Hacker News is influential. Votes can easily be gamed. Fake accounts are easy to make and hard to track.
Noise is added to mix good info with misinformation to confuse and frustrate people sifting through comments trying to make sense of things.
These people will make weaker arguments against Tesla's actions so those arguments can be easily discredited. People making stronger arguments against Tesla will be clumped with them.
Trolling increases noise and frustration. It makes people not want to read or post adversarial comments.
Denigrate, dismiss, discredit.
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One of the top 3 upvoted comment is usually gamed, because it makes the most lucid argument (it was pre-written; look at timestamp) and is seen as the most solid piece of info amid the noise.