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dead Internet theory

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conspiracy theory about the World Wide Web

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fringe theory
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The dead Internet theory is a concept that asserts that the Internet consists primarily of bot activity and automated content manipulated by algorithmic curation. Originally conceived as a conspiracy theory alleging that the phenomenon is a coordinated effort to control the population and reduce genuine human interaction, the concept is also employed colloquially to describe the impacts of generative AI, emphasizing only the core observations without speculating on the driving forces.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “dead Internet theory” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.