Talk:Dead Internet theory

The article should be changed

Clearly this is not a conspiracy. The amount of content generated by AI has surpassed the accessible non-AI generated content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:B47:D000:4C1D:FE5:2A65:A25B (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

It's not a theory anymore but a fact 2806:10A6:12:7516:384E:FE51:5AD0:28D (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

We still list Theory of relativity is still a theory. The name that is used in the sources is Dead internet theory. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:47, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we don't say in wikivoice that it's a conspiracy though. I think it's time for the 'conspiracy theory' label to go. Amberkitten (talk) 21:39, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

We have multiple sources that use the term "Conspiracy theory" when describing the DIT. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:45, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I think we should make a distincion between two framework:

-the conspiracy framework where the dead internet is supposed to be part of some big plan to manipulate the world ---

-the pragmatic framework where a lot of different actor have a personal interest in using automated users of the net resulting in a competition to get real human interaction and increasingly taking more place on the net.

The first one might have been what originally described by the term "dead internet" but it's not anymore what the majority of people think when talking about it. Astro Flam (talk) 19:52, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd love to, however as I've said, the sources do not clearly make that distinction. Us making that distinction would be OR. There isn't a source saying that the definition has changed and that it no longer means what it once meant. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:06, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

At the very minimum it should not be in the first sentence as ai is making this theory more true by the daily. 2601:586:4600:97D0:F56E:D426:EF47:2AD2 (talk) 01:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

That's simply your opinion. Wikipedia doesn't work that way. -- Jibal (talk) 05:59, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Every source used toward the assumption of 'conspiracy theory' is vastly outdated to the current model of the internet. It's not 'simply their opinion' when the overwhelming amount of reliable sources with any recency do not claim it to be a conspiracy theory. The article's wording is too old for the concept that it attempts (poorly) to describe. Wikipedia gets updated as things change, not held in place because one random source one time said something was a conspiracy theory. 173.81.18.122 (talk) 04:32, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Please, find an overwhelming number of sources that not only refer to the DIT, but specifically state that it is not a conspiracy theory. The sources in this article are only a few years old, at most. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:41, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Find me an overwhelming number of sources that state that Relativity IS NOT a conspiracy theory. If you cannot, and I can find ONE that states Relativity IS a conspiracy theory, the Theory of Relativity article will be summarily rebranded to a conspiracy theory article. 173.81.18.122 (talk) 03:05, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

This is a false equivalence. There are not very many sources discussing the DIT, and of these we have multiple calling it a conspiracy theory. The main sources we use for verification of notability refers to it as a conspiracy theory. On the other side of the scale, we do not have sources that claim it is not a conspiracy theory, that the term has changed its meaning, or that it is definitively no longer a conspiracy theory. The sources we do have that lean towards this are either dubious, do not clearly define the DIT, refer to only part of the theory without clearly separating it from the conspiracy elements, or claim something along the lines of "The Dead Internet Theory may soon be a reality." We don't have multiple scholarly sources and reliable news articles defining relativity as a conspiracy theory, just a few fringe sources. Without multiple quality outside sources to counterbalance the ones that call it a conspiracy theory, we are left with the lede that we have. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 06:23, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

The only false equivalence is between outdated sources and a stuck-up requirement for the phrase to be used in kindergarten terms in order to satisfy you particularly. There are hundreds of sources that talk about AI-driven internet death by various different terms. [1] [2] [3] [4] are just examples (whether matching source guidelines or not in this exact instance, I don't really care)

The so-called "Dead-Internet Theory" is one term used to describe a phenomenon that is new and ever-changing. Does every article about a conflict in a country have to refer to it by the Wikipedia article title (Russia-Ukraine War) in order to qualify as a valid source, or do you really want to honestly claim that because an article titled in big bold letters saying "INTERNET TRAFFIC IS MOSTLY BOTS NOW" doesn't say "dead internet theory" it is not a suitable source for the article?

The further point to be made is that claiming we only have certain sources which are so objectively known to be outdated by anyone with half a bit of common sense is the fault of the people trying to uphold the article as-is on said bad sources without going and doing their own research to the benefit of the actual information provided. Right now this article is providing blatantly false information; it should be removed until someone who actually wants to cite current, accurate sources does so for the purposes of addressing this misinformation. GermanTacos (talk) 18:45, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

The sources we have that refer to it as a conspiracy theory are less then 5 years old. One 2023 source clearly defines it:

"The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory that suggests the Internet has died and that much of the content we see online is now artificially generated by Al to manipulate the world population. The theory raises concerns about the impact of Al on propaganda, art, and journalism."

— The Metaweb: The Next Level of the Internet

The Atlantic article that brought this term into the mainstream is from 2021, and in the first line states:

"A conspiracy theory spreading online says the whole internet is now fake. It’s ridiculous, but possibly not that ridiculous?"

— Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago

A more recent 2025 BBC Audios publication states:

"In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the dead internet theory."

— "How dead is the internet?"

There are other sources cited in the article, but these are some of the stronger ones we use. Based on the existing literature that discusses the DIT in any amount of detail, it is more complicated then just "INTERNET TRAFFIC IS MOSTLY BOTS NOW." The sources are not "bad," and if it is "blatantly false" then high quality sources should be easy to find to counter those we're using for the current definition. While we can and do use various sources to verify specific claims that don't specifically mention the dead internet theory (like the specific number of bots online), we are only able to say what the sources say about the DIT. I suggest you read Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Fringe theories.

