Too many too early on for just random trolls.
Also too many different accounts with too similar writing style. It's one of those situations where the teacher knows only one person has actually written the essay and everyone else copied.
And they need the obvious crazies. The obvious crazy gets moderated, but that leaves the "tame" ones unmoderated and makes them acceptable (or ignorable for example by you). But it edges the discussion towards where they want it. Extra win, in their own community, each banned poster proves them right: the SJW mainstream is silencing dissenters!
And if Cambridge Analytica has taught us anything, it is that Orson Scott Card was right and public opinion on the internet would be shaped through fake arguments.