“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

All: Whether he is right or not or one likes him or not, Hersh reporting on this counts as significant new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), so I've turned off the flags on this submission.

If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.

I'm surprised at the reaction here. There's plenty of stuff posted on HN I don't agree with, but don't think I've ever felt so strongly about a submission that I'd want the rest of the HN community not to read it because of my personal reaction to it. If you don't like something you read on HN, why not let the rest of us read it and make up our own minds?

Thanks dang. I'm glad HN has moderators that make calls like.

If you’ve been on HN (or any link-sharing community) for a while, it’s easy to see that certain articles are posted and/or upvoted largely for the sake of zeitgeist-shaping, not out of a sense of intellectual curiosity. This feels like one of those articles.

And who determines what's been posted for zeitgeist-shaping or intellectual curiousity? And what can we say about those who have been frantically flagging this submission so their fellow community members don't get to read it?

Well, the community decides. By flagging. Which was, in this case, ignored by fiat.

Moreover, the article has little to do with tech and has obviously loaded statements such as this:

> From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western dominance.

If we can’t filter out misinformation and propaganda, we are screwed as a community. (Is this misinformation/propaganda? Maybe, maybe not, but better to have false positives in cases like this.)

> Is this misinformation/propaganda? Maybe, maybe not, but false positives are better in cases like this than false negatives.

You question people's motivation when it comes to submissions. Why not when it comes to flagging? Does it foster intellectual curiousity to flag a story by a renowned investigative journalist?

In any case, what's surprising to me here is the reaction to dang's reasonable justification for disabling the flags on this story. I think those who continue to push for its removal after flagging have moved beyond "I personally don't think it's a suitable topic" to "I don't want anyone else to read it". I find the latter attitude very worrying.

I flagged it because it looks and quacks like propaganda and has little to do with tech. Perhaps Seymour Hersh is another once-reputable journalist who has unfortunately succumbed to anti-West brain-rot like Glenn Greenwald.

I am also worried that HN's moderation has a bus factor of one, and has effectively no recourse. That's a lot of community-shaping power in one person's hands, regardless of how good of a job dang normally does.

The parent's first question is still pertinent.

> You question people's motivation when it comes to submissions. Why not when it comes to flagging?