yep, they absolutely use propaganda’s to achieve a scarecrow effect. Remember all the info they fed journalists about bin Laden hiding in networks of underground caves? Then it turns out he is hiding at a family members house with all his relatives?
You seem to be falling into this common trap of confusing "finding a human's body hiding offline in mountains of Pakistan" and "figuring out the name of a guy thinking he is shitposting anonymously on the internet" (and that if we assume that the "shitposting guy" was just that, and not some remarkable researcher with some very specific skill-set, and also not affiliated with any 3-letter agency in the first place — which is hell of an assumption as well).
(Also, doesn't matter, but just for the record, I don't recognize your assumption as "fair". It's not like a I deny it, it's just way too many assumptions for a discussion involving more unknowns than any real factual information at all.)
You seem to falling into this common trap of intel agency omnipotence when we have plenty of examples to the contrary.