Assume that since there is something to be gained by the more powerful on one side, that a certain portion of the comments siding with the more empowered source are owned. It's not worth calling out individual commenters, because you can't know. But assume that some portion is shilling.
The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation.
Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up.
EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/
The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation.
Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up.
EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/