Yes, it happened even a few years back. I have seen this first hand with a startup (not going to name). At the time, the startup asked its employees to flag com

Yes, it happened even a few years back. I have seen this first hand with a startup (not going to name). At the time, the startup asked its employees to flag comments against them on HN, and vote only what their founder said. Today, they're a big multi-million dollar business, the founder gives many useful pieces of advice and interviews and what not, but to me, ethics is everything and I stopped recommending them to people in my circle.