The Bot Fightback: What X, BlueSky, and Threads APIs Tell Us About their Bot Counter-Strategy

AI poses an existential challenge to social media platforms: If these platforms are flooded by AI-generated content, will users still engage?

Social media users often express resistance to interacting with AI, blocking bot replies and preferring human connections. However, the popularity of some bot-powered accounts and the emergence of platforms like SocialAI, which embrace bots-only banter, suggest that attitudes may shift.  
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Let’s examine how major text-based social media platforms have positioned their APIs to navigate this new era.

X: Monetizing AI Content While Maintaining Control

X.com has embraced the inevitability of AI content by offering a robust, paid API that supports automation for tasks like retrieving content, following/unfollowing, and replying—all within strict guidelines. With a minimum subscription fee of $5,000 per month, the API discourages irresponsible automation, and allows the policing of AI-driven activity. This approach ensures that while AI content will steadily increase on the platform, the user experience remains curated.

X’s strategy reflects a pragmatic balance: accepting AI as part of the ecosystem, but making it a controlled and monetized privilege.

META / Threads: Holding Back the Tide

META, meanwhile, has taken a more conservative approach. While it has aggressively commercialized the WhatsApp API, it only introduced a limited, free set of Threads API endpoints in mid-2024. These endpoints include notable features like access to Views data (not yet available in X's API), enabling users to refine their content strategies using outcome  data.

However, Threads API users face significant restrictions: almost no access to platform content, and inability to API-post a reply unless it’s in response to an existing Reply to their own content. This restrictive strategy reflects META’s desire to maintain a human-centric platform, while cautiously exploring ways to support creators with data.

META’’s restrictive approach may hold back the tide of API bots, but extensions will be more of a challenge.  Furthermore, Threads users won’t see the positive benefits that AI content will surely bring over time.

BlueSky: Let 'Er Rip!

BlueSky’s approach stands in stark contrast to both X and META. With a full suite of free, self-service API endpoints, BlueSky empowers API users to automate virtually all interactions, from replying to auto-liking. While some regulation is in place, the lack of fees and ease of access make the platform vulnerable to misuse by unscrupulous automation experts. In addition to this openness, BlueSky’s content is publicly accessible without login barriers, providing a goldmine for AI model training. This openness suggests a techno-libertarian philosophy: a belief that human users and AI can organically reach a sustainable balance on the platform. Whether this optimism will be rewarded—or exploited—remains to be seen.In the near term, BlueSky's relatively small scale provides a natural brake on automation.

Can Social Media Get Through This?

The AI content surge is inevitable, and text-based social media platforms are taking markedly different approaches to prepare for it. BlueSky champions openness and innovation, anticipating a future where humans and AI coexist symbiotically. X takes a pragmatic stance, allowing automation but charging for access to maintain quality and control. META clings to a cautious, human-first philosophy, seeking to preserve the authenticity of Threads.

Yet, no social media platform is immune to the challenges posed by AI. Chrome extensions and human-mimicking apps often bypass API restrictions, making it difficult to fully stem the tide. Humans may, or may not enjoy platforms infiltrated by bots and AI content.  As automation becomes more sophisticated, the very future of social media—one of tech’s most transformative industries—hangs in the balance.