[dwerthen]

I read that piece more in the sense of how one could go about using disinformation and other techniques to disrupt a conversation in a hostile manner, rather then whether someone aka "the Government" actually were. To me it is at least arguable that there are powerful incentives today to do exactly this, disrupt discussion and tone down activism, making them look like lunatics on the fringes. Given such a situation where someone is inclined to do this, isn't it also arguable that these techniques might be of some effect?

The thing that I find interesting is whether these techniques might be countered. I mean, along the lines of building a better platform for discussion that is more robust towards this kind of manipulation from an hostile minority. Now that is something that's interesting for the HN crowd to discuss, isn't it?