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Why are they calling them "bots"? Is it because they themselves censored the usage of the term "shill", when they were themselves the ones shilling?
by lumberjack 8y ago
Why are they calling them "bots"? Is it because they themselves censored the usage of the term "shill", when they were themselves the ones shilling?
- gaius 8y agoThey call them NPCs now
- dragontamer 8y agoThat'd make sense actually. Unfortunately, the term "NPC" seems to be just a childish insult more often than not. I guess the word "shill" is typically an insult and rarely ever used to actually attack an actual bot or paid-marketer (even though that's the implication). Troll is the most accurate word I think. I think people are generally happy when a paid employee interacts with the audience (technically a "shill" but... in the case of MMORPGs and such, people like feeling that the game-masters are listening to them). I'm personally going to stick with the word "troll". I don't really care if they're paid or not, or foreign or not. If they're hampering the discussion, they're a troll. If they're helping the discussion, then they are welcome. So "Troll" is the best distinction, and the main one that matters.
- mercer 8y agoNPC is the right-wing version of 'bot'. These days the term 'Bots' can refer to all sides of social media shilling, but seems to be most commonly used in relation to (perceived?) Russian interference and pepe-/the_donald-type memes. (I'm not a fan, because I feel 'bot' should refer to, well, actual bots, and the better term would be 'shill' or 'sockpuppet', but whatever) NPC, on the other hand, seems to be used mostly by right-wing actors in reference to left-wing activity/interference. Personally I'm inclined to think it's largely projection on the side of the NPC-memers/(alt-)right, but I'm sure there's still a bunch of truth to it. Everyone with half a brain uses 'bots' these days.