What they're almost certainly observing is that these critical comments are being flagged as inappropriate. People make inappropriate comments that happen to contain criticism all the time, and I frequently see people edit them to declare that they were flagged because the group they're criticizing is astroturfing. It's virtually never the case. I've never seen it happen.

But to be clear I am completely ambivalent on Stanford and if you want to criticize them, more power to you.