Last month, a new social-media app started making the rounds. On SocialAI, the pitch goes, you’re always the “main character,” you’ll always get engagement, your replies will always be full, and you’ll have exactly the types of followers you want. The catch is that none of these followers are people — they’re all characters generated by AI.

Three years after Meta shut down facial recognition software on Facebook amid a groundswell of privacy and regulator pushback, the social media giant said on Tuesday it is testing the service again as part of a crackdown on "celeb bait" scams.