If you were to search for what is influential on today’s internet, you would not start with a human. You would start with an algorithm. The invisible lines of code that feed you content, decide what is trending and privilege engagement over truth now shape what you think. The Politico story about how automated accounts helped amplify Nicki Minaj’s MAGA-aligned posts is not a fluke. It shows a much larger problem where bots and algorithmic reward systems shape public discourse.

Let’s be clear. This is not about one celebrity’s politics. This is about who gets heard. It is not you. It is not me. It is the bots and the algorithms built to reward engagement, not insight.

Emerging research shows that turning on the algorithmic feeds on platforms like X actually shifts political opinion. One field experiment found that algorithmic feeds pushed users toward certain content in ways that changed who they followed and what they saw next. That matters in a big way. What that means in practice is that software now steers what we believe.

At the same time, experts are warning that sophisticated networks of bots are not a futuristic threat. They are here now. Large groups of automated accounts that coordinate, adapt and behave like humans can tailor tone and content to match their audience. They exploit reward systems in social networks so that narratives that should be marginal become mainstream.

This is not fringe theory. People studying social media bots in global elections from Brazil to Canada are finding that automated accounts do more than lurk in the background. They shape conversations and push agendas. In Brazil, bot networks pushed narrow agenda points that would not have gained traction on their own. In Canada, psychologists found bot activity shaping what topics were amplified in online political discussions.

Researchers call this kind of activity computational propaganda. That is a fancy phrase for what amounts to manipulation of the public discourse through software, scripts and coordinated automation. The internet no longer feels like a market of ideas. It feels like a coliseum ruled by engagement metrics and bots with better reach than real people.

Let’s be honest. This is catastrophic for society.

This dynamic does not respect political ideology. In the Minaj case, it leans in one direction today, but bots and automated influence techniques are tools. Tools are used by every side. They are used to amplify narratives engineered for maximum engagement rather than maximum truth.

You might call this the enshitification of the internet. That phrase, used by Cory Doctorow, described how services degrade over time as they optimize for extraction rather than human value. In this context, it is the extraction of attention and the shaping of belief. Platforms that once promised democratized communication are now pipelines that feed us curated narratives designed to keep us engaged so they can sell ads. That is the extraction of human agency.

That brings us back to something Tim Wu has warned about. The internet’s architecture has shifted from empowering individuals to extracting our data, our privacy and our beliefs. What remains of real human conversation gets drowned in a sea of automated amplification and optimized content. 

These consequences are not abstract. In democratic systems, bot activity can shift public opinion and distort what people think their fellow citizens believe. Actors with resources can flood feeds with tailored messaging and shape elections or policy debates. Influence operations using software and automation are global and widespread.

Work being done by companies like Cyabra to detect bot-driven influence is critical. We need transparency about where the bots are and how they operate. But detection alone is not enough. We cannot simply expose bots and hope the problem goes away. The real issue is the algorithmic reward mechanism that gives automated accounts outsized reach.

If we want a future where human influence matters, we have to change the incentives of these platforms. We need political will behind regulation, transparency in how feeds are ranked and standards that privilege authentic human interaction over machine-generated noise.

Most politicians, brands and celebrities are happy to play the algorithm’s game if it gets them attention and headlines. But humanity deserves more. We deserve a public digital square that reflects real voices and real debate rather than engineered impressions of consensus.

At the end of the day, influence should be human. If we let bots and hidden algorithms write our beliefs for us, we give up not just the future of the internet but the future of how we govern ourselves and how we live together.