We all know how frustrating it is to see what one regards as obviously wrong views get advocated on Hacker News, but gratuitous accusations of astroturfing aren't allowed here. It destroys too many community health points to let it become a thing.
It isn't that astroturfing never happens, it's that the destruction of civility isn't worth the small chance that you're right. The vast majority of these cases are explicable by HN users sincerely holding opposing views.
That doesn't mean you should do nothing. If you or anyone suspect astroturfing in an HN thread, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data. We've banned accounts for astroturfing in the past, and we'll do so again, but only when we find evidence.
I wrote about this in a couple of other recent threads:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9115965
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122086
That's because we've noticed an uptick in people making this charge on HN, and it seems worth it to invest in some serious descriptions of what the norm is here, and why.