Having been brainwashed by WaPo's headline, I interpreted it as automated but requiring operator's confirmation before "acting", i.e. actually sending something

Having been brainwashed by WaPo's headline, I interpreted it as automated but requiring operator's confirmation before "acting", i.e. actually sending something, which sounds reasonable if you aren't sure that your code will work 100% as intended ;) But now on second read I see it's ambiguous and the author seems to be politics student so maybe you are right after all that he really did it all by hand. > Perhaps he just wanted something short and that sounds better than "fake user accounts". I think "accounts" would be fine. Or "sockpuppets" if one wants to be fancy :)