I’d say there is a huge amount of bots, then the smart bots, then the actual shills. The smarter ones run complex operations and are able to use their own power to self propel their own stories. And there are a lot of similar ‘power users’ who are not wholly paid for by someone but would do work for the highest bidder. I’d bet that yes, 50% of what’s on the front page of major things is reputation management or Hail Corporate stuff, then I’d wager the mostly less popular stuff is actual people, with a ton of bad posts from all sides at the low popularity
We agree that the current situation won’t change itself, and change to this system from inside of it would likely be stifled and repressed.
I agree that we need to keep trying to find a better way, because there are many people are will certainly keep trying to make things worse for us.
The first step is a better way to communicate between ourselves about what we want, why we want it, and how to enact our intentions.
With the advent and use of the internet we now have the possibility for a new way to organize our collective wants.
This system, which I call a consensus engine, would let us as a species make long term goals and work towards their fruition. Without some way to communicate that is less sustainable to misinformation I don’t see any way we can get out of this into something better.