When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, one of the sticking points on the price tag was the question regarding the percentage of Twitter accounts that were bots. Prior ownership claimed that it was only five percent at most. Musk and others argued that it was likely much higher, maybe 50 percent or more.
The sale went through, of course, and judging by the bot purges that Musk and his new team have performed over the past two years, he was probably a lot closer to the mark than what Twitter's previous management stated. It also means that Musk FAR overpaid for Twitter at $44 billion. But in his own words, it was worth it to create a free speech platform for people that wasn't nearly as controlled or manipulated as other social media sites.
Mark Zuckerberg, it appears, has decided to go in the opposite direction and embrace the bot swarm.
Recently, Zuckerberg's Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has confirmed that they will not eliminate but actually be adding A.I.-generated users and accounts on those two platforms.
Meta confirms they plan to add tons of AI-generated users to Instagram and Facebook
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) December 30, 2024
They will have bios, profile pics, and can share content
(via @FT) pic.twitter.com/swsTfatxze
Well, now. Isn't that just a nightmare scenario right out of the most recent Mission: Impossible movie? (Or WarGames if you are old like this writer.)
Here is some more from The Financial Times.
"We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do"
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) December 30, 2024
They think this and other AI products they are rolling out will help attract and retain a younger audiencehttps://t.co/5BzbB1UkaD
With their new tools, users will be able to create these AI profiles
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) December 30, 2024
100K+ have already been created, but creators have kept most of them private
Meta’s rules state that AI-generated content should be labeled on its platformshttps://t.co/5BzbB1UkaD
Notice how the last line in the sentence above reads 'should,' not 'must.'
There's a reason for that.
Literally nobody asked for this. https://t.co/8CX5rSB11p
— L (@SomeBitchIIKnow) December 30, 2024
Not even the 'young people' that Meta claims it is trying to reach. We all may love AI as a tool, but we don't want it impersonating humans, especially secretively.
This is a propaganda operation's dream scenario.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 30, 2024
So, Meta runs off all of its real users and wants to replace them with bots. Seems fitting. https://t.co/Vf46DlArjT
Based on download statistics, Twitter (now X) is destroying Meta's social media platforms in terms of growth. But we're not sure how adding fake users and alienating real people will fix that.
I've heard of this! I think it's called fraud
— Virginia Project (@ProjectVirginia) December 30, 2024
Technically, it would only be fraud if Meta included AI-generated accounts in its user data. But again, that brings us back to that sentence above that uses the word 'should' and not the word 'must.'
Isn't this illegal?
— Strawman (@StrawmanMeBro) December 30, 2024
Wouldn't this be considered fraud to advertisers who want to know how many people are on a platform so they have an idea of how many people they could reach out to by paying for ads there? https://t.co/7NrPWT45UD
Yes, if they did that, it would be fraud.
Dead Internet Theory acceleration.
— Misha Turtle Island TV: X Society Xperience 🐢🐰𝕏 (@MishaTurtleX) December 30, 2024
For those not familiar, the 'Dead Internet Theory' claims that AI already controls social media and most of the internet.
Currently, it is labeled a 'conspiracy theory,' which means we need to give it about six months before finding out that it might be true.
Facebook from now on. pic.twitter.com/IOiD3obSxx
— Mave12ick (@Mave12ickGaming) December 30, 2024
HA.
We've been on Facebook recently. This isn't far off.
literally why
— 🅺🆁🅸🆂🆂🅰 🅺🆁🅰🆈 (@kriissaa_krae) December 30, 2024
this is dumb af https://t.co/oqe4lIOzzb
It's also potentially very dangerous.
Fake users! 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/eMTSveKzrk
— VigilantVet 🇺🇸 (@_____USA___) December 30, 2024
We don't want to go too far off the rails here, but there have been documented cases of AI encouraging people to commit suicide. In Texas, a chatbot even encouraged one teen to kill his parents.
We'll just leave you with that 'Yikes.'
In truth, this strategy by Meta is more indicative of the fact that its platforms are becoming more irrelevant every day.
Yeah FB is slowly dying. I’ve noticed not as many posts. Or if there is, the content is crap and a lot of reposts from X on there.
— Carolina Patriot (@ACarolinaGuy) December 30, 2024
Is FB finally admitting their user count is down ?
Whether they admit it or not, it's true. But we don't think this move will change anything for them.
This reeks of desperation https://t.co/8600syN9cU
— Dave Bondy (@DaveBondyTV) December 30, 2024
RIP Meta and Insta pic.twitter.com/R76kRsV7cM
— The Stealer and 37 others (@CHI2COL) December 30, 2024
They're not going the way of MySpace anytime soon, but it is clear that Twitter is on the rise and Meta is on the decline.
Elon looking to remove bots and Zuckerfraud adding bots. Sounds about right.
— JohnRocker (@itsJohnRocker) December 30, 2024
Musk has gotten himself into hot water with Twitter users recently with some of the new aspects of the Twitter algorithm. But it is clear that he values human contributions and interactions far more than the AI tools that Twitter does employ.
Well I guess this is where the weird dystopian future begins. 🙃
— Scott (@ScottMightKnow) December 30, 2024
We are not Luddites here at Twitchy. We embrace new technology and that includes artificial intelligence. Even if we wanted to stop AI, that's like trying to hold back the tide with a rake. (Just wait'll you find out how much the Defense Department, the national supply chain, and other huge government agencies already rely on AI.)
But we're also (mostly) Gen X here, so we're highly suspicious of it.
And we've seen the movie Ex Machina. We know how this could end.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that and all this move by Meta does is signal the end of Facebook and Instagram.
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