By Rachael Budde
Is the internet on its death bed? No, I don’t mean the internet is physically going to die, but we are seeing trends that the internet is getting farther and farther away from what it used to be. According to Wikipedia, The dead internet theory is an idea founded in the early 2010s that explained the concept that the current Internet consists primarily of bot activity and automated content manipulated by algorithmic curation.
The internet in the early 2000s was seen as a revolutionary platform where people can create freely in an open space; a place where curiosity and creativity could be cultivated. As the internet advanced into the early 2010s, people were able to get monetized: making money based on views and likes. Some even buy those views or likes in the form of bots to further push their video. A bot is essentially a computer running at all times that interacts with select videos so it can be boosted onto a real person’s feed.
Algorithms are explained, by the California Learning Resource Network, as “sets of coded instructions that process input data to produce specific outputs” Algorithms are heavily used on tiktok so I will be using that as my source of media for example. On TikTok, you have a for you page. A page algorithmically picked out for you based on what you like, view, and share. Data harvested on these platforms further drives this algorithm to give you more content that it knows you will like. This is important.
If you’re only seeing things that it knows you will like- it keeps you in a very narrow path of thinking. In this post-modern era, people hold a lot of opinions, especially on social media, and it gets hard to distinguish opinion from fact. Even harder to do so if you strongly believe in that opinion. If you only see one perspective you will only see one perspective and thus be reluctant to open your mind to a different perspective.
People get more trapped into their mode of thinking and are less open minded to change. For example: if you’ve only read or watched videos that stated that unicorns had a spiral horn. When someone comes up to you claiming that a unicorn horn is actually a cone-shaped horn you’re so reluctant to believe it you might actually feel offended because you believe so strongly in that spiral horn because you’ve been fed that. This is the danger of algorithms. People with depression who are consumed by their negative thoughts and think life is hopeless are being reinforced by their algorithms. Harmful people who view harmful things could be influenced by those things because of this algorithm. Right winged people are fed right-wing information and the same goes for the left. This can cause division in people because they are so informed or misinformed on one specific topic and believe in that strongly because that one perspective has been presented to them through their algorithms.
According to the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Narrowmindedness is a pervasive global problem that hinders progress and fosters division among individuals and communities. Algorithms and botted activity are not only taking away from the genuine authenticity of the internet but are further pushing people into one way of thinking. It’s important for people to use their discernment when scrolling on an algorithmic page such as tiktok because it can lead to strong opinions and a lack of open mindedness. Kelly McBride, a journalist and media ethics theorist, describes this perfectly when she states “The next question is how? How does news find us? What you need is a certain critical literacy about the fact that you are almost always subject to an algorithm. The most powerful thing in your world now is an algorithm about which you know nothing about.” Absorb all platforms and perspectives in order to negate this problem.
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