Isn't the comment itself a distraction, just like the ones in the main post? :)

No, it isn't a distraction, it's actually related to the topic. A distraction along the lines of the article would be flagging this article and upvoting others.

However, upvoting this and flagging comments pointing out hypocrisy can also be construed as propaganda. Seeing that across the comment section is discouraging.

> All governments do propaganda, this is a well known fact....Even companies astroturf.

This paper isn't about that kind of propaganda, where a particular narrative gets pushed. It's about an insidious kind of propaganda where an unrelated or semi-related narrative is pushed to distract from some topic.

> Why is this downvoted?

Probably because it can be interpreted as a similar kind of propaganda to the kind the article describes (e.g. lets get everyone riled up about Israel such that they forget about China). I can see the loose topic-similarity aiding such a goal.