I can assure you I didn't ask a single person I know to comment on this, most of my irl friends don't even know what hackernews is. All comments, even the ones that are hidden now are organic. Even I thought it's weird that an 8 year old dormant account decided to comment on my post but I have nothing to do with that.
I believe you (and didn't actually think you'd rallied anyone, we thought something else was going on). Sorry for the bother!