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What do you think about the dead internet theory? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

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"The "Dead Internet Theory" is a concept suggesting that the internet has largely been abandoned by humans and replaced by non-human activity. It posits that most online content, interactions, and engagement metrics are driven by bots, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, creating the illusion of a vibrant, human-driven web."

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[-] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Its true, and its more true everyday.

More and more traffic is servers or bots or LLMs, talking to eachother.

We're the minority now, us humans, talking to other humans.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/bots-now-outnumber-humans-on-the-internet-heres-what-that-actually-means/

https://cybersecuritynews.com/bots-surpass-humans-in-web-traffic/

Like the dinosaur... You had your time.

This future is our world. The future is our time.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

Just saw a report on my feed here that said something like 80% of TikTok is AI crap and over 20% of Facebook is. So that means that sites like Threads, Instagram, X, or any other social media is going to have a large percentage of bots, AI and real trolls, and corporate shills over and above those numbers.

On top of the unaffiliated trolls and shit-stirrers already out there.

So it’s well on the way to happening.

[-] orenj@leminal.space 4 points 10 hours ago

I mean, thats kinda what happened with reddit and youtube, yeah?

[-] Eh_I@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

How much is from sites that all but abandoned anyway? Like digg or yahoo-answers. How's gameFAQs these days?

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

Yahoo answers doesn't exist anymore.

[-] Eh_I@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

RIP how is babby formed

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

I remember asking something about the Mandela effect and my question was taken town.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Not ten minutes ago I followed a link to Reddit, researching something from Lemmy.

The Reddit post had 57 replies. I started scrolling down but did not find any legitimate replies. It was all ad-bots

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Now, that is scary.

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 9 points 14 hours ago

Surface internet sure feels dead. That's why people are moving to places like Lemmy, Discord (yes, I know), private chat groups etc.

Small web / indie web is a thing too

https://indieweb.org/small_web

Dead net is a good problem in a way. Corrals all the shit into one space so you can side step it cleanly.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 9 hours ago

The internet has always been like this depending on how you define non-human activity.

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

No, it did not always have so many bots.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 9 hours ago

Non human activity != bots.

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

The number of bots back then was way less, that is what I am saying. So not always been like it is today.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 1 points 9 hours ago

Again that also depends on how you define bot. Most traffic in the internet isn't from software run by a human. This has always been true.

If you're saying "the amount of bots pretending to be a real humam on the public-facing web has increases. Then yes, that's true.

[-] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Yes, that is what I am saying, lol.

[-] jestho@lemmy.zip 4 points 14 hours ago

0100110, ehrm, I mean, that's just fearmongering. Hey do you have some coolant on you?

[-] alexquiniou@lemmy.zip 2 points 13 hours ago

Not on my lemmy

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 9 points 20 hours ago

I believe in live internet theory. Bots are rare and relatively easy to detect, nearly every account I interact with online is a real person.

People just use the bot thing as a way of explaining away contrary views. I don't need that explanation, because I have this crazy idea that actual human beings can believe different things and even be wrong.

[-] placebo@lemmy.zip 7 points 14 hours ago

I agree, in principle, that people call other people bots as a way to insult them. But this is just survivorship bias:

Bots are relatively easy to detect

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 13 hours ago

Sure, I can't know if there are bots that are really good at imitating people. But it's my choice to go them the benefit of the doubt.

I think the most likely case of encountering a non-obvious bot would be if there's a human behind it copy-pasting responses, which means there's still some degree of engagement. If you don't tailor it to the specific context and don't double check it, it's likely not going to be that convincing.

[-] SCmSTR 6 points 17 hours ago

That's just what a bot would say to get us to continue interacting with it!

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 2 points 13 hours ago

Nah. Ima go with

I have lugnuts Greg. Can you milk me?

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

Funny thing, I actually got banned from Twitter ages ago because I just made an account lurk and follow some political accounts and I didn't Tweet anything or customize my avatar, so it looked exactly like I was a bot follower to boost numbers.

