Most probably the users who flagged it are tired of the repetition, because HN had a huge frontpage discussion about this topic just a few days ago:
Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 - April 2025 (1399 comments)
Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place [1]. To get a sense of how repetitive these discussions are, just look at the comments in the current thread—they could just as easily have been posted to the previous thread.
The way HN operates with respect to political stories is clear and stable, and has been for many years: some stories with political overlap are ok [2], but there isn't room on the frontpage for all of them (not even 5% of them, really). Frontpage space is the scarcest resource that exists here [3], and HN is not a current affairs site [4].
If you, or anyone, will familiarize yourselves with the explanations in these links, and then still have a question that I haven't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
> Avoiding too much repetition is a core principle of this place
This principle is applied very selectively though: The homepage has been full of insignificant iterations of overly hyped tech products for years now.
It is very hard to imagine all these submissions of announcements of products with monthly release cycles gratifying anyone's intellectual curiosity. Yet it apparently does because they can stay in the homepage for 24 hours.
But for some reason, something as unprecedented as the United States government threatening Harvard with a xenophobic ban is deemed "repetitive"?
It's inconsistent but I wouldn't necessarily call that selective, because randomness plays a major role.
It's not possible for moderation to be consistent because we don't read, or even see, most of what gets posted here. There's far too much.
There are other, less obvious factors affecting this too. Here's a post where I went into this a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787306.
Btw, regarding this:
> insignificant iterations of overly hyped tech products for years now
HN's moderation system downweights those even more regularly than we downweight (some) political posts. Here's an explanation from a few years ago, which caused quite a stir if I remember correctly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23071428 (May 2020).
In both cases—incremental product releases on the one hand, and political news on the other—some posts still make it through through to the front page, and in both cases the users who want more of that category feel like it's unduly suppressed, while users who want less of that category feel like HN is overrun with it.
I believe the issue is the type of discussions that can damage the fabric of the website. Repetitive discussions on tech products are not good but can't damage the site. But discussions of politics can be inflammatory and repetitive inflammatory discussions could damage the site since it dampens intellectual curiosity of people overall. I'm not a moderator or anything so I don't know but that's just my guess based on what dang has said in previous comments.
A lot of repetitive discussions of tech things get moderated all the time as well, you can just email them in and the moderators sort them out. There's a lot of mod commentary on how things like releases, feature updates, 'launch week' etc are handled, one recent example
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43129444
"... a huge frontpage discussion about this topic just a few days ago"
The previous discussion was about an April 11, 2025 joint letter to Harvard President Alan Garber from the Commissioner of the Federal Aquisition Service, General Services Administration, the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Education.
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
Discussion of the April 11th letter occurred in stories submitted at 2025-04-14T18:40:22 and 2025-04-14T18:13:07
This discussion is about an April 16, 2025 letter to Maureen Martin at Harvard's International Office from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/60233385...
This story was submitted 2025-04-17T10:42:01. Discussion of this letter on April 14th would have been impossible. It was not sent until April 16th.
As one might guess, the letters make different requests. The threatened consequences for not complying are also different. Different letters, different senders, different recipients, different sets of requests, different types of potential consequences for noncompliance, e.g., cancelling funding versus refusing to grant student visas. Are these truly the same topic. Let the reader decide.
Is it possible the reason for these stories getting flagged is because HN users with flagging privileges do not want to them discussed. Not because of repetition but because the discussions are often low quality or offensive to them in some way.
One could argue HN routinely keeps having the same discussions about the same topics, even going so far as to allow HN users to resubmit stories for discussion. Hence, comments frequently note "past discussion".
For example, an HN Poll last year showed most HN readers who vote in polls thought "AI" was mostly hype. Comments have also suggested readers are tired of the hype. Yet they are still being forced to see/hide stories about "AI" every day on HN. Sometimes it feels like HN commenters are literally being forcefed the same tired, old topics and coaxed to repeat their same old opinions, or worse, their favourite memes, over and over again.
I am not suggesting there is anything HN can do about this problem. But I am inclined to agree with the GP comment; the current flagging behaviour mirrors the worst of HN commenting behaviour. It is a low quality, cowardly attempt at moderation that does not even seem to work. We are now consistently seeing flagged stories remain on page 1.
> Let the reader decide.
There is no "the" reader. There's a statistical cloud of readers with highly variant preferences.
You guys need to understand that the community is divided about these questions. I don't mean divided politically on partisan lines (though that as well), I mean divided around what sorts of topics are the best fit for the site.
There are those who feel like each letter to each government agency is a major new story that obviously deserves frontpage time; and there are those who feel like HN is overrun with this sort of thing already. Ditto for every major topic including, as you say, AI: some feel like there's too much, some feel like there's not enough.
There's no HN user, including me, who's satisfied with the balance of stories on the front page. The more passionate you (I don't mean you personally, but all of us) are about a particular topic, the more it feels like the topic is being unfairly and outrageously suppressed, whether by user flags or the mods or both.
This is ultimately all coming from the fundamentals of how HN works—from its initial conditions, if you like—and those aren't likely to change. Feelings about it do uptick during times of political intensity, such as now, but the underlying phenomenon is consistent and has been for many years.
Flagging does not remove stories. It does not always result in killng them to "[dead]" status. It may not even demote stories off page 1. Flagging is not a effective solution to the submission of stories that anyone believes are inappropriate for HN, i.e., it does not stop further submissions on similar topics. They still get submitted. If anything, flagging may be a means of stopping discussion. If it works. Meanwhile "[flagged]" status was removed from this story. Discussion continues.
NB. "The reader" is a figure of speech refering to the reader who is reading the comment, whomever that may be. The point of the comment is that "repetition" is probably not an adequate explanation for flagging. Unless readers are informed who is flaggging and for what purpose, then all anyone can do is guess. No one knows why stories are flagged except the people who flag them.
Whether some HN practice has always been the case or whether it will remain so for all time is irrelevant. What's relevant is that aggressive flagging is happening now. Commenters share their thoughts about it. Some disagree. Some agree. Discussion continues.
The point of the comment is that "repetition" is probably not an adequate explanation for flagging. [...] What's relevant is that aggressive flagging is happening now.
Why not? Why does only the flagging need to be explained but not, say, the aggressive reposting of stories that are typically, and by long-established practice, offtopic for HN? These are clearly two sides of the same phenomenon, it's not obvious that the flagging alone here should be treated as some sort of anomaly.
The linked discussion was on April 14th. Very few topics that narrow get two back to back megathreads on HN. Fundamentally, you're arguing this one should get three (or more) megathreads and that's a very uphill argument because it runs against the basic design fabric of the place.