Meta buying social network for AI bots Moltbook should worry anyone who still hopes social media is for people

Meta buying Moltbook, the developer of a social media platform designed for AI agents to talk to each other, sounds a little like a joke someone might make about how there are too many bots on Facebook and other Meta platforms. But it looks like Meta hopes to use Moltbook to fill the internet with even more digital voices.

Meta has spent two decades building platforms that connect billions of people. Facebook, Instagram, and Threads all promise some version of the same basic idea: a digital place where humans share thoughts, photos, jokes, and complaints about social media.

That vision has never been entirely pure. Bots, spam accounts, coordinated campaigns, and automated content have been woven into the social media ecosystem almost since the beginning. Meta claims to work hard on rooting them out, but maybe it just wants to ensure its own bots have a monopoly ...