alt Hacker NewsI don't think they're bots and I don't even think they're organized.
In my experience with other communities, it only takes 3-5 people with a lot of free time to crush conversations they don't like. On a fast moving comment section a wrongthink comment can be buried into the bottom half of the comments with only a few early downvotes.
When I used to run a spam factory my impression was that success on Reddit was all about avoiding the downvote brigades that would nuke you before you got your first 5 upvotes. Write a post on proggit where you confess that you are partially in it for the money or have any interest in the business of software and hoo boy, that's why I migrated to HN.