The thread is flagged, because HN is marketing branch of YCombinator, and publishing information that's inconvenient to their business partners isn't in their best interests.
Of course the admins will claim this isn't the case, but there's no reason to believe them, and lying is commercial companies' standard modus operandi.
The thread was flagged by community members. Admins didn't moderate it and in fact, after looking at the article (which a user emailed and asked us to do), I've turned the flags off.
This is bog standard HN moderation and has zero to do with "business partners", whoever those are.
> The thread is flagged, because HN is marketing branch of YCombinator, and publishing information that's inconvenient to their business partners isn't in their best interests.
No, it's flagged because it's one of those controversial political topics that often leads to polarized slapfights and flamewars.
And that's proven by the a number of inflammatory, flamebait comments already in this thread.
Funny I’ve seen threads like that hit the front page and never get flagged. Hell I’ve seen some pretty explicit violations of the guidelines hit the front page and stay there plenty of times. Where are all the rules lawyers in those threads?
You can claim that anyone who even hints that maybe two countries with very different demographics may in fact have differences due to those demographics is racist and that any comments along those lines are just inflammatory flamebait, but people will continue to ponder that theory because 1) it seems fucking obvious and 2) curious people (and people in general I guess) can't help but be interested in topics that they're told not to be interested in.
Now that you (and others) have flagged the thread, the people with showdead on will see that it has happened yet again, and they just might seek out a place where an actual discussion can be had.
Of course the admins will claim this isn't the case, but there's no reason to believe them, and lying is commercial companies' standard modus operandi.