Anyone else notice an influx of these new accounts in the last couple of years that start rapidly spamming inflammatory replies that seem to be trying to incite arguments (look at this ^ account's comments in the last hour)? HN is a bastion of mostly western, intelligent discourse. I'm really starting to wonder - is it under attack?

I see this everywhere. IMHO that is because we've all found vice signaling is lower cost than expected

Vice signalizing? Intentionally displaying one's flaws/vices? I really don't think that's what this is. I think this is someone or a bot that is trying to get people to react with anger, in hopes that it catches on and causes wider arguments in the thread/social platform. It's very similar to what foreign influence/disinformation campaigns are doing in western societies, but targeted at online societies.

Has been for a while. Most articles critical of Russia end up getting flagged pretty quickly and also tend to get flooded with posts from accounts created 5 minutes prior.

Makhachkala has been taking international flights.

I just checked the transcript I've seen floating out there, the first alternate was Baku, i.e. their departure airport. Then Mineralnye Vody (which is some way to the west), then Makhachkala, then they seemed to go far to the east, so while I think the first option was Baku - matching what I said, the list of options pretty quickly became 'anywhere'. What a harrowing flight.

> The Grozny airport reportedly denied landing permission to the AZAL plane, and the aircraft was also refused permission to land at airports in Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody.

says media in Azerbaijan now as per https://report.az/en/incident/crashed-azal-plane-shot-down-b...

There you go.