The dead Internet theory is a conspiracy theory which asserts that since around 2016 the Internet has consisted mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation, as part of a coordinated and intentional effort to control the population and minimize organic human activity.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Proponents of the theory believe these social bots were created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to manipulate consumers.[7][8] Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception.[1][7] The dead Internet theory has gained traction because many of the observed phenomena are quantifiable, such as increased bot traffic, but the literature on the subject does not support the full theory.[1][4][9][10]
Origins and spread
The dead Internet theory's exact origin is difficult to pinpoint. In 2021, a post titled "Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is Fake" was published onto the forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe esoteric board by a user named "IlluminatiPirate",[11] claiming to be building on previous posts from the same board and from Wizardchan,[1] and marking the term's spread beyond these initial imageboards.[1][12] The conspiracy theory has entered public culture through widespread coverage and has been discussed on various high-profile YouTube channels.[1] It gained more mainstream attention with a September 2021 article in The Atlantic titled "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five Years Ago".[1] This article has been widely cited by other articles on the topic.[13][12]
Claims
?The dead Internet theory has two main components: that organic human activity on the web has been displaced by bots and algorithmically curated search results, and that state actors are doing this in a coordinated effort to manipulate the human population.[3][14][15] The first part of this theory, that bots create much of the content on the internet and perhaps contribute more than organic human content, has been a concern for a while, with the original post by "IlluminatiPirate" citing the article "How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually" in New York magazine.[1][16][14] The Dead Internet Theory goes on to include that Google, and other search engines, are censoring the Web by filtering content that is not desirable by limiting what is indexed and presented in search results.[3] While Google may suggest that there are millions of search results for a query, the results available to a user do not reflect that.[3] This problem is exacerbated by the phenomenon known as link rot, which is caused when content at a website becomes unavailable, and all links to it on other sites break.[3] This has led to the theory that Google is a Potemkin village, and the searchable Web is much smaller than we are led to believe.[3] The Dead Internet Theory suggests that this is part of the conspiracy to limit users to curated, and potentially artificial, content online.
The second half of the dead Internet theory builds on this observable phenomenon by proposing that the U.S. government, corporations, or other actors are intentionally limiting users to curated, and potentially artificial AI-generated content, to manipulate the human population for a variety of reasons.[1][14][15][3] In the original post, the idea that bots have displaced human content is described as the "setup", with the "thesis" of the theory itself focusing on the United States government being responsible for this, stating: "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence-powered gaslighting of the entire world population."[1][7]
Expert view
?Caroline Busta, founder of the media platform New Models, was quoted in a 2021 article in The Atlantic calling much of the dead Internet theory a "paranoid fantasy," even if there are legitimate criticisms involving bot traffic and the integrity of the internet, but she said she does agree with the "overarching idea.”[1] In an article in The New Atlantis, Robert Mariani called the theory a mix between a genuine conspiracy theory and a creepypasta.[7]
In 2024, the dead Internet theory was sometimes used to refer to the observable increase in content generated via large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT appearing in popular Internet spaces without mention of the full theory.[2][17][18][19] In a 2025 article by Thomas Sommerer, this portion of the Dead Internet Theory is explored, with Sommerer calling the displacement of human generated content with Artificial content "an inevitable event."[18] Sommerer states the Dead Internet Theory is not scientific in nature, but reflects the public perception of the Internet.[18] Another article in the Journal of Cancer Education discussed the impact of the perception of the Dead Internet Theory in online cancer support forums, specifically focusing on the psychological impact on patients who find that support is coming from a LLM and not a genuine human.[19] The article also discussed the possible problems in training data for LLMs that could emerge from using AI generated content to train the LLMs.[19]
Evidence
Large language models
?Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) are a class of large language models (LLMs) that employ artificial neural networks to produce human-like content.[20][21] The first of these to be well known was developed by OpenAI.[22] These models have created significant controversy. For example, Timothy Shoup of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies said in 2022, "in the scenario where GPT-3 'gets loose', the internet would be completely unrecognizable".[23] He predicted that in such a scenario, 99% to 99.9% of content online might be AI-generated by 2025 to 2030.[23] These predictions have been used as evidence for the dead internet theory.[13]
In 2024, Google reported that its search results were being inundated with websites that "feel like they were created for search engines instead of people".[24] In correspondence with Gizmodo, a Google spokesperson acknowledged the role of generative AI in the rapid proliferation of such content and that it could displace more valuable human-made alternatives.[25] Bots using LLMs are anticipated to increase the amount of spam, and run the risk of creating a situation where bots interacting with each other create "self-replicating prompts" that result in loops only human users could disrupt.[5] In an article in AI & Society, Henrique Marcos discusses the possibility of LLMs impacting linguistic communities as they become more widespread in a scenario like the Dead Internet Theory.[26]
