Absolutely this happens and for a variety of reasons. It's technical term is brigading. It doesn't have to be government-backed, just a group or sub-group bandi

Absolutely this happens and for a variety of reasons. It's technical term is brigading. It doesn't have to be government-backed, just a group or sub-group banding together in a 'brigade' to downvote comments. Two things to caveat this though - 1) Reddit is a public forum with relatively low barriers to entry. As such you should take anything that happens on it with a pinch of salt. The popularity of a comment indicated by its score is not a true indication of its popularity, simply popularity of people who have seen it and bothered to click an up or down vote, plus it's more than open to abuse. 2) You have a single data point of evidence, plus a gut feeling through some observations. You're not doing anything wrong by questioning this, quite the opposite, but keep track of your own objectivity. Don't let the observed pattern turn into a conspiracy theory before you've determined how you've tried to falsify your own assertions and gather more evidence. NB - I think you meant "pattern" not "patent"?