I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon in the comments section on TikTok, and it gives me a tiny morsel of hope. It’s increasingly common to see people pointing out commenters that are likely either bots or users that are simply rage baiting. Yes it gets thrown around as an insult sometimes, but it’s often applied in situations where I think it’s correct too. It’s a tiny sign to me that discourse does shift and people are becoming more social media literate over time.
I got called a bot once here on HN when I wrote a very detailed and informative post on what I think almost anyone could only call an insanely esoteric topic.
I took it as a compliment, though I don’t think the poster intended it that way. I think they thought I was cheating/using chatGPT/literally a bot.
"NPC" and "bot" used to have different meanings. It'd be interesting if the terms converged.
I believe that "bot" gained popularity around 2012, specifically in reference to influence campaigns on Twitter. If you accused someone of being a Russian bot, you were saying that they a) were a shill, and b) possibly not even human, in the literal sense.
Noticed this in Georgian politics - paid shills and people whose behavior is indistinguishable from paid shills are increasingly referred to as "bots" with no presumption of being non-human.
Yeah, in my experience it's typically used by people who can't counter your argument and people who seem likely to be fooled by actual bots. They're the same people, as it happens.
