“Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.” - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes, you're right. I found this example pretty blatant and egregious, and my annoyance with it got the better of me. I should have handled this differently, thank you for the reminder.

That's the word I was looking for. It really does look like that.