Excellent comments, and very much on point about the Sybil attack. I should have seen that myself.

The spam relationship is a correct interpretation. More specifically: as any new medium or channel becomes influential enough, it will be sought by those who seek to use it to their ends: for commercial or financial return, or social or political power. And their means are distraction, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation.

There's quite a body of literature on this topic, going back a few thousand years.