The point is that they're all flagged dead, not that this story didn't attract a bunch of new randos to post flagged comments. Anybody can make an account here to post nonsense with practically no effort at all; it's an open-access site.
Sure, but flagging comments (and not just downvoting) because one disagrees? I keep on the ability to see such posts precisely because more and more frequently the flagged / dead posts are the most interesting and informative ones. This mass flagging approach isn't exactly countering the argument that silencing opposition and censorship is the aim of stuff like this ruling.
The original point was that it was amazing to see so many randos, given the relatively narrow popularity of HN.