Are they just set up by people/companies to rack up extra followers or is there some other reason for them?
In: 8
Bots sometimes go through a preparation phase of attempting to just mimic a normal user, before being used for their purpose later, to make the act more convincing.
As a notable example, while I’ve seen it less in recent months there was a trend of verified YT channels with generic simple names like “Nice” or “Snow” that would have no videos except a copy pasted “who is [channelname]?” video, where they would claim to be a former video editor as their cover. (occasionally, you’d also see a minecraft clip or two)
They would have around 100,000 subscribers each from other fake accounts, and their only future activity beyond this point would be trowling popular videos, then parroting any comment with good engagement. People then see the checkmark and upvote the comments, boom you have an vaguely legit looking account you can sell to shmucks looking to become influencers.
Of course, the best way to skip this step, if a bad actor can get away with it, is just to hijack a human’s account. Anyway, this is why you’ll see bots sometimes with no immediately apparent purpose.
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