Disinformation and other propaganda campaigns are possibly the most important issue in our industry and societies - they are transforming cultures, and not in a way anyone likes, and threatening freedom and democracy - and yet we can't talk about them here, where it's possibly one of the most important places to discuss them. It's the almost the only thing you can't talk about on HN; it's the Emporer's New Clothes - we must agree to deny the reality we all see.
Propaganda, as I understand it, is not meant to persuade but to disrupt, to paralyze, to prevent functioning: Some people are diverted from the reality by the falsehoods, others are divided, and it makes discusion seemingly impossible - just like disucssion of public affairs in the US right now. Just like discussion of propaganda on HN - the propaganda campaigns have arguably shut down discussion of themselves - they operate but we must pretend they aren't. They've succeeded (so far).
That's not to discount efforts dang has made to deal with them - it's a tough, tough job, and who knows what HN would look like without dang's efforts. I don't want to imagine. But forbidding discussion of it is what the propagandists seek (again, as I understand it).
The solution IMHO is not a blanket ban, but to ban the techniques of propaganda: Inflammatory language (including exaggeration), unsupported claims, non-specific claims (college students are wasting their money - which students? on what?), etc. Create a higher standard for inflammatory topics: Non-inflammatory language, non-intolerent, make specific claims, support what you say, maybe more. Then we can talk about propaganda too.