This so true and they also censor all smaller sites they in favor of the ones they want to drive traffic too which incidentally are usually sites that have deal with ycombinator.
It's all a bit corrupt scam but this is nothing new.
The mods are going to delete this comment because they're scared of the truth getting out. Pathetic.
It is well known that the Hackernews is used as a publicity platform for the larger sites to keep their traffic up. Some of them are extremely dependent on it and they do bribe and cut deals with the mods here.
I'm also sick of seeing the same sites being allowed to spam as many links as they like while the smaller ones get banned for just posting a couple relevant articles.
Pity such corruption exists it's ruining this site.
It's all a bit corrupt scam but this is nothing new.