Authoritarian is a bit harsh. That implies the moderators delete and ban anything that goes against a particular set of narratives. I have not seen that to be the case. There are topics and opinions that the user-base will downvote and some topics that are likely to start flame wars. In the case of down-voting, it helps to know your audience. In such cases one could just create their own forum that caters to topics that don't resonate here. I've done that for several topics and kept it entirely separated from HN. It would be unfair of me to assume I can change the acceptable use policies of a site or the reaction of its audience based on my preferences.