Honestly Russia might not need to bot anymore, but with a few bribed content creators and some incendiary alternative takes and a lot of bot accounts you can do a lot of damage.
The point isn’t to astroturf the internet, it’s to guide it in the right direction for people to harbor conspiratorial bullshit like that. It’s like pushing a ball down a slope lightly, the gravity at some point adds way more force than you could have.
Honestly Russia might not need to bot anymore, but with a few bribed content creators and some incendiary alternative takes and a lot of bot accounts you can do a lot of damage.
The point isn’t to astroturf the internet, it’s to guide it in the right direction for people to harbor conspiratorial bullshit like that. It’s like pushing a ball down a slope lightly, the gravity at some point adds way more force than you could have.