Quinn Brenner was living a nightmare. Her mother passed away. She was rejected from drama school. Then, as she was leaving an audition, she was hit by a car.

After flat-lining, Quinn managed to survive, waking up in the hospital with two broken legs. Throughout this grueling recovery, her phone was her only connection to the outside world.

If you happened to be texting with Quinn Brenner on Kik, the widely used messenger app with over 275 million global users, you would know Quinn wasn’t actually a girl. She was a bot.

Read more in Mix Panel with interview by Sam Woolley.

Note: This post was originally published on the Political Bots research blog on . It might have been updated since then in its original location. The post gives the views of the author(s), and not necessarily the position of the Oxford Internet Institute.