The article is from 2015, and it's tinfoil hat claptrap. Not sure how this made it to the front page.
The unaware can laugh all they want but the information war is real and HN is quite popular.
No doubt nefarious actions are real but internet users have a far greater tendency to project it onto people who simply have a different view than they do. We all need to guard against this.
Endless reams about this at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if you or anyone want to understand this rule better.