If they are flagged, how would they thrive? Fewer people are seeing them as you mention (and even then, many people do have showdead turned on and flag those comments). None of the non-flagged comments on that thread to me (at first glance on a quick skim, anyway) seem like they are "abusive" or "toxic" or whatever other word wants to be used by Asahi it seems like. Indeed, people are pointing out that you can't censor opinions on a forum that you don't control such as HN.