I was assured that this never happens on hacker news and that the evidence that I and others pointed out was both poisonous and imagined.

I would actually love to be wrong, but the explanation given was just that it has been looked into, not anything in depth or addressing the patterns being brought up. Similar disinformation and fast bulk downvoting against the general trend happens when talking about reddit's /r/bitcoin and the company Blockstream that runs it.

At least there is a dialog here and everyone generally wants the same thing (actual opinions and explanations from reasonable people with no astroturfing).