Hacker News has a political bias, and it's getting worse

Why is Hacker News like that?

Drew DeVault argues that Hacker News, Y Combinator's influential forum, has a growing right-wing tilt. He traces it to YC's business ties, founder Paul Graham's essays, and moderation tools like flagging that silence progressive views. The piece cites a Grok thread where criticism of Elon Musk was flagged out of existence, and calls out YC's portfolio of surveillance, crypto, and defense companies.

Every thread about a Musk company or product needs a comment like this one. If we had the right values, every comment would look like this one.

More from this day

2026-09-23