Manufacturing consent online is dependent on the rules of the game. Russian-bot-syndrome is a fraud issue, in this case a state actor manipulating the 1-person-1-voice assumption of the game. If we're making a marketplace metaphor, then this market is being tilted toward actors with the resources to pay for bots, workers, or influencers. It's not like it's limited to Russia; Bloomberg was somewhat showy during the primary about paying people to tweet for him, and it's safe to assume any other well-resourced actor with an interest in manufacturing consent is doing the same thing.

The censorship debate is an indicator of game-rule collapse in social media. The platforms are reaching for top down control because they can't cook up a better way to reduce fraud and (let's call it) low-quality behavior. Ironically this method reduces the overall authenticity of the platforms and counteracts the intent of the censorship, and thus you get game-rule collapse.