Finally, I don't think your statement is very civil in that it is not assuming good faith of others working on this article, specifically me, as I'm responsible for much of the content and the inclusion of many of the sources. I recommend reading up on those policies, as this appears to me to be rude, belittling, and a accusations of impropriety, specifically casting asperations that I'm POV pushing. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:59, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Every source you claim is recent enough is from before the rise of generative AI from the major companies pushing that technology. That alone is enough to require new sources.

Frankly, I don't care if you think I'm being rude. You've been shutting down every attempt by other editors to change this article despite the obviously outdated and non-factual nature of this article as it stands. I don't need to assume good faith because it's already apparent your goal here is to keep the label of "conspiracy theory" despite all evidence to the contrary. GermanTacos (talk) 00:34, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like a gap in the literature, I recommend you do some research and submit it to peer-review in high quality publications. Once you get that published, we can then cite them here. Wikipedia is not the place for us to publish original research, the sources say what they say, you have not provided any evidence to the contrary. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

What was that about civility? At this point you're just circling back to claiming alternate sources (provided now, which you still claim don't exist or aren't viable). At this point it's obvious a RfC is needed because you have been the sole contributor to this article attempting to shut down any suggestion that it be changed. If you're truly confident that only 3-5 year old sources can be used to discuss an industry that has taken over most major companies in the past 2-3 itself, lets just put it to bed and let someone who is not you or me weigh in; all that is resulting from this is you accusing me of this, that and the other simply because I don't like an article being vastly inaccurate and outdated. 173.81.18.122 (talk) 07:35, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Sources provides above:

1. Forbes.com Yes, The Bots Really Are Taking Over The Internet
2. Malwarebytes Lab Hi, robot: Half of all internet traffic now automated
3. TechNewsWorld Bots Now Dominate the Web, and That’s a Problem
4. Thales News Release Artificial Intelligence fuels rise of hard-to-detect bots that now make up more than half of global internet traffic, according to the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report

Looking at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, I'm not sure where the Forbes.com article would fall, but I believe it is the only one included on the list. I'm not quite sure about the other three sources, but don't really think they're very high quality. Malwarebytes Lab includes "blog" in the URL, which does not inspire confidence. Importantly, after quickly skimming each and using "Ctrl+f" on then, as far as I can tell, None of these sources mention the Dead Internet Theory. Using the above articles to support claims if no other article is available might be fine, but you're trying to synthesize them in support for the theory itself.

I'm the primary contributor to this article, yes, but not the only one. I've been periodically looking for and reading sources that might challenge the ones we have on the definition, but so far, I've not seen that in the literature. The three sources I've listed are the three that most clearly define the DIT, but are far from the only ones I've included in this article. This discussion has been had many times, because the DIT goes viral and people want to change Wikipedia to endorse/advocate the theory, like advocates for other fringe theories. There are several editors who are watching this talk page, and I suspect many of them don't engage because this is tedious. The page is protected because the issue was discussed to death and IP editors were changing it despite the existing discussion/sources. The sources that are specific to the Dead Internet Theory say what they say, and Wikipedia is not the place for us to publish original research. If you want to start a RfC, go for it, but Wikipedia is not a democracy, and the opinions of editors do not over ride what the sources say. As it stands, we have a discussion below on this talk page where @Jibal states the "article is heavily slanted toward conspiratorial thinking, with a lack of critical voices." I can't really argue with this, the article does probably needs more skeptical/critical content, and the current article is a compromise. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't need to assume good faith

You do because Wikipedia policy requires it. It's clear that you aren't familiar with even the most basic Wikipedia policies ... please educate yourself. Jibal (talk) 05:25, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

He doesn't, read AGF yourself mate. You've cut half of his sentence. You only need to assume good faith unless clearly proven otherwise. You don't need to AGF _if the other person made it clear they have no good faith on the subject_. 95.197.176.185 (talk) 19:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

And how do you prove lack of good faith? By e.g. observing citing Wikipedia rulesets without actually reading or understanding them. E.g. "Wikipedia is not a democracy", have you even read what it says? It says that it means that not the voting, but the consensus, is the key. Yet here there is no consensus. How does that make your statements any more valid by themselves than anyone else's? Are you administrators? Do you have superpowers? If not, any or all of statements you make are just opinions, unless proven. Saying that "there ain't enough sources", "the sources' quality is too low", etc. etc. is an opinion, it needs actual facts to prove them. Being published by predatory journal? Sure, low quality. Being posted on a barely-known site by a random person? Sure, no enough. Yet the amount of cherry-picking you guys go to defend your POV is just absurd here. You have an article clearly saying "a conspiracy theory (...) - but possibly not[?]" and you quote it yourself, yet you don't grasp the fact that the author is disputing the notion of considering the theory as nonsense.

I don't really care how DIT is called, and I don't care about this article that much. However, I do care about people like you running wild and self-righteously and single-handedly setting your personal ruleset extension on Wikipedia, hiding behind a pseudorational and pseudological rationales.

If you're fooling anyone, at this point that would be mostly yourselves. TBH, hard to consider you guys serious and not trolling intentionally at this point, hence the good faith assumption starts to fail for many, not only me. 95.197.176.185 (talk) 20:08, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I do think at the very least calling it a conspiracy theory is wrong. Just "theory" or "often disputed theory", something along those lines would be much better. Heck even "conjecture" would be significantly better than "conspiracy theory" which is a very loaded term