Meta Quietly Deletes AI Profiles After Public Backlash
- by Colin Kirkland , January 6, 2025
Soon after announcing its plans to boost in-app engagement by rolling out millions of generative AI characters across Facebook and Instagram, Meta has deleted several of its own AI bot accounts due to widespread public backlash.
The tech giant's bots gained attention when Connor Hayes, Meta's vice president of product for generative AI, told the Financial Times that the company wants AI profiles to exist on Meta platforms in the same way that human accounts do, with “bios and profile pictures” and the ability “to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform.”
The bots -- which were actually first introduced over a year ago -- align with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for more AI-generated content and experiences across the company’s family of social apps, and Meta's acquisition of Social.ai, an app where users interact with millions of AI bots.
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However, shortly after the Financial Times article came out, Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney told 404 Media that “there is confusion” between what Hayes' claims and Meta’s intentions. Since Sweeney's comment, many of the AI profiles that were previously live have been deleted.
Users on Facebook and Instagram began spotting the AI accounts last week, pointing out bots’ low-quality images and superficial racial and sexual identities, such as “Liv,” whose bio stated that they were a “Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller,” but informed Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah that it was created by “10 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Asian male.”
Other users found it frustrating that they were unable to block Meta-run AI profiles from appearing in their feed, although a Meta spokesperson has since said that this was a “bug.”
Despite Hayes' excited announcement and Meta's bold plan to launch millions of these AI-generated users, Meta is at a standstill with its billions of human users, who are concerned with the future purpose of social-media platforms as vessels of connection, not to mention the advertisers who pay to reach human consumers and drive sales.
It seems no one is particularly ready to sift through millions of non-human accounts, regardless of the “engagement” opportunities.
The entire social media environment is ready for a total reboot.
SEO has become posts written by bots, published by automated software and reacted to by bot... no human minds get involved. Yet, clients continue thinking that SEO is an actual thing.
I belong to a cold-email group run by Instantly. The sheer volume of emails needed to get even a bit is enormous. As a result, many of us, as people, have very strict spam filters which make cold-emailing less effective every day.
Cold-calling is a joke. My Samsung phone is effective in filtering 90% of it. So, now we have bots calling out in space, blocked by other bots... and clients keep spending money.
The sheer amount of bullshit that exists today means only one thing: reboot.