Toxic fandom is very much real, I have been in two fandoms that had plenty of it not just on Twitter but in face to face interactions as well. Asshole fans are all over the place.

Bots are an issue, sure, but most of them are just people with sockpuppet accounts who are trying to stir shit up and get clicks so they are still technically real people, they're just getting paid to either spread disinformation or pad peoples follower counts.