Of interest, a bot army is said to have “taken to Twitter” to influence Twitter social media posts. Bots generate enough Tweets that eventually get shared and then turn into actual hashtag memes passed along by real people. In this way, propaganda bots can initiate and control messaging on social media.
This is also known as “computational propaganda”. In the old days, propaganda usually required a printing press or a broadcast license. Social media made it possible for everyone to be a propagandist. Computational propaganda creates fully automated propaganda dissemination.
Source: Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting | WIRED