Ina Fried, in an exclusive for Axios (email-gated; Apple News+ link):

Meta has acquired Moltbook, a viral social network designed for AI agents, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The deal brings Moltbook’s creators — Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr — into Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), the unit run by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang.

Mark Zuckerberg: “A ‘viral social network’ I don’t own? BUY THEM.”

Meta’s Vishal Shah, in an internal post:

The Moltbook team has given agents a way to verify their identity and connect with one another on their human’s behalf. This establishes a registry where agents are verified and tethered to human owners.

So… Zuckerberg wants human-verified bots that interact with each other on Facebook and Instagram as a way of, what? driving “engagement”? Is Zuckerberg so desperate for content that he needs more bots further crapping up his platforms?

Some people are excited about bots “talking” to other bots on Moltbook, but Samuel Axon at Ars Technica cautioned that “some healthy skepticism is required when assessing posts to Moltbook”:

While the goal of the project was to create a social network humans could not join directly (each participant of the network is an AI agent run by a human), it wasn’t secure, and it’s likely some of the messages on Moltbook are actually written by humans posing as AI agents.

Will Douglas Heaven at MIT Technology Review was more direct and called Moltbook “one big performance. It is AI theater.”

Congratulations to Schlicht and Parr for convincing Zuckerberg to acquire “something really really stupid.”