Ask HN: We're being censored. Why?
Users flag stories that they don&#x27;t think fit the site guidelines. That&#x27;s all that happened here.<p>I get that you disagree. People disagree about this all the time, often strongly. I doubt there&#x27;s a single story that every user agrees belongs on HN.<p>The only unusual thing in this case is the drama you&#x27;ve created about it. We can debate whether a CIA director nomination belongs on HN, but there&#x27;s no question that the above submission and your comments are breaking the site guidelines. Those are at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>. Please read them and follow them when posting here. They&#x27;re written the way they are for good reasons, based on over ten years of running this place.<p>No one&#x27;s questioning the importance of major political stories, by the way. Of course they&#x27;re important—much more important than most of what gets posted here. That&#x27;s why we need flagging. Otherwise they would take over the site, and HN would be a completely different place.<p>HN&#x27;s mandate is to gratify intellectual curiosity. Not all political stories are off topic, but the ones that only stir up outrage, however justifiably, and don&#x27;t also gratify intellectual curiosity, are not a good fit.