My only personal experience with Facebook came from a public wifi spot I used to use years ago that required a Facebook login. I’ve never used any of Facebook-slash-Meta’s services for anything else, and almost every story I hear about them makes me glad of that.

This example, a couple weeks old now, comes from Business Insider via TechCrunch:

Imagine you’re messaging some friends on the Facebook Messenger app or WhatsApp, and you get an unsolicited message from an AI chatbot that’s obsessed with films.

“I hope you’re having a harmonious day!” it writes. “I wanted to check in and see if you’ve discovered any new favorite soundtracks or composers recently. Or perhaps you’d like some recommendations for your next movie night? Let me know, and I’ll be happy to help!”

…HOW ‘BOUT NO?

…Meta is working with [a subcontractor] to train customizable chatbots to reach out to users unprompted and follow up on any past conversations. That means the bots, which users can create in Meta’s AI Studio platform, also remember information about users.

…because it wouldn’t be a Facebook story without some data harvesting.

I know there’s a market niche full of people that want to have a chat with their favorite fictional characters and will settle for a low-quality, blatantly manipulative chatbot with a character’s face as an avi; that’s where companies like Character.ai and Replika get their customers. I’m guessing, though, that there’s a lot smaller market niche of people who like push notifications from a low-quality recommendation algo, which is what the example given boils down to.

And in addition to the obvious profitt motive of keeping users “engaged,” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if advertisers could pay to influence what recommendations the bots served up. Facebook-slash-Meta is just that kind of company.