Actually, they didn't do it in Germany or the USSR. This isn't the same as state controlled media. (We have that too.) This is an army of disinformation specialists whose purpose is to disrupt and confuse citizen to citizen communications which occur on the Internet. I do believe Bill Clinton did this too, but he wasn't stupid enough to announce it publicly.
ML/NJ
Goebbels had a team designated to spy on a man whose dog would bark ouot ‘heil hitler’.
Exact same behavior, sending a team to bother people who criticize der fuhrer.
Only thing different is now there is the internet.