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.
> 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.
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.