[helle253]

To be honest, I'm not sure it is a 'covert influence network'.. Or at least, that is a much more conspiratorial turn of phrase than I would use here.

It strikes me as wage arbitrage if anything, an opportunity for these engagement farmers to make very good money (relatively), an opportunity which was all-but-explicitly created by Elon Musk's payout system.

All else aside, its very funny that this is an example of a market-maker once again (un)intentionally destabilizing the social fabric they talk so much about.

[parineum]

> an opportunity which was all-but-explicitly created by Elon Musk's payout system.

Nobody seems to remember it now because the narrative got shifted to "Russians manipulating the election" but, in 2015/16, the whole "Fake News" phenomenon was originally attributed to click bait websites being thrown up to get Facebook/AdWords revenue. I believe it was a European outlet interviewing an Indian person, IIRC. (Found it, or one of them, this isn't the one I remember and it's from after the election) [1].

Once the narrative turned to it being Russian bots influencing the election (to further the "Trump as a Russian agent" narrative, speaking of fake news...), that reporting seemed to dry up.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...