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot whose late 2022 release to the general public led journalists to call the dead internet theory potentially more realistic than before.[27][28] Before ChatGPT's release, the dead internet theory mostly emphasized government organizations, corporations, and tech-literate individuals. ChatGPT gives the average internet user access to large-language models.[27][28] This technology caused concern that the Internet would become filled with content created through the use of AI that would drown out organic human content.[27][28][29][5][30]
Bot traffic
In 2016, the security firm Imperva released a report on bot traffic after examining over 16.7 billion visits to 100,000 randomly-selected domains, and found that automated programs were responsible for 52% of web traffic.[31][32] This report has been used as evidence in reports on the dead Internet theory.[1] Imperva's report for 2023 found that 49.6% of internet traffic was automated, a 2% rise on 2022 which was partly attributed to artificial intelligence models scraping the web for training content.[17]
In 2024, AI-generated images on Facebook, referred to as "AI slop", began going viral.[36][37] Subjects of these AI-generated images included flight attendants, black children next to artwork they supposedly created, and various iterations of "Shrimp Jesus", depictions of Christ "meshed in various forms" with shrimp. Many of these posts had hundreds or even thousands of AI comments saying "Amen".[38][39] The images were cited as an example of the Internet of the time having begun to feel "dead".[40] Sommerer discussed Shrimp Jesus in detail within his article as a symbol to represent the shift in the Internet, specifically stating
"Just as Jesus was supposedly the messenger for God, Shrimp Jesus is the messenger for the fatal system [we've] maneuvered ourselves into. Decoupled, proliferated, and in a state of exponential metastasis."[18]
—?Thomas Sommerer
Facebook includes an option to provide AI-generated responses to group posts. Such responses appear if a user explicitly tags @MetaAI in a post, or if the post includes a question and no other users have responded to it within an hour.[41]
In January 2025, interest renewed in the theory following statements from Meta on their plans to introduce new AI powered autonomous accounts.[42] Connor Hayes, vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta stated, "We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do... They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform."[43]
?In the past, the Reddit website allowed free access to its API and data, which allowed users to employ third-party moderation apps and train AI in human interaction.[29] In 2023, the company moved to charge for access to its user dataset. Companies training AI are expected to continue to use this data for training future AI.[citation needed] As LLMs such as ChatGPT become available to the general public, they are increasingly being employed on Reddit by users and bot accounts.[29] Professor Toby Walsh, a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales, said in an interview with Business Insider that training the next generation of AI on content created by previous generations could cause the content to suffer.[29] University of South Florida professor John Licato compared this situation of AI-generated web content flooding Reddit to the dead Internet theory.[29]
?"I hate texting" tweets
Since 2020, several Twitter accounts started posting tweets starting with the phrase "I hate texting" followed by an alternative activity, such as "i hate texting i just want to hold ur hand", or "i hate texting just come live with me".[1] These posts received tens of thousands of likes, many of which are suspected to be from bot accounts. Proponents of the dead internet theory have used these accounts as an example.[1][12]
TikTok
In 2024, TikTok began discussing offering the use of virtual influencers to advertisement agencies.[15] In a 2024 article in Fast Company, journalist Michael Grothaus linked this and other AI-generated content on social media to the dead Internet theory.[15] In this article, he referred to the content as "AI-slime".[15]
YouTube and "the Inversion"
On YouTube, there is a market online for fake views to boost a video's credibility and reach broader audiences.[45] At one point, fake views were so prevalent that some engineers were concerned YouTube's algorithm for detecting them would begin to treat the fake views as default and start misclassifying real ones.[45][1] YouTube engineers coined the term "the Inversion" to describe this phenomenon.[45][16][30] YouTube bots and the fear of "the Inversion" were cited as support for the dead Internet theory in a thread on the internet forum Melonland.[1]
SocialAI
SocialAI, an app created on September 18, 2024, by Michael Sayman, was created with the full purpose of chatting with only AI bots without human interaction.[46] An article on the Ars Technica website linked SocialAI to the dead Internet theory.[46][47]
In popular culture
The dead internet theory has been discussed among users of the social media platform Twitter. Users have noted that bot activity has affected their experience.[1] Numerous YouTube channels and online communities, including the Linus Tech Tips forums and the Joe Rogan subreddit, have covered the dead Internet theory, bringing the idea into mainstream discourse.[1] There has also been discussion and memes about this topic on the app TikTok, due to the fact that AI generated content has become more mainstream.[attribution needed]
See also
- Algorithmic radicalization?– Radicalization via social media algorithms
- Brain rot?– Slang for poor-quality digital content
- Echo chamber (media)?– Situation that reinforces beliefs by repetition inside a closed system
- Enshittification?– Systematic decline in online platform quality
- Filter bubble?– Intellectual isolation through internet algorithms
- Walled garden (technology)?– System where a single company controls an entire ecosystem
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