizing a project tied to a prominent and influential tech figure.

While the post was picked up by Lobsters and spread further, attracting many views and, more importantly, thoughtful responses, its reach didn’t come close to matching the influence of what seems to be the most powerful tech aggregator on the internet.

Tl;dr

Hacker News is neither unbiased nor free from censorship. While it generally remains hands-off with neutral content, the moment a post that’s critical or even just slightly negative towards projects or companies affiliated with Y Combinator (either directly or indirectly) gains traction, the platform’s moderation team will seemingly step in to significantly limit its reach.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe there’s anything the community can do about this, as Hacker News has maintained its position as a leading tech news institution for years, with little competition on the horizon. As search engines continue their decline and are increasingly replaced by similarly censored LLMs, the discoverability of tech content, especially slightly more critical pieces, is likely to become a significant challenge in the future. My only advice is to keep in mind that, whenever you find yourself browsing Hacker News, you’re seeing a curated view of the current tech landscape that won’t necessarily represent the full picture.