@coolboymew @demonofustio >bro, you only need a single schizo being weirdly persistent, that's literally all you need.

I know, but what I've seen people show is examples of "I have a zero follower account on something, I say something on a hot button issue to no one, or I say something that uses a bunch of buzz words, but as a jumbled incoherent mess, and then seconds later I have 3 or 4 accounts all using similar canned responses".

Like, that's proof of bots, or low income Indians, Israelis, or Chinese paid to search for key words and then reply with specific canned quotes. This is well documented (though maybe it's not as pervasive as just a year ago, or it's more subtle now). We also have the receipts from companies like Logically who were paid to do this sort of stuff. Sure, more popular things are not bots (again using internet celebrities as an example), but there are lots of these fake accounts and all they do is go around sewing discord trying to make you look discredited. But this also implies that a lot of the incidental content you do see online (like the NAFO stuff from a few years back) is likely astroturfed as well. Maybe it's not 100% bots, but it never needed to be.

Anyway, I feel like we're probably talking passed each other, or we're both sort of saying the same thing but in different ways, idk.