This reminds me of the storyline from Newsroom where Neal tries to infiltrate the troll underground. The scary thing is how effective this kind of manipulation can be. I often check the comments on HN before reading the article to see if it's going to be worth my time. With sports or controversial news articles I love to jump to the comments to see what the debate is. I like to think of myself as a critical thinker, but I often find myself getting swept up in my own confirmation bias. Upvoting the comments I agree with and downvoting those I don't, almost mindlessly without really evaluating the arguments. It's the more modern version of the cable news network shows where they put a Republican on one side and a Democrat on the other and let them yell their talking points at each other while the host interjects every so often to stir the pot. I hate that it appeals to me, but something about my base nature is attracted to it like a moth to a flame.