That fact is relevant to the issue. This comment is the most “State Department talking points” comment you could make and the finger is put on the scales to elevate it.
That’s exactly what Google and Meta do with content via recommendation algorithms and comments.
And it’s what TikTok doesn’t do, which is the exact reason it was banned.
Oldheads will remember when comment karma was public. Its hidden now basically to hide just how manipulated comment rankings are.
It’s also true it’s never been a strict ranking by net votes either. Getting a lot of upvotes quickly will elevate a comment.
It’s also suspected that certain users will have their comments upranked or downranked based on their history as well as manual intervention.
Organic ranking still exists but there are many, many thumbs on the scale. Hiding comment karma just makes that less obvious.
I don’t normally engage in HN meta-commentary. In fact, it’s highly discouraged. It’s somewhat ironic that an obvious, egregious case of content manipulation here is directly relevant to the issue at hand: the TikTok ban.
I just felt compelled to state what I thought was missing from the conversation.
But your case gives us a window into that. 28 karma from 3 comments, none of them grey, puts a really low ceiling on the karma this comment has.
Again, nothing against you personally.