[blunte]

Asking the question about HN manipulation, when several other people have been asking, "How is this on HN", is unreasonable?

Is HN somehow immune from the manipulation that much larger, much better funded sites have experienced (where ample evidence exists)?

This was not some criticism of HN, this was a valid question which people should ponder on. Presumably most of us HN readers do not expect the content to be targeted manipulation or disinformation. But we cannot be blind to the possibility... else what is the point of even being here?

When I am hitting HN (tonight at least) about every 15 minutes out of boredom, and I see a story pop up on the front page with rapidly increasing votes - especially a story that is rather controversial and not typically what HN people get uniformly excited about - I wonder if something unusual is going on.

Perhaps it really is a lot of pro-Trump HN readers using their Friday afternoons to upvote this story, but that also seems unlikely.

[dang]

Ok, I take your point that you were asking in good faith. The line between question and insinuation can be blurry. The fact is, though, that astroturfer/shill/bot/foreign-agent/paid-troll/infiltrating-spies is the explanation internet users reflexively invoke at the slightest provocation, nearly always with zero evidence. The overwhelming majority of the time, it's nothing but a sinister, sensational fantasy. This poisons discussion and community. Therefore we have a rule asking people not to post such things, but rather to email us at [e-mail] if they're worried about manipulation. That way we can base the response on something objective (by looking at the data) and the threads won't go haywire down the poisonous path.

I don't think you need to invoke "pro-Trump readers" to explain why a story like this might get upvoted. Not everyone is a passionate partisan.