Hacker News is at least somewhat informative in the tech sphere. It tends to favor more esoteric technology like Lisp in lieu of things like Java & JavaScript which is far more favored on Reddit/Programming. Politics are mostly left leaning mixed with some Libertarian views. There is a good splattering of non tech stuff as well (music, art, literature, linguistics...etc). I'd say it's a far cry from fake news and cat videos.

This effect is partially muted by the fact that one can only see the vote status of one’s own post. There is still a tendency toward conformity, but at least the suggestion to vote with other readers isn’t apparent like it is on many content aggregators/discussion media.

Oh, look at them rush to White Knight their own bubble. "Not OUR echo chamber, no! We're different, you see, because reasons."