HN does not stand for unrestricted freedom of speech. It’s a private platform with moderation policies that include downmodding comments and posts to lower their visibility, flagging posts to push them off the front page, and banning users.
And that’s why it works. And HN’s denizens are implicitly and often explicitly in favour of this.
HN stands for speech that is generally more free than, say, I would tolerate on a message board. But it’s not an absolute by any means.
Free speech is a great global idea: Somewhere on the internet, somebody ought to be allowed to rave about how the Negro is using rape to effect the genocide of White America. But free speech is not a great local idea: That raving doesn’t belong everywhere on the Internet.
