I’m not questioning whether such actors exist - I’m questioning why anyone would waste their time on a platform as tiny as Lemmy. Even if they were successful, the number of people they could sway here is minuscule. That time and effort would be far better spent on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, where the reach is exponentially greater.
I also question people’s ability to detect these actors in the first place. The common assumption seems to be that they’re pushing unpopular opinions that go against your beliefs - but I don’t think that’s their strategy. It seems far more effective to infiltrate echo chambers and feed the narrative within them, reinforcing the beliefs people already hold. That naturally escalates tensions with those in opposing camps, whose beliefs have also been artificially amplified.
I don’t think the main goal is to spread a specific worldview - it’s to sow chaos, distrust, and push society toward implosion from the inside.
In the book "The World Without Us" the author states that old steel bridges would be among the last human made structures left thousands of years after humas have dissapeared for the reason that they didn't have strenght calculations back then which they solved by simply overbuilding everything.