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There is a shocking amount of "non-human" activity. I think there are definitely bots, but also people that are paid to promote one narrative or another (paid w

There is a shocking amount of "non-human" activity. I think there are definitely bots, but also people that are paid to promote one narrative or another (paid with money or social validation). I've trolled through many a twitter/reddit account when I sniff something off about a post. They are often hyper focused on a single topic, pushing a specific point of view. Rarely is this mentioned. Its "hail corporate" vibes but in a guerilla fashion.

Sebb767 6y ago
But people are, too! You only need to talk to my grandmother for 5 minutes and I swear you'll get to hear how bad the CDU is as a party. If I ran a bot, sprinkling in a few off-topic comments is a very easy way to both get reputation/karma and look less suspicious. Humans with an agenda are far less concerned about that.
- inafewwords 6y ago
  On reddit just have a repost bot, then a mini upvote swarm, then use it as a guise to make realistic human interaction. Have your bots come through and copy a similar on-topic, joke or pun thread from a previous repost of that same content. It is for SEO/narrative purposes, online account farming. More posts from social media corps about defeating this ecosystem would move no deescalate the situation. The "paid ad" requirement for influencers was one step forward in the same fight
throwawayzRUU6f 6y ago
Marketing is also upping their game and masquerading their promotions as organic activity on social media. This happens to tech topics, too. As an example: about two years ago, for about a month, tech subreddits and HN were full of discussion threads about how awesome CoreOS is, the users patting each other on the back about it being 'a breath of fresh air', usually with very little technical details on how and why. Then it suddenly receded and one rarely hears about it today anymore. In retrospect, I'm certain it was a coordinated marketing campaign, but at the time it was indistinguishable from genuine Redditors discovering a new passion.

Sebb767 6y ago

But people are, too! You only need to talk to my grandmother for 5 minutes and I swear you'll get to hear how bad the CDU is as a party. If I ran a bot, sprinkling in a few off-topic comments is a very easy way to both get reputation/karma and look less suspicious. Humans with an agenda are far less concerned about that.

inafewwords 6y ago
On reddit just have a repost bot, then a mini upvote swarm, then use it as a guise to make realistic human interaction. Have your bots come through and copy a similar on-topic, joke or pun thread from a previous repost of that same content. It is for SEO/narrative purposes, online account farming. More posts from social media corps about defeating this ecosystem would move no deescalate the situation. The "paid ad" requirement for influencers was one step forward in the same fight

throwawayzRUU6f 6y ago

Marketing is also upping their game and masquerading their promotions as organic activity on social media. This happens to tech topics, too. As an example: about two years ago, for about a month, tech subreddits and HN were full of discussion threads about how awesome CoreOS is, the users patting each other on the back about it being 'a breath of fresh air', usually with very little technical details on how and why. Then it suddenly receded and one rarely hears about it today anymore. In retrospect, I'm certain it was a coordinated marketing campaign, but at the time it was indistinguishable from genuine Redditors discovering a new passion.