Bot amplification

By inflating likes, shares and replies, bot networks manufacture a false sense of consensus — and because people take popularity as a signal of legitimacy, that illusion can pull genuine users into spreading a narrative further. AI has made the problem harder by giving bot accounts more human-like writing, profile images and behaviour, eroding the old tells that exposed them.

The defence at an individual level is to discount raw engagement numbers as evidence of truth or popularity; at a platform level it is the detection of coordinated, inauthentic activity rather than any single account.