EDIT: Thank you for your response, dang. Hacker News is a special place, which is why we have responded so strongly to today's events - I apologize if the tone above came off as less-than-civil. I (and it seems, many others) look forward to hearing more about the 'dupe' article others have linked to below. It was only upon seeing the article marked as a dupe after seeing the previous flagged out of existence that it began to feel like more than just a user-initiated action, so I am sure further information on the mod-initiated actions will put these fears to rest.
However, in this particular case, I don't think it should be flagged unless the comment sections becomes unmanageable. It may be a political topic but it is seen from a technical angle, and indeed, a lot of the comments are technical in nature: the effect of different options, different engines, alternative wording, etc...
What I think is interesting is how artificial the censorship looks. If I see no results for such a simple phrase, I know something fishy is going on and that would encourage me to carry on.
If something disappears, no one has bad feelings about it.
If something two people are arguing over disappears, then two people carry simmering resentment about it (ironically, likely more than if their verbal spat had reached a cathartic conclusion), that eventually manifests in their next comments, and which ultimately leads to an erosion of common decency and civility.
It's a fine line, but it's definitely a line rather than right vs wrong.
As you note, why would they stay where they don't feel welcome?