I really worry for the people in the US, but I'm hopeful it's hegemony is ending.
People use the word "transparency" to mean different things. Here are the ways in which I think it's fair to say we're transparent about mod actions: (1) we explain the principles that we apply, frequently and at length; and (2) we're happy to answer questions, including about specific cases.
What we don't do is publish a complete moderation log. To understand why, it's probably easiest to look through my past answers about this at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Here's one: >>39234189 .
In our experience, the current approach is a reasonable balance between the tradeoffs. It's true that we don't see all the comments like the ones you posted here, and we can't address what we don't see. It's also true that, as volume has grown, we've found it harder to reply to absolutely every question. But it's still eminently possible to get an answer if you want one—especially if you're asking in a way that signals good faith*.
(*I add the latter bit because some people use the format of "asking a question" as way of being aggressive and in such cases we may respond otherwise than by taking the question literally. That's pretty rare though.)
I'm pretty sure that if you sqldump the list of flaggers of this and other posts (like the MN posts) you will find it's not a uniformly distributed list of users.
I've answered that point many times, e.g. recently here: >>46378818 . If you take a look at that and have a question that isn't answered there (or here), I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
I haven't had a chance to look at the flaggers of these recent stories to verify that they fit the same pattern, but the pattern is so well-established that it would be shocking if they didn't. Btw, when you say "anything that goes against MAGA", the converse is the case as well (possibly even a bit more so). And when I say (quoting the comment I just linked to):
> There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.
... I didn't add that we do this the same way in either political direction, because that goes without saying, or ought to. But I'm saying it explicitly here.
Am I wrong that there used to be a flagged option on the lists page, or am I missing where that is?
If you flag a post, you are inadvertedly trying to push a hn post away.
That's fine if the current moderation finds it okay and I respect HN moderation but once again another post gets flagged & dead.
If someone flags a post, they should have a reasoning why. So have it public, so that its easier to call people out if they are being unfair and it would make people more aware of who they are flagging and actually why.