HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.

That's not a viable option, as I've explained many times. If you (or anyone) want to read some of those explanations, many are here:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Political posts are banned unless they involve technology

That's not accurate. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and these past explanations:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

From your link

>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

So while maybe it isn’t “unless they involve technology” is is still claimed in your guidelines that they are mostly banned.

If you familiarize yourself with the past explanations that I just linked to, you'll see that this is explained in detail. If, after that, you have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to give it a try.

Using technology to silence people is technology

Pretty much everything involves technology today. What was that famous quote? "Software will eat the world" or something like this?

I've already seen something interesting just in the primary post content, notwithstanding any comments.

The problem is seen in other platforms though - who decides?

Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today.

I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.

The top minds in IT are not going to solve the Israel/Palistinian conflict, any more than politicians and statesmen will prove whether P = NP.

There is no Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. There is nothing to solve. There is a country that is slowly expanding in territory it doesn't have a right to, with some resistance from the original population.

This is a crime. Why do they do it? Because it's convenient and nobody stops them. Why nobody stops them? Because they've convinced the world that "there is a conflict", that "it's complicated", that "they're antisemites and they want to kill us all".

That's it. Weapons are just a tool. What enables Israel to keep occupying land and persecute Palestinians is just what people think of the whole thing. As long as people think "it's complicated", "Palestinians are just backwards antisemites", Israel will have a free hand in doing what they're doing. That's why convincing people is fundamental: and Israel knows very well, and that's why they censor as much information as possible.

While I have no issue with controversial posts on HN - high profile, influential tech minds have zero influence over the Israel-Palestine matter. The same is true for many controversial topics.

The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine.

Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit, and he has $100 billion in wealth and controls the world's largest social network. He can't make the slightest of difference, no matter what he believes or wishes were. Zuckerberg is entirely powerless. The same goes for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Brin, Page, Ellison, Musk and on down the list.

So the 'influential' people on HN? Whatever is less than zero ability to influence this topic, that's the power they possess.

> The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine.

They could, they just always, in recent decades, choose to use it in very nearly the same way, with very slight variations.

I mean, the Congress and the Preident together could, on the one hand, declare war on Palestine (either the widely-but-not-US-recognized State of Palestine, or Hamas, or both) on some pretext and radically change the context.

Or, on the other side, they could recognize and arm the State of Palestine, stop all aid and arms sales to Israel, stop vetoing every Security Council resolution that Israel doesn’t like, and sign a defense pact with the State of Palestine.

They don’t do those things because they don’t choose to, but that’s not a lack of power but a lack of sufficient interest and desire in changing the outcome.

> Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit

He can! $100B is enough to buy god knows how much Kalashnikovs, and ammunition.

Everybody has influence of the Israel-Palestine matter because the conflict exists only thanks to the spin Israel gives to it. They do what they do- and profit from it- because the public opinion in the Western countries (USA in particular) allows them to. That's why it's so important to them to keep shaping that opinion, and that's why it's so important to change it.

The ability to shape opinions of voters and funding should be seen as a kind of influence. In the US context, perhaps the plight of Palestinian victims of property theft will influence some ethical capitalists to scale back their uncritical moral or financial support to Israeli nationalist organizations.

By way of technology alone? Careful what you wish for, you might get it!

We've seen that lies and manipulation can distort reality too much already. Platforms need to be honest to be constructive.

Anything critical of Israel is persistently [Flagged] to death.

Astroturfed by the Israeli social media mafia.

You can downvote this but it is well documented that the government unit that does this exists and the patterns are evident here.

The site guidelines explicitly ask you not to post like this. If you have specific concerns about astroturfing or similar abuses, please email [email protected] so we can investigate. If you're just making up garden-variety internet insinuation about this stuff, that's off topic on HN. Either way, please don't post like this again.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html