[user104658]

This has been going on in various forms since I started using forums/the interwebby back in 1999, under various names and guises. I do think there's been a large influx of Twitter bot accounts this year though - although they've always existed. Some days on various topics, if you keep an eye out for "the signs", you suddenly realise that a HUGE number of the posts are coming from bot accounts. During US election night for certain hashtags (e.g. #georgia, #pennsylvania) 90%+ were bot spam, it was crazy.