[-] Nytefyre@piefed.social 3 points 15 hours ago

It's kind of a hard call to really call the internet entirely dead. It just feels dead and there are portions of where people once were, that is dead. If you're looking for honest engagement in places where bots are, then you'll believe the internet is dead.

[-] Renat@szmer.info 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

TV man from Skibidi toilet

[-] lando55@lemmy.zip 5 points 19 hours ago

Is this evidence in favor of or against the theory

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

It's in favor of brainrot theory. Which honestly may be worse.

[-] Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 8 points 22 hours ago

If it weren't for my family and fiance being in my life I would probably never carry a phone on me ever again. I am dipping my toes into being online and in the house less. I wish I didn't fucking need to carry a phone though. I wish these devices weren't a fucking part of life.

[-] uncommoncorvid@piefed.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 day ago

the corporate internet is dead. there are still places where people still exist, still creating things. you just need to know where to look

[-] Poojabber@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thats the problem though. I know those places still exist, but the 10-20 minutes a day I have to browse the internet isnt enough to find and verify those places, so the internet is just dead to me. Also the latest generation is growing up with the "dead internet," so many of them dont know that a better internet once existed and still exists in tiny isolated pockets that are getting harder and harder to find without a guide.

[-] fatcat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ok, I don't want to actually advertise for something paid, but in this case it is a free thing Kagi provides: https://kagi.com/smallweb/ They have basically a (curated? I think) list of human created non-corp things to look through. It is also a filter option if you pay for Kagi search, but the standalone page is free.

[-] architect@thelemmy.club 3 points 22 hours ago

Ah yes, don’t tell anyone.

[-] Alsjemenou@lemy.nl 1 points 15 hours ago

Depending on your definitions, more than half the internet traffic is by bots.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/bots-internet-traffic-ai-chatgpt-b2733450.html

But this does include all automated traffic, including scrapers and stuff. It's not like 50 percent of people here are bots.

[-] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 16 points 1 day ago

internet has largely been abandoned by humans

No, they are still there, staring on their screens all day long.

and replaced by non-human activity.

I would say overwhelmed.

The bots already have majority in some aspects, for example websites for product tests are 99% generated fake. And the bots continue to grow with unimaginable growth rates.

Humans are creating more bots, and more humans are creating bots.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 71 points 1 day ago

This really depends on scale. If you look at all accounts and activity online, there probably is enough bots to outnumber people.

Personally, I don't interact with THE WHOLE INTERNET. I interact with people I know, and Lemmy, which feels more human than other platforms, so I'm confident that most of my online interactions are with actual humans.

[-] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 14 hours ago

I feel that for the past two weeks the bot number surged here... Been here for 2 years but lately the opinions people are upvoting in some threads seem like prime rage bait

[-] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 14 hours ago

I feel that for the past two weeks the bot number surged here... Been here for 2 years but lately the opinions people are upvoting in some threads seem like prime rage bait

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

I know exactly what you mean. I've noticed the same "shift in quality" but I honestly think they are real, live, barely intelligent people.

I can't help but think the recent surge in "How do you get past a Reddit ban?" posts is related.

[-] TheDeadInternet@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

It's already been confirmed there's way more bots than people.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

And I'm sure that if you were one of them, you'd have noticed that I said exactly that in the second sentence.

[-] TheDeadInternet@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

No you said theres probably more bots and I said and confirmed there are more bots than people.

Probably isn't a confirmation.

[-] Orioniae@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

My theory (very bad) is that the fediverse is the prelude of an internet so decentralized it will stop being useful to corporations.

The “upper web” will be corporate, ads, marketing and paid services. The “lower web” will be a series of semi connected networks that will loosely operate as a whole.

Maybe in 10~20 years, a physical new internet will be born, completely independent from the current one and untouched by companies.

[-] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

A new internet isn't even needed, just a new protocol.

Corpos aren't on Gopher or Gemini, for instance.

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 1 points 14 hours ago

That's not bad; that's prophetic...and is already happening.

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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026

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