It reminds me of Cory docotorow's comment of something like 'there are 5 social media sites and everything is just copied from one another'
HN isn't immune either, given that karma provides 'rights to punish views and accounts' (downvoting). And it makes a great strategy to make a whole lot of socks with 520 karma, and selectively kill comments and stories you don't want.
I’m sure sock puppets and voting rings play a role, but “this link was interesting to a bunch of people on sites with some overlap in interests and demographics” seems a simpler and better explanation.
HN isn't immune either, given that karma provides 'rights to punish views and accounts' (downvoting). And it makes a great strategy to make a whole lot of socks with 520 karma, and selectively kill comments and stories you don't want.