I feel this warrants an own thread or at least a discussion. "Troll armies" have been quite successful in quieting dissent the last years in Russia, Turkey and other authoritarian countries. There are theories Russia is partly responsible for the whole Trump spam on Twitter and Reddit. It's time this is taken as a serious threat instead of shrugging off "it's just the internet, 99 % of the comments is always garbage". It's part of a successful information war now when the majority of the public gets their news from social media, which take popularity as a metric for what news is important. It's propaganda behind a proxy.
Edit: also shame on Twitter for complying with Turkey. The time they were proud of being part of social change like the Green Revolution in Iran seems over.