? The original poster said 'how do we stop toxicity', and I am saying how can we tell the toxicity isn't at least somewhat down to bots and shills, the presence of either of which is hardly controversial, is it? I mean we've had people trying to convince us for years that it was the Russian bots that put Trump in the White House, unless I've seriously misunderstood.
"I mean we've had people trying to convince us for years that it was the Russian bots that put Trump in the White House"
Just because people have been trying to convince us of that theory, doesn't mean we have to believe it. Ask yourself who is doing the convincing and what might be their motive.
Anybody who has ever used Social Media knows that in general, bots don't simply get access to your timeline. First they would have to get you to follow them, a much harder problem than running thousands or millions of bots.
Likewise for shills - first you have to get people to follow you.
The notion that we would all be happily in love with each other, if it weren't for bots and chills, isn't really worth investigating.
People are angry online because there are fights over real issues. It's not just Mac vs PC anymore, it is about money, land ownership, power, control... People tend to get angry if you try to take away their stuff.
As a simple example: many people like video games. Other people came around claiming video games are sexist, and try to get game makers to change the games. That is some serious meddling with something many people hold dear. Of course that makes them angry.
