Comment by bopbeepboop

HN unfortunately has started downvoting to show disagreement.

It’s happened in lockstep with the political radicalization and censorship across the internet, eg Twitter and YouTube.

Contrary to fluffy language, HN is a censorious community that uses downvotes and shadowbans to shape narratives.

Edit:

For overly literal readers — note, I’m commenting on rates not saying it never happened historically.

It went from being rare and limited to contentious topics to routinely finding quality replies buried for wronngthink.