That's what happens when upvotes put a story on the front page and then user flags take it off the front page. This is standard stuff. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639323 and the other links there.
if more people downvote / individual flag it than upvote it, then how did it rise to the front page to start with?
I recall multiple HN Epstein discussions that didn't get flagged (in the sense of Net Flagged status assignment by HN, not talking about individual acts of individual flagging)
It would really help the discourse if HN used separate terms for the button for users to individually cast a flag, and the [flagged] marking by HN: a suggestion would be to give the latter a different word like [perverse], as the literal meaning of perverse come from Latin "per" (away) "vertere" (to turn), i.e. "turned away" or "to turn a blind eye" as one would say in English.
That would seem more apt as it describes what is done, and allows HN commenters to talk about the difference between individual acts of users pressing the "flag" button versus HN mapping that to an attention modulating action.
For example discussions about the method of mapping upvotes, views, flaggings, and their relative timing distributions, onto the either "attended" or "perverse" status.
I'm afraid I don't understand that second part of your comment - it's not clear to me what distinction you're wanting to appear in the UI. But I can answer this part:
> if more people downvote / individual flag it than upvote it, then how did it rise to the front page to start with?
It's because most of the flags only happen later. Upvotes get a post onto the frontpage, then other users see it on the frontpage and think "wtf? that doesn't belong on HN" and flag it. This is especially common with sensational or outrageous stories, since those qualities inevitably attract upvotes—but then later they attract flags. You can think of flags as a bit like an immune system in that sense.
Unlike other stories critical of Sam Altman, it's very suspicious the way this is so quickly and systematically downvoted and flagged every single time it's posted.
This happened the last time this was posted too. Sam Altman deserves the right to defend himself in court as does Ann to tell her story (who personally I believe).
The good news is that with the lawsuit it will be in the news more and much harder to silence, maybe at some point we can have a proper discussion about it on HN without people (or more likely bots) trying to memoryhole it every single time.
The mods haven't done anything. This story is being flagged by users and, after looking at the data, I believe it's a genuine community response. (Edit: here's comment I just ran across, which expresses some of this response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638174).
You have a vested interest to protect Sam Altman and sure enough this story is not allowed on the front page. This site has many forms of censorship built in, yet you always act with plausible deniability, blaming "the users" or worse yet "the algorithm" (as if that's not fully in your control). I hope you know that most people aren't buying it.
Not blaming, just explaining what is happening. You're of course free to believe what you wish, but I think you're wrong about "most people". The bulk of the community is satisfied with what we're doing. How do I know that? Because if it weren't the case, we'd never hear the end of it. I've been on the wrong side of the community in the past, I know what that's like, and this isn't it. Being on the wrong side of the community is such a painful experience that striving to avoid that is basically the principle that drives how we operate HN.
As for Sam: this site has hosted countless negativity fests about Sam (as well as other celebrities people love to post about). This story is different, and the way we're handling it would be the same if you replaced his name with anyone else's.
No, that's clearly wrong. These posts all have tons of upvotes (without even being allowed to stay on the front page!), the community wants them.
Edit: You can downvote my comments and censor my account all you want. I learned today that to engage with this site one must take an oppositional stance. I'll just make a new account since this one is clearly compromised. I encourage everyone to do the same. Hell make 10 every time you see you're censored.
I wouldn't even blame it on the mods and higher ups. There are enough people here invested in Sam Altman either through YC or AI that mutually aligned interests alone will cause a story like this to get squashed, every time. No conspiracy needed.
And that doesn't even take into account the number of people who consider all discussions of this kind to be categorically off topic, and would flag it on principle regardless of the context.
If you do a search for the word rape, there are tons of discussions about it, so it's definitely not categorically off topic. I'm going to email hn@ycombinator.com per the FAQ since the way this keeps happening feels abusive and against the spirit of HN.
Flags mostly come from the community; sometimes from the mods. When the post is a submission (as opposed to a comment), they almost always come from the community.
There's nothing new in the HN community functioning this way. In fact, it's because the HN community functions this way that the site exists at all; otherwise it would have long ago turned into just another current affairs or celebrity gossip page.
I am increasingly convinced we need to separate content storage from recommendation algorithms.
When an organization does both, it has perverse incentives such as maximizing add-profit or user-engagement by building echo chambers instead of doing what benefits the users - such as maximizing truth-seeking and getting an accurate picture of opinions among the general population.