Ask HN: Is HN Pro-Fascist?
37 sundaeofshock 39 7/17/2025, 10:01:55 PM
It sure seems like many articles that are critical of the Trump Administration or of certain people in the tech world (eg Musk) are flagged in under an hour. It does not matter if it a tech focused article or pure politics, it will just be flagged.
What do people think: is HN pro-fascist?
There are multiple factions. There's the people fearful of AI, the people who post everything anyone posts if it vaguely relates to AI, the people who love to complain about AI posts, and the people who left because they got sick of all the AI stuff.
If you want a description of the politics related factions, just apply `sed -e s/AI/politics/g`.
I.e., Trump & deportations. Very political and would flag immediately. Trump & NASA, perhaps not flagged at all. Trump and his cankles? Flagged immediately. Trump & science grants? Perhaps not flagged at all.
This isn't reddit. Or at least, I'd hope it shouldn't be.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403947
And yes, there are some things that are coming out of legislation which would usually be of big interest to HN (or at least I would think so) but I don't bother submitting stories if one or two particular people have their names prominent in the story. It is what it is.
EDIT: That said, the one I posted today didn't get flagged (yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44594622
EDIT 2: Something else that will get a story flagged seems to be anything about XLibre (for or against). I'm guessing that has to do with who is running that project which is kind of a shame since I'm curious why there's so much reflexive and visceral animosity for those suggesting we slow the roll on forcing all distros and desktop environments to move to Wayland.
All in all these are definitely not right wing opinions.
To steal a few examples from a convenient summary list someone[1] made:
1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
...
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Open to other definitions. But I look at that list, written in 1995, and it feels like you can check off a lot of these items in things that are rapidly being normalised.
1. https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/umberto-ecos-list-of-the...
If you know your 'Pataphysics or Chaos Magick you know that's a magic spell to put fascists in charge.
Probably just best to focus on those qualities you don’t like on the other side and leave the labeling to the future historians.
This doesn’t sound like a couple of fascists.
…this is the guy who bombed Iran?
> to better represent the people
Do you just believe everything that people with power tell you?
I am not saying they would solve it, but they would make it some other community's problem.
When making an accusation, failure to include substantive facts is counter-productive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44588392
it hours to get it flagged where a Trump/Musk criticism gets flagged in a few minutes.
But it was flagged. I really really doubt HN is "pro-fascist", but I think it leans to the right because it is the rich that funds their projects.
Most HN users are tech employees or freelancers on salaries or contractor fees, so whatever political slant HN has aligns with that.
Posts about the U.S. administration and tech celebrities get flagged because people try and submit them every day and they lead to repetitive flamewar discussions, which is everything that HN is trying to avoid.
I think after like 100M+ levels of wealth, "morals" and "ethics" go out the window.
You can be on the margins and yell all you like and still be on the margins, they know it doesn't matter what you do. [1]
If you're an oligarch and get in the way you fall out of a window.
Jeff Bezos was no ally of Trump I, had he not been sitting behind Trump II at the inauguration he could have kissed all his rocket plans goodbye because all his permits and contracts could be canceled just like that.
[1] Being "marginal" is probably more blessing than curse in a lot of cases and a status you might want to retain.
Anti-fascists are jealous somebody has better footwear than them. Woke right NPCs who blog endlessly about "cancel culture" wish Karl Marx was banned 150 years ago.
If you read The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post you'd think Zohran Mamdani has the opposite policies of Trump but he's twice as angry. He's dangerous to system not because he's angry but because he listens to people, something you'll see him do on YouTube or TikTok but that mainstream TV channels won't show you.
Are there pro-fascist posters here? Absolutely. I've seen full throated advocacy for some vile things here. The worst of it usually gets flagged.
Is there a strong correlation between flagging political posts and support for fascism? Not necessarily. Although some of that is definitely the HN Trumpist/right-wing contingent, this forum harbors a particular distate for anything not explicitly tech related (often beyond what the actual site guidelines state to be on topic) which includes politics of any kind.
And HN is designed so that flagging and downvoting has a much greater weight than upvoting, so it really doesn't even take much to tank a thread.