It's hardly the first time, but we have yet again confirmed that the people who say they flag these posts because it's not related to tech are outright lying.
As a well intentioned user (with no stake whatsoever in Grok or parties involved) who originally flagged this but then decided to remove my flag, here was my original reasoning...
In the HN guidelines there are two category definitions, on-topic and off-topic. I don't think there is an intellectually honest argument to make that this submission is not on-topic, but there is an argument to make that it is off-topic.
- it's related to a celebrity
- it's related to crime
- it's likely to appear on TV news
I'd also add that it's likely to spur strong emotions, political debate and any attempt by people to try and understand the actual legal nuances (e.g. how does each legal jurisdiction decide who is accountable, the platform, the user, how is the platform held accountable exactly, etc.) is likely to be labelled a sea lion and down voted by someone who just says "this is obviously illegal". In other words this topic is not conducive to intellectually curious discussion, which I think is the spirit of HN guidelines.
In other words there is a lot of noise between people who curiously engage in this topic, and the people who are offended by Grok and the people associated with it, and anyone who isn't also outraged and grabbing their pitchforks.
You are making an assumption that anyone who would label this as off topic is outright lying about why, and it may be that some people are, but I am not. I do think there is a benefit of the doubt interpretation to be made, which you may think is naive, but seems less naive for anyone who genuinely values HN as a sanctuary from the inflammatory dialog found in most other social media.
Further, when I attempted to converse with others about why this could be considered off-topic (another comment thread under this submission that you replied to), my character was repeatedly attacked, and many unfounded assumptions about my motives were made. These were clear signs to me that people were struggling to engage curiously.
