For anyone really paying attention to these kinds of things, troll farms are not new. It's very likely that your friendly local administration has some, and they're part of the overall attempt to control and influence opinion for the purposes of propping up powerful institutions or companies.

Microsoft fought a long and dirty troll war against Linux, which ultimately they lost. China has its famous 50 cent party. The US struggled to scale up its troll army and had to resort to "persona management systems". But all these are just the tip of the iceberg and propaganda wars go back a long way to the beginning of the printed word.