This quote from the CMU article lines up with the headline on this HN discussion thread (200M, 62%, bots, COVID-19):

> CMU researchers since January have collected more than 200 million tweets discussing coronavirus or COVID-19. Of the top 50 influential retweeters, 82% are bots, they found. Of the top 1,000 retweeters, 62% are bots.

Fascinating article. Thank you for taking the time to find it.

That suggests an entirely different conclusion: that bots are better at becoming influential on Twitter than people are.

Influential if you want your audience to be entirely made of other bots.

without peer review or even an arxiv link these numbers might as well be pulled out of thin air

Carnegie Mellon University has credibility and is highly ranked (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/carnegie-mellon-univers...), so a press release from them is more credible than thin air or a random blog.