{"id":12315,"date":"2011-11-02T07:31:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T07:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/facebook-bot\/"},"modified":"2011-11-02T14:49:27","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T14:49:27","slug":"facebook-bot","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Bot"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_facebook_bot_mean\">What Does Facebook Bot Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A Facebook bot is an automated software program that is designed to create and control a fake Facebook account. A Facebook bot is completely automated software that generates a profile by scraping images and information from other sources. After setting up a fake profile, it spreads by friending other Facebook users.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_facebook_bot\">Techopedia Explains Facebook Bot<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In its most generic sense, a bot is any automated software that performs an automated task. While there are bots made for legitimate uses, a significant percentage are malicious. Bots on social media sites, known as social bots, fall into the category of malicious bots. <\/p>\n<p>Social bots present an interesting security challenge given the trust factor in social networking as well as the emotional factor of users&#8217; motivation to have as many &#8220;friends&#8221; as possible. It&#8217;s not uncommon for a Facebook user to accept a friend request even though the other user isn&#8217;t known. Based on the victim&#8217;s security settings, allowing a Facebook bot as a friend could open up the account to potential identity theft. <\/p>\n<p>Facebook has strict systems in place to prevent socialbots. Even so, in a paper released in September 2011, a team from the University of British Columbia demonstrated the ability to create Facebook bots that successfully gained access to thousands of users&#8217; profile information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Facebook Bot Mean? A Facebook bot is an automated software program that is designed to create and control a fake Facebook account. A Facebook bot is completely automated software that generates a profile by scraping images and information from other sources. After setting up a fake profile, it spreads by friending other Facebook [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[218,275],"class_list":["post-12315","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-cybersecurity","definitioncat-software-bots"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Facebook Bot? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Facebook Bot and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facebook Bot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Facebook Bot and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-02T14:49:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Facebook Bot\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-02T07:31:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-02T14:49:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot\"},\"wordCount\":223,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/27812\/facebook-bot\",\"name\":\"What is a Facebook Bot? 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