> HN is its community, and the community is speaking loud and clear about its allegiance.
This seems to be over-simplifying. Flagging only requires some flat amount of flags for a post to be [flagged], meaning a small minority can shut down discussion on these topics even if some small subset of that minority is flagging a given post. The first tracks with all of the posts being flagged and the second tracks with moderator claims (which I personally believe) that there is not an obvious brigade of users doing the flagging.
Regardless of all of the posts being flagged, there seem to be many still who find them and think they should not have been flagged. That suggests to me that there is a sizeable portion of the community with either a more friendly allegiance or none at all.
Here are some recent HN posts that have been flagged into oblivion:
>Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send 'No Confidence' Signal (wsj.com)
>Trump's Fed Attacks, Trade War Push World to Sell Off US Assets (bloomberg.com)
>White House plagued by Signal controversy as Pentagon in "full-blown meltdown" (arstechnica.com)
>An Age of Extinction Is Coming. Here's how to survive. (nytimes.com)
>The Crypto Con: How Trump Is Looting America from the Oval Office (mitchthelawyer.substack.com)
>RFK Jr.'s autism study to amass medical records of many Americans (cbsnews.com)
HN is its community, and the community is speaking loud and clear about its allegiance.