That is possible, yes, although it seems improbable to me because almost the same content is repeated all the time. It is also possible submitters/activists employ voting rings to push up these articles. The rapid-fire downvote patterns I've seen in these articles' comment sections is unlike other discussions on HN that involve conflicting viewpoints, which is why I feel something else is happening.

Look at any story that concerns China or the CCP, you see similar patterns of comments and downvotes. It's tempting to believe the CIA/CCP are waging information warfare on HN of all places but if we are to believe dang it's just because it's political and people knee-jerk respond in kind with their ideology. That is more logical but upsetting to some people because it suggests there are people who massively disagree with them.

You're breaking the site guidelines with comments like this. Please stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang - how do you propose we have meta conversations about issues like this? I get that there are site guidelines, but concerns about the community being exploited by organizations (rather than individuals) are legitimate and not frivolous. It's this same concern that has reduced the signal to noise ratio on Facebook, Reddit and Twitter. And clearly, people are not willing to just blindly trust that Facebook or Twitter are perfect in their approach or that they are even attempting to do the right thing. Is there a way to discuss this topic that you wouldn't object to?

I hear you. That's a tough one, because the kinds of comments people post as part of such "meta discussions" pour fuel onto the very fires we're trying to contain. And to be honest, I don't know how much more of this kind of discussion I have in me. I spent most of the day writing about it, and it's burning me out. Take a look at these posts and let me know if you still have questions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195089

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21195898

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21197771

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21189152

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187494

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21198494

We definitely want HN users to feel like their concerns about possible manipulation are heard and taken care of. At the same time we want HN users not to bully and hound each other out of prejudice—which unfortunately is happening, not on purpose but because the frames through which people interpret others' comments are much too small. When someone else's view is, say, more than a standard deviation away from one's own, people don't think "wow, that's really a different point of view". They think "astroturfer", "shill", "spy", "bot", "troll", and even "communist agent".