From my days in 2017 in steem chat two ( a private chat for the whales and a lot of the pll now doing it) they were very aware. I’ve heard other reports from discord groups too. They actively would vote one another and didn’t give a shit about new people making it. They would infact actively flag new people to 1 rep and take all their payouts whilst laughing about them and sharing screen shots in the chat. Sometimes it was just because they didn’t like them, or they disagreed on a topic or sometimes just for fun.