I have to disagree with many of the comments in this thread saying there are no / minimal bots here. I started tagging users pretty frequently instead of blocking over a year ago, and it’s pretty eye opening to see those accounts pop up in the wild posting completely opposing content or opinions from week to week. Sometimes even from thread to thread. Especially when it comes to politics or AI, for example. It doesn’t help that ban evading and making alts is dead simple.
Of course, this is just my opinion based on my own experiment and observations. I’ve been convinced many times I was arguing with some fash chud only to then see them completely agreeing with my position in another thread two days later. Normal people don’t flip flop that easily. I think LLM controlled bots are a totally different beast than what many of us are used to, and its much harder to see past the facade in the moment.
If your fedi client has a tagging feature, you might be surprised what you see when you start paying attention over time.
Edit: Just for clarity, this isn’t some extensive project I devote time and effort to, I don’t have solid answers for you regarding the rigor of my method or why people decide to make or use bots on a niche corner of the internet. I’ve personally noticed a lot of odd account activity in my few years here that has gotten more common with the ubiquity of LLMs. I’m not claiming bots outnumber real users, either. It’s completely fine to disagree! Enjoy the fediverse as it is as you see fit.
Astroturfing, trolling, testing whether the average commentor can gauge whether they’re arguing with a bot someone has been tweaking, who knows. It’s really not something I expend a lot of effort or thought on, I’ve just found a lot of accounts that I question the authenticity of based on odd activity, personally.