[toraway]

I'm really not seeing the "empathy-speak" you're referring to in that quote or the rest of the interview?

If you're referring to the quote from OP's post, "I don't know if this will make anyone feel better" isn't really appealing to empathy at all, it's basically just preemptively acknowledging what he said may sound bad and so tries to soften it a bit.

It's a rhetorical cliche that has very little to do with anyone's actual feelings.

They're certainly manipulating people with their astroturfing but via slop content like video game playthroughs for rap songs so their actual strategy doesn't seem to uniquely rely on emotional manipulation either. Just following content trends whatever they may be.

Weaponizing "empathy" just seems like a complete red herring that makes for an irrelevant tangent in this context.