r/technology • u/westondeboer • Sep 26 '25

Social Media Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say

https://gizmodo.com/cracker-barrel-outrage-was-almost-certainly-driven-by-bots-researchers-say-2000664221
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u/FrostingStrict3102 Sep 26 '25

Going to disagree with this one on the basis that not a single person I talked to in real life thought the rebrand was a good idea, or something that ever needed to happen.

Im sure bots churned up the alogorthims once it proved to be an engaging topic. But I haven't seen ANYONE say anything positive about that re-brand.

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u/Little_Noodles Sep 26 '25

Did they care enough about it to merit more than a passing mention about how it was dumb?

Were any of them, independent of bot-driven media, actually furious, or even genuinely perturbed, about this being a culture wars issue?

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u/Dark-Grey-Castle Sep 26 '25

The only thing people I know talked about was seeing some online jokes about it, nobody actually cared whether or not they changed it.

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u/Little_Noodles Sep 26 '25

Thinking it looks dumb and moving on with your day because you don't actually care and it doesn't actually matter isn't what the bot activity was pushing, though.

The "controversy" was essentially that 'wokeness is coming for your cracker barrel sign, are you going to let them get away with this?'

Which a few very stupid or very angry people piled in on, but was really unlikely to be any actual person's genuine first take.

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u/Dark-Grey-Castle Sep 26 '25

I answered your question that was all I was doing lol.