My working theory -

The "Bridge"

FB, IG, Goog, Twitter, et al.

Each human being has been targeted by a complimentary Implant Command and Control AI program. The assigned "bot" creates a map of the individual - social network, financials, ideologies, and behaviors. Behavior modification can be carried out on the target through message targeting and filtering across all used platforms.

Listening posts are linked up to specific clusters of CC implants. On request, listening posts retrieve information or issue commands to individual bots or clusters.

Working together across wide networks, listening posts and botnets can direct human social narratives through active measures - mass silence (shadowban), push (upvote, retweet), and spam. Each bot learns to mimic the output of its target which is why we witness "shills" and "bots" with various types of behavior - aggressive, apathetic, distracting, etc. In this way, each bot performs "double duty" - working on the target, as well as using its learning algorithm and listening post commands to perform psychological warfare operations online against a broad, and generally unaware public.