Last.fm Deleted All The Bots, And The BTS Army Is Pissed

For about 20 years, the long-running music-scrobbling website Last.fm was owned by CBS and its assorted corporate overlords. Last month, as Endgadget reported, Last.fm became an independent company, breaking away from the larger Paramount Skydance umbrella. The people who ran Last.fm promised that the website would continue to work the way that it always did. You'd be able to keep track of your listening history across different platforms and share it with the world. There's been one significant change, though: No more bots. At least among one fan community, that's a controversial decision.

Before I get any deeper into this blog post, let me just clarify that the BTS fans pictured above are not protesting outside of Last.fm headquarters. Per the Getty Images caption, here's what's happening in that picture: "Fans of K-pop boy band BTS wait for members Jimin and Jungkook at an outdoor sporting facility in Yeoncheon on June 11, 2025, shortly before their release from 18 months of South Korean military service." I am merely using that image to illustrate a certain strain of devoted BTS fandom, OK? For all I know, these bright-eyed young folks have absolutely no feelings about new policies at Last.fm. But somebody does.

Apparently, Last.fm has faced some concerns about automated scrobbling — bots that have been programmed to claim that they're listening to certain artists way more than any human being possibly could. In a Twitter post earlier this week, the company's account replied with the salute emoji when someone asked them if they'd "removed the bots"?

In a website announcement earlier this week, Last.fm introduced a new initiative called "real listening":

Many of you have asked us to do something to reduce the impact of bots and scripts on our charts and leaderboards.

We agree. Last.fm only works if a scrobble means something, so to tackle this, we're making adjustments to scrobbling to limit what the community considers disingenuous and abusive behaviours. This should only affect users who use scripts and other exploits to inflate their scrobble counts beyond what can reasonably be listened to. We've also updated the charts and trending tracks to more accurately reflect what the Last.fm community as a whole is listening to and showcasing a more diverse range of music.

In response, certain members of the fan community known as the BTS Army have expressed their displeasure, claiming that the website is actually removing real BTS listeners and discriminating against them.

If you'd like to see more of this, there's a whole Reddit thread of it. I have nothing to say about any of this, by the way. I'm just reporting what's happening. No editorial comment whatsoever. Just clear, objective facts about certain fans of the very popular group BTS being upset with Last.fm, presented without comment.