Comment by hajile
5 days ago
Did anyone short Cracker Barrel stock? If not, I have a hard time seeing why bots would have any interest in investing the time/money. There also didn't seem to be any political clout being gained by the complaints.
More real-world is that I know tons of friends/relatives in the South and I don't know of even ONE that liked the redesign.
Russia has gotten VERY good at amplifying any cultural differences or controversies in order to break US politics (and many other countries). If you hadn't noticed it has been VERY effective.
If you haven't noticed, there is no evidence of your claims.
There is in fact proof of this in the real world, where Russia has been paying people in Europe to do actions that rile up "the left" & "the right" (in both directions).
It would be quite naive to think they don't do the same in the virtual world of the internet, where it is even cheaper…
There's no evidence to disprove them either.
Bots aren't necessarily aimed to promote "glorious motherland" directly, there are probably hundreds of people on a payroll searching for easy, popular targets to wreak havoc.
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You just have to read Reddit and YouTube and Twitter comments to see all the evidence you need.
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It's a restaurant logo bro, not a pillar of civic discourse.
It all adds up to an erosion of trust and increased political polarization.
Rage baiting has value to certain groups.
I recall reading somewhere about some investor who wanted to take control of cb who drove this, so less shorting and more opportunistic drive down the price to buy more shares at a lower price.
Yes. Sardar Biglari, who's an activist investor and the CEO and owner of Steak'n'Shake, has been pushing for more control over Cracker Barrel for several years. He amplified some of the backlash against Cracker Barrel.
https://fortune.com/2025/09/18/sardar-biglari-war-against-cr...