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“The Dead Internet Theory” is New and Spreading Everywhere
Is the internet alive? Dead? Or both?
I don’t know any of you reading this, only a few of you have ever met me, and my comments can feature bots, scammers, and fake accounts. Yet we treat everything that happens on the internet as a ‘real interaction.’
Real as though the people we’re interacting with are people, and not just a computer program designed to mimic human interaction.
This makes me wonder…
How much of the internet is actually just bots, misinformation, disinformation, echo chambers, deep fakes, fake accounts and completely biased corporate algorithms?
A lot? A little? A whole lot?
This in a nutshell is what ‘’Dead Internet Theory’ is all about.
It suggests that artificial intelligence and algorithms have almost entirely taken over the internet and that the web is slowly dying because of it.
Essentially, you’re a cog in some great machine.
It’s a scary thought, but it’s also a very real possibility. Here’s what it means:
The internet isn’t as big as people think
Who could forget when Elon Musk said he wouldn’t buy Twitter because “there are too many bots.”
Lies. Corporate lies!
He simply can’t fit the bill.
He’s a hack shyster posing as Howard Hughes…
…Except he’s right. Twitter does have bots. A lot of bots. They compromise 5% of Twitter’s total users, however, they also account for about 21%-29% of the content. A study conducted by Similarweb also found that only 19% of real, authenticated Twitter users in the US generate content every day.
“The issue is more with bots that evade that officially sanctioned path, faking human interaction. Often, they do this so they can artificially inflate sentiment for and against stocks, products, politicians, or causes.”
— Similarweb study
