We know that those accounts exist, and that they were created and deployed by numerous governments when opportunity struck. We can see their activity: what coun

We know that those accounts exist, and that they were created and deployed by numerous governments when opportunity struck. We can see their activity: what countries they came from, what they were saying, and what hashtags they made up. My understanding of the data is that they were pervasive and influencial in the 2016 US President Elections and in many other socially sensitive events such as the protests in Hong Kong. So I dont think the word paranoia is really fair. It's a real, known problem. (Edit: and now there's evidence[1] that they are spreading climate denialism as well). Anyone calling someone a bot when they are clearly not a bot is probably just being intellectually lazy, dishonest, or arguing in bad faith. But that's just another flavor of the issues with political (or any rational) discourse we had already. If it weren't bots, it would be something else. And yes, shilling (and failure to recognize shilling) is endemic on that platform. One of the many reasons I try to stay away from it now. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/21/climate-tweets-twitter-bots-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/21/climate-t...