PeakMetrics grabbed a sample of 52,000 posts made on X within the first 24 hours of Cracker Barrel’s announcement that it would be modernizing its logo to an admittedly very plain and generic design. In that timeframe, it found that 44.5% of all mentions of Cracker Barrel were flagged as likely or higher bot activity. Those numbers climb even higher when a boycott is mentioned. About 1,000 posts in that first 24-hour period called on people to stop eating at Cracker Barrel, and 49% of those posts got flagged as likely coming from bots. In its report, PeakMetrics states that the boycott was unlikely to be an organic grassroots response but a “bot-assisted amplification seeded by meme/activist accounts.”

  • IWW4@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Of course it was. It never made any sense to me that anyone would GAF.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      The thing is people were persuaded to GAF. We hear “driven by bots” and we think “oh so it was fake.” But bots are merely the PR mechanism of choice in 2025. In prior decades it might have been AM radio and a bunch of press releases faxed around or influence networks pumping the talk shows for airtime or church networks getting people riled up from the pulpit. But the game has always been the same. It’s only the tools that have changed.

      • RightEdofer@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        Yes, but that’s like saying cutting trees is the same game when it went from handsaws to today’s harvesters. Technically they do the same thing, but the scale and efficiency is a world apart.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Oh I completely agree. My point is that just because it was driven by bots doesn’t mean it was fake and therefore we can ignore it (I believe some people have that perception when they hear that some online uproar was driven by bots).

      • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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        4 days ago

        Yes. It’s incredibly stupid. But I don’t see why anyone cares.

        That said, I could absolutely believe that the rebranding was to deliberately destroy the brand, as part of some rich people destroy Toys R Us / Gamestop type of crap.

  • MiDaBa@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    People are easily convinced to choose a view based on what everyone else around them is doing. This is why Ai is such a threat right now because a single actor can flood social media, comment boards and other online groups with comments arguing a point to convince everyone theyre the ones with the alternative view. It’s programmed social manipulation.

  • tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 days ago

    God, that was such a weird controversy. I don’t like oversimplified Silicon Valley culture-esque logos, but this was blown out of proportion (and surprisingly partisan, for some reason?)

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      5 days ago

      When you strip away real people caring, this is what it looks like when you’re left with just the bots. They chose bi-partisan for this, because they always choose bi-partisan. Someone screaming alone isn’t worth much.

    • HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
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      6 days ago

      My uncle blew a lid at dinner over Cracker Barrel. They believe whatever their media tells them.

      My solace is I know what gift card to get him for Christmas.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The point where I realized it was fake was when nobody was complaining about the font or going “Uhm, aktually it’s ‘typeface’!”

  • HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Be that as it may, its the only thing the right actually banded together for this year aside from using Charlie Kirk’s death as a call for genocide.

  • ngdev@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    stock price manipulation? idk could be likely. just have a botnet for hire and then buy the manufactured dip

  • Phegan@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    At this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found our Cracker Barrel was outrage farming, paid the botner to manufacture it for them so they could change it back and reap the boost from conservatives.

  • morphballganon@mtgzone.com
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    4 days ago

    Any apparent outrage over anything except fascism is inevitably fabricated in some way, whether by bots or paid shills

    • PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      My parents are the clowns that eat up bot manipulation posts. I have never seen them go anywhere to eat. But somehow they were CB masters. Their friend group is just as stupid to. They buy into rage bait like children and most of us kids are just done with them. It’s pathetic.

  • AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Modern internet for you.

    It may be far from perfect, but it’s why I have such a soft spot for alternative to modern social media. If I’m going to put my through a slog of keeping these sorts of official social media accounts ip and running, I might as well make it a nicer experience.

  • Geodad@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    TLDR: Conservatives got big mad because Cracker Barrel wanted to take the cracker and the barrel off the logo.