That's not true. Software filters sometimes kill such comments, but the accounts themselves are unaffected, and moderators review the killed comments and unkill the clearly good ones, and mark such accounts legit to immunize their future posts from those filters. Also, users often vouch for comments that have been killed in this way, which restores them.
My main issue was with the deplorables comment. I actually quite like the HN system of vouching.
> and mark such accounts legit to immunize their future posts from those filters
I remember seeing you restore a post from someone who made their account via tor and their comments were auto-deleted. Their next post was autodeleted in the same way, so I presume that this feature is buggy (or was, as this was quite a while ago).
There might be other explanations. For example, if an account shows signs of being connected to previous banned accounts, we might unkill a good post, but not immunize the account overall, until it establishes more of a track record.
I'm glad you like the vouching system! I still feel like it's the best single change we've made to HN since pg retired.
Isn't this a pretty mean thing to say? Just making an account from tor is enough to get you shadowbanned in hn.