Man Builds Twitter Bot That Humans Actually Like
www.wired.com/2012/06/twitter_arm
From the page
Saved with the link. Notes from 2007 to 2016 are mostly the page's own words, so this is probably an excerpt.
@Trackgirl was set up to infiltrate a group of runners. She would scour Twitter for messages with running-themed keywords and post them as if they were her own. Three times a day, shed pick five people to follow, and shed always follow back anybody who followed her. Because she seemed connected to the right people, @Trackgirl started to gain followers, who thought her cut-and-paste messages about the agony and the ecstasy of long-distance running were coming from a real person. One day, however, the Twitter bot posted a message saying that shed hurt her ankle.