Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say

Comments

• IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Of course it was. It never made any sense to me that anyone would GAF.

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  • scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The thing is people were persuaded to GAF. We hear “driven by bots” and we think “oh so it was fake.” But bots are merely the PR mechanism of choice in 2025. In prior decades it might have been AM radio and a bunch of press releases faxed around or influence networks pumping the talk shows for airtime. But the game has always been the same. It’s only the tools that have changed.

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    • IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Absolutely!

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    • RightEdofer@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes, but that’s like saying cutting trees is the same game when it went from handsaws to today’s harvesters. Technically they do the same thing, but the scale and efficiency is a world apart.

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  • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I thought it was stupid but not stupid enough to boycott

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    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes. It’s incredibly stupid. But I don’t see why anyone cares.

      That said, I could absolutely believe that the rebranding was to deliberately destroy the brand, as part of some rich people destroy Toys R Us / Gamestop type of crap.

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• MiDaBa@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  People are easily convinced to choose a view based on what everyone else around them is doing. This is why Ai is such a threat right now because a single actor can flood social media, comment boards and other online groups with comments arguing a point to convince everyone theyre the ones with the alternative view. It’s programmed social manipulation.

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• tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  God, that was such a weird controversy. I don’t like oversimplified Silicon Valley culture-esque logos, but this was blown out of proportion (and surprisingly partisan, for some reason?)

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  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    When you strip away real people caring, this is what it looks like when you’re left with just the bots. They chose bi-partisan for this, because they always choose bi-partisan. Someone screaming alone isn’t worth much.

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• Gamechanger@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Sounds about right, not even (most) rightwingers are stupid enough to care about that shit.

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  • HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My uncle blew a lid at dinner over Cracker Barrel. They believe whatever their media tells them.

    My solace is I know what gift card to get him for Christmas.

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• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The point where I realized it was fake was when nobody was complaining about the font or going “Uhm, aktually it’s ‘typeface’!”

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  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    lol, people really do care about the fonts.

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• AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Image

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• HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Be that as it may, its the only thing the right actually banded together for this year aside from using Charlie Kirk’s death as a call for genocide.

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• Phegan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  At this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found our Cracker Barrel was outrage farming, paid the botner to manufacture it for them so they could change it back and reap the boost from conservatives.

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• interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  So, bots automatically detect the sensitivity for emotional response in humans, then they repeat and amplify this response toward sensitive issues until it becomes a movement, a roiling positive feedback loop or anger

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  • Zephorah@discuss.online ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s pretty basic when you dig into the social psychology.

    A classic outside the internet experiment would be a waiting room that starts to fill with smoke. Smoke starts to leak in at the ceiling. People see it. The variable is when the confederate (word for person who is an experimenter hire) gets up and leaves. Seeing someone leave, not the smoke itself, even as it builds up in the room, is a far better predictor of human behavior in that moment. People will take this farther than you’d think, waiting and then waiting some more, until a social cue occurs.

    Online is different, yes, but our social wiring doesn’t just go away. And now, the numbers of social cues are far, far easier to manipulate. I don’t know if they’re cheaper, but the numbers side of it is disturbing.

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  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve noticed that they’re adjusting this way of doing things. It’s not just anger anymore, they’re using boredom. They’ll go into long diatribes that have a hint of a point, but they’re so long that people give up. This gets people to either be bored and leave or get distracted into a mental vacation. It also can bury the things they want buried.

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    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Makes sense, couple first times they use the weapon, they are clumsy, hamfisted about it and they leave obvious clues of inauthenticity. But each time they learn how to blend in and become more and more subtle until it becomes impossible to prove that is not authentic, that something isn’t “happenning”.

      And when the nuance is so blurred anyone trying to point to it, gets diagnosticated
      “paranoid delirium disorder type persecution” And given anti-psychotic pills until they agree, it was just a delusion, “nothing ever happens actually doctor”

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• ngdev@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  stock price manipulation? idk could be likely. just have a botnet for hire and then buy the manufactured dip

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• buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Pretty much all the out rage was on Twitter and Twitter is 90% bots so this is a big fat DUH!

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• AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Modern internet for you.

  It may be far from perfect, but it’s why I have such a soft spot for alternative to modern social media. If I’m going to put my through a slog of keeping these sorts of official social media accounts ip and running, I might as well make it a nicer experience.

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• morphballganon@mtgzone.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Any apparent outrage over anything except fascism is inevitably fabricated in some way, whether by bots or paid shills

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• finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Makes sense, never met somebody actually mad about it.

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  • PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My parents are the clowns that eat up not manipulation posts. I have never seen them go anywhere to eat. But somehow they were CB masters. Their friend group is just as stupid to. They buy into rage bait like children and most of us kids are just done with them. It’s pathetic.

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• impynchimpy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No surprise. And next week, something new.

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• Zephorah@discuss.online ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What? You think flat earthers are real? It’s a great topic to use to see how far down the believability about other people will go.

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• Geodad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  TLDR: Conservatives got big mad because they wanted to take the cracker off the logo.

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  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That is not the tldr, lol.

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    • Geodad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      😂

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• DarthAstrius@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s me, I’m bots.

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