Definitely fracking and Monsanto. I've also noticed some software and hardware products seem to have a shill presence.

I think we all remember that 6 month period where Microsoft decided to shove VSCode down every ones throat. It was impossible to get away from. New vim released? "Yeah vim is good but now I use VSCode TM". New sublime? New Atom? Same thing. They were aggressive with that one.

> I think we all remember that 6 month period where Microsoft decided to shove VSCode down every ones throat.

Not me. I don't remember hearing about VSCode until a few months back. I had no idea it was first released two years ago.

Maybe I just wasn't reading the right places. But I subscribe to /r/programming, and I think I would expect that to get hit, if they're going to be astroturfing on reddit?

I'm not saying this definitely didn't happen, but I'm skeptical.

I saw loads of accusations of that, but very little evidence to suggest that these were shills, rather than real people who like VS Code. We all get very passionate about our editors, and lots of people use and like VS Code so it's not surprising people comment about it when the discussion is about editors. I like VS Code. I can't remember if I've ever commented to this effect. I'm not a MS shill.

I once implied that Microsoft was targeting HN as part of that astroturfing campaign, and was threatened with banination.

On Reddit?

How easy is it to detect? Because it seems like a great place for a academic studying propaganda to evaluate real techniques in the wild.

Yes, Fracking! The number of shills that were in many subs was off the charts, a few years ago.

I'll add to the list: Windows 8 shills. I remember right after it came out, I had lots of issues and posted in some sub. Wow, the negative responses to my post were amazing.