The professional troll factories (that tend to get quiet when Russian office hours are done...) have used browser automation for years already - and they pay the $ whatever for the blue checkmark to get to the top of people's replies.

"Bots" have for a very long time now to a lot of people meant people who are following instructions/being paid to post/reply rather than only scripts.

"Bots" being actual humans in literal office buildings feeding and flaring up misinformation and dissent online.

They've upgraded to AI's recently though, usually the first response is a canned AI thing but if you keep arguing you'll get an actual human.