Ask HN: Why do some links start out [dead]?

12 archagon 8 4/10/2025, 7:12:14 PM
I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43647126 and the link was [dead] on arrival. I am certain that nobody had time to flag it: the post was dead as soon as I hit Submit and the page refreshed. Why did this happen? Is this some sort of controversial topic detector or source filter?

Comments (8)

PaulHoule · 20d ago
Usually because something looks spammy. The most common reason for this complaint is that somebody posts links to their personal blog and nothing but their personal blog.

I think 404media has a low level of regard on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co

Not least because most of their content is behind a registerwall which is particularly ironic because 95% of what they write about is something privacy sensitive or about sex, I want to register to read that stuff about as much as I want to register for a porn site. If it is not that it is the kind of breathless political stuff that will wind up [dead] in a few minutes.

My biggest complaint about them is that they leaked a list of web sites being monitored by ICE to Google Docs so in the process of my viewing that list Google recorded that I read the document and now it appears in my feed when I use Google. Google is on that list so if I'm paranoid I have to assume ICE contractors know I read that list, great work 404 media!

andy99 · 20d ago
Pretty sure 404 media is automatically killed, possibly because it doesn't have a paywall bypass. Same as if you post a link to "the information" - it's something nobody can read so not worth linking.
archagon · 20d ago
That's odd, because this other link I wanted to post from 404 (someone beat me to it) wasn't killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43646920

(Unless it was vouched back to life.)

PaulHoule · 20d ago
That article isn't registerwalled, it's also a good quality article, not sensationalistic, not breathless, not about sex.
archagon · 20d ago
I assume "not sensationalistic, not breathless, not about sex" is not something an automated HN filter can flag. Or paywalls, for that matter.
PaulHoule · 19d ago
20 years ago it was science fiction, with BERT models and LSTM it is easy. The hard part is getting a collection of 5000 articles that are "sensationalistic/breathless/about sex" and another 5000 that aren't. You could beat 90% on that one easily, probably 95%. Or you could just block 404media and have accuracy about that good.
gnabgib · 20d ago
It was posted [dead] and vouched.
andy99 · 20d ago
Interesting, I've seen lots of 404 submission [dead] and assumed that was why. I notice that the link you posted above is not paywalled but the dead one is, though I'd be surprised if that's actually detected somehow.