Instagram bots watching or liking your stories? You're not alone

Just like other social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit, Instagram also has a ‘bot’ problem. Bots are generally just spam accounts coded to perform automated tasks and primarily used to promote things.

Whether they are effective or not is a question for some other day. But what we’re sure about is that bots are some of the most annoying aspects of using Instagram.

We previously covered an issue where bots were tagging users on random posts across the platform. Sadly, a recent issue is making things even worse.

Instagram bots watching or liking stories

According to reports (1,2,3,4,5), Instagram users have seen a surge in the number of bots that are watching or liking their stories. Every time they upload a story, the first few views are from random bot accounts.

These are generally pornographic accounts that either promote sexual content or lure users into paying for it. The bots may appear in your story views even if they don’t follow your account.

This makes one wonder how they even find the account in the first place. Due to this odd behavior, some are concerned whether they are getting targeted by a stalker or someone with malicious intent.

i am once again asking if I am being stalked (bot accounts)
Source

While it’s unlikely to be targeted stalking, it is still incredibly annoying. A lot of users have already tried blocking these accounts but it doesn’t seem to make things any better.

Here’s the problem, if you block such bot accounts, new ones pop up out of nowhere and start doing the exact same thing. You’re basically stuck in an endless loop of blocking numerous accounts every single day.

This issue is not really new either. Major publications like Vice covered the problem when it first started troubling users around January 2023. However, it appears that the issue has reemerged.

The only way to stop them

Unfortunately, the only way to stop these bots from watching or liking your stories is to set your account to ‘Private’. This means that only the people that follow you will be able to watch your stories.

Make sure you also remove other spam accounts that have already followed you. While this is not a convenient solution and does limit your reach on the platform, sadly, there aren’t any other options.

If you do not care about growing an audience on Instagram, temporarily making your account private (until the issue is resolved) can help you avoid the bots.

We’ll keep an eye on this matter and update this story to reflect noteworthy developments in the future.

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