Meta finally acknowledges that Facebook has a major spam problem
Specifically, Meta says it will lower the reach of creators that share posts with "long, distracting captions' as well as posts with captions that are irrelevant or unrelated to the shared content. These accounts will also no longer be eligible for monetization. Likewise, the company says it's taking 'more aggressive' steps to combat 'spam networks that coordinate fake engagement.' This includes making comments from these accounts less visible, and removing Facebook pages meant to 'inflate reach.' Meta is also testing a feature that allows users to anonymously downvote comments in order to flag them as not 'useful.'
The update comes as Meta is trying to revamp Facebook to make it more appealing to 'young adults.' The company recently brought back a tab for friends content, in an update Mark Zuckerberg described as making the platform more like 'OG Facebook.' Notably though, Meta's update doesn't mention one of the more persistent forms of engagement bait that's emerged on Facebook over the last year: AI slop.
The phenomenon, which has been extensively documented by 404 Media, involved bizarre, often nonsensical AI-generated images — like the now infamous 'Shrimp Jesus' — that serve little purpose other than to farm engagement for people trying to make money on or off Facebook. These spammers are often aided by Facebook's own algorithm, which boosts the posts, researchers have found.
AI slop and engagement bait aren't the only types of low-quality posts that have overwhelmed users' Facebook feeds in recent years. I regularly see posts from pages that seem to do nothing but screenshot old Reddit posts from r/AITA, or recycle old news about celebrities I don't follow or particularly care about. Meta's reports on the most widely-viewed content on its platform regularly feature anodyne posts that are engineered to rack up millions of comments, like those that ask users to comment 'amen' or solve basic math equations. Posts like that may not fit neatly into Meta's latest crackdown, though it's unlikely many Facebook users are actually enjoying this content.
The company does note it's also trying to 'elevate' the creators that are actually sharing original content, including by cracking down on accounts that steal their work. But given how much easier it is to make AI slop than good original content, it could be a long time before Meta is able to get Facebook's spam problem under control.
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