Despite being blatantly obvious, Facebook does nothing about thousands-strong bot nets

We already know that Facebook does nothing if you want to use scripts to join groups, even if the scripts all give roughly the same answers. Apparently that’s not enough to trigger the systems at this company that’s worth almost a billion dollars (that’s a proper billion, or what the Americans call a trillion). Unless, of course, they want these bot accounts on there to continue lying about reach, or run some other sort of scam.
   But what about brand-new accounts that are clearly bots, that write nonsensical things that bots are programmed to do, and which friend other bots? These are bot nets, the sort I saw all the time when I used Facebook regularly. The nights in 2014 when I spotted over 200 bot accounts? A lot of them were in these nets, and I made it a mission to report them, since they tended to exist in groups of a few dozen, maybe a hundred at most.
   Last night I saw nets of thousands. Imagine a new account that’s friended thousands of other new accounts, all using a series of names, and all pretending to work for a limited number of workplaces. Surely these are obviously bots, and Facebook’s systems would detect them? I mean, if you’ve been on Facebook for even six months you’d know that these patterns existed, let alone 17 years.
   Um, no.
   I’ve been reporting a whole bunch of these bots and Facebook’s reaction is to tell me, as they do with bot accounts running group-joining scripts, that no community standards have been violated.

   Normally I would see a dozen or so bot accounts each time I pop in (and my friends who moderate on there tell me they can see many per minute). Even as an irregular user it means I see more bots than humans, but now that I’ve seen over 4,000 (just go to one of these bots’ friends’ lists and take a sufficiently large sample) that Facebook allows, then come on, you can’t tell me that this site is still worth giving your money to.
   In 2014 I called seeing 277 bots in one night an ‘epidemic’, on the basis that if a regular Joe like me could, then how many were really on there? Now I see 4,000 in one night. These two have over 4,000 and 3,000, with some overlap:

   And in 2014, I could report them, and some would actually be deleted. Others would need repeated reports. In 2021, none are deleted, based on the ones I reported.
   Therefore, Facebook’s systems neither detect bots nor do a thing about them when a user blatantly points them out.
   And given that this company is worth over US$800 milliard, then you know they exist with their blessing—at the least with their inaction. Because US$800 milliard buys a lot of technology, but apparently not enough to deal with bots or misinformation.
   The scammers know this and the con artists know this. Governments know this. This is a danger zone for consumers, yet the last few years still weren’t sufficient for most western governments to act. It makes you wonder just what it’ll take to wake people up, since folks don’t even seem to mind giving their money to a company that has such a poor track record and no independent certification of its metrics. Would shame work? ‘You dumbass, you gave money to them?!’ Surely this now makes it more obvious than ever just what a terrible waste of money Facebook is?

PS.: Here’s another new account with what appears to be 4,326 bot friends (based on a reasonable sample).—JY

P.PS.: Only 4,326? How about one that’s hit the 5,000 limit filled with bots?