Ironically, the comment you replied to stayed on top of the thread for about 30 minutes, gaining upvote after upvote, and then instantly got kicked down to the bottom, while still showing the original score.
This is very different from the usual time+score-based ordering and looks 100% like a manual override. Strange response to trying to be objective.
For what it's worth, every other comment I looked at which appeared above yours was made after yours (excepting two made an hour prior with dozens of replies and presumably plenty of votes). Other comments can get upvotes too.
Sort of like... claiming there is a conspiracy about downvoting comments? Seems like a non-factual claim with no evidence (also could be called a rumor).
The simple answer would be that some people agreed with you and then later some other people disagreed. Combine that with people posting other comments after you, and other comments having significantly more engagement than yours.
If the person who made the claim is lying, which is going to be pretty obvious with a little bit of time, they've flushed their own career down the drain. Risky move with little potential gain.
Not with you on accusing posters of having those 3 motivations. Maybe they do, but I would most certainly not assume it. Need facts.
They have 3 clear motivations to exaggerate the situation:
1. Disgruntled employee wanting the employer to look dumb.
2. Oversensationalize the news to attract more attention to their job search.
3. Oversell their role in the company in hopes of getting more interviews.
For what it's worth, "me and the rest of the security team" could be one person with a handful on interns doing an experimental project in the security area. Like, trying to achieve 100% formal validation of a massive codebase, on top of existing engineering practices. Such ambitious projects do get axed at the first sign of a downturn, and it would not be a reason for panic.
I would exercise caution and stick to quantifiable facts before concluding that Patreon is run by idiots.
Patreon would, in turn, have a motivation to deny the layoff, so the truth is somewhere in between. A good independent metric would be other verifiable LinkedIn users confirming that they got sacked as well.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/emetcalfe_opentowork-activity...