In my experience, that's not true. Rather, people are much too quick to jump to the conclusion that so-and-so is a bot (or a troll, a shill, a foreign agent, etc.), when the other's views are outside the range of what feels normal to them.

I've written a lot of about this dynamic because it's so fundamental. Here are some of the longer posts (mini essays really):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39158911 (Jan 2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 (May 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725 (June 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 (May 2020)

Since HN has many users with different backgrounds from all over the world, it has a lot of user pairs (A, B) where A's views don't seem normal to B and vice versa. This is why we have the following rule, which has held up well over the years:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How is that different from humans? Humans have themes/areas they care more about, and are more likely to discuss with others. It's not hard to imagine there are Russians/Chinese people caring deeply about their country, just like there are Americans who care deeply about US.

Ten years ago those accounts existed, too. Back then we called them "people."