I used to read a Financial Times article from either 2011 or 2012 (can’t remember exactly) where some Israeli military person was confirming that Israel was using what we now call shill accounts (he used a different, more pleasantly sounding term). If Israel does it I’m pretty sure Russia and China do it, too.
(I don’t have a direct link to said FT article, just a photo I took of said military person’s quote which is somewhere on one of my computers)
> As for paid shills, there is an entire sub-industry of PR called "Reputation management" devoted to this.
Sure. But there are also fanboys everywhere. Between presumption of good faith, Occam's Razor, Hanlon's Razor, and the breadth and depth of fanboyism I've seen online, my default presumption is always "fanboy" over "shill". Similar to your point about nationalists.
As for paid shills, there is an entire sub-industry of PR called "Reputation management" devoted to this.