It is believed that shutting down the Internet for a day would cost 40,000 million dollars, an absolutely exorbitant figure that would negatively affect the economy of dozens of countries. However, there is a conspiracy theory on the internet that claims that the internet has actually been dead for years. We know that this is not the case, but in recent weeks this theory has resurfaced strongly and it is necessary to try to analyze why it is the case.
What is the Dead Internet Theory?
The dead internet theory claims that almost nothing on the internet today has been generated by humans. They claim that the proliferation of bots and junk content since 2016 has caused much of the content to be automated and useless. The appearance is maintained that the Internet community is active, but in reality the Internet has been dead for years. This automation of the network of networks influences elections and controls social narratives that have to do with the breakdown of the liberal democracies that currently prevail.
This theory, fundamentally conspiratorial, is based on the increasing proliferation of a large number of bots and the appearance of characters on social networks with totally erratic behaviors. We’ve all spent some time on Twitter (now X) and noticed that the news feed and tweets are constantly full of bots, propaganda content, and automated messages.
While it is true that there is no concrete proof that this fact exists, there is a grain of truth in all of this. Now, with some pretty hilarious content popping up on Facebook, a lot of people are wondering if the Dead Internet Theory can be real. Therefore, we are going to try to examine what is true and what is not.
The Gamba Jesus Christ, the Resurrection of the Dead Internet
For some time now, hundreds of posts of Jesus Christ in the shape of a prawn have appeared on Facebook, uploaded to the social network by different accounts – possibly bots – with an identical message: “Made with my own hands. Thank you to everyone who appreciates this.” Underneath, thousands of comments from supposed bots comment with an “Amen” and this dynamic is repeated over and over again on this social network.
This has given strength to the theory that the internet is slowly becoming empty and that the replacement is computer-generated content of very low quality and with little impact on normal users. As if there is a parallel network of bots trying to permeate society. Thus, the Dead Internet Theory gains strength, although it is not truly true, it emerges as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Dead Internet Theory: Real or Unreal
We can come to agree that the Dead Internet Theory is not real. Nowadays absolutely everyone uses the network of networks to stay connected to the world around them. Now, although it is a theory that is not true, it has a part of reality if we do not take it to the extreme. The emergence of AIs capable of creating realistic content, such as GPT-4, as well as the increasingly constant appearance of bots on social networks, show a deterioration in the quality of the network. In fact, we are in a moment of quite a major crisis in that regard, as the social media models of the past are in decline.
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