Queen Elizabeth II has died

It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.

I feel the same. I think it’s because it really represents the end of an era. The 20th and early 21st century ushered in unprecedented improvements to quality of life in Britain but it has felt of late that that has peaked and the country is facing a serious decline: Brexit, the increasingly visible effects of climate change, the aftermath of covid, the possible break up of the union, rising costs of living, recession, possibly even war. The death of Elizabeth II coincides with the end of a long period of stability and comfort and is not only a poignant point in history itself but a marker for a transitional point in history for our country.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments. That's not allowed here.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

(Since someone is now about to accuse me of stealth Brexit sideage—no, this is just about the tiny business of moderating an internet forum, and that is all.)

I don't lightly ban a 7-year-old account, but (a) we've warned you many times:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22976700 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20912638 (Sept 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477028 (July 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19765448 (April 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17865589 (Aug 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17623237 (July 2018)

... and (b) you've broken the site guidelines repeatedly lately.

If you're talking about American free speech your speech is protected from government censorship, not private censorship on a private platform. HN admins really do try to avoid putting their fingers on the scale when it comes to legitimate disagreements but that comment was dead'd for being flamebait and lacking substance - it added nothing of value to the discussion and veered far off topic (much like your comment and my reply do, but thankfully we're in a dead branch of a comment thread so this won't pollute most user's views).

HN exists (partially) to surface interesting news and foster discussions of that news - flamebait is never interesting and it doesn't lead to interesting discussions. We of the internet discovered, during the usenet days, that reducing a conversation to a shouting match is boring - so to promote a more healthy dialog HN specifically removes inflammatory comments unless they bring an interesting topic to light (and even then it's just nicer to communicate in a polite manner) - as this is the goal for this private forum it's completely within its right to restrict discussions that go against that goal and restrict users that repeatedly violate that goal. The internet is a large place and there are plenty of other forums that cater to other forms of expression - the first amendment exists primarily to make it illegal for the government to say such places can't exist - it doesn't obligate all places to act in such a manner nor mandate the existence of such places.

in contrast to the american idea of free speech which limits what the government can censor, germany has a concept of the freedom of opinion which among other things limits the right of companies to censor opinions they disagree with. the blocking of trump for example raised some eyebrows. the kind of moderation done on hackernews would be just fine in germany too though.