Absurdist, Security Architect (Magician), Beer and Bourbon connoisseur, Gamer, lover of Dark Humor (Lovecraft was a comedian), Maker, Apistevist, Agnostic, Atheist.
This is answered in the comments.
I created a process to remove the bot accounts from my database without crashing my site. I have tested and it looks like all functions are working. If you need help because you suddenly have thousands more accounts than you would suspect ask me for the procedure. I’ll gladly provide it.
I was able to identify bot accounts by looking at creation times. They accounts are grouped by “batches” where the account creation times are within seconds of each other. That’s not typically going to happen with random humans creating accounts.
They should have been forced to do it the other way. “You advertise as free, so you have to provide this for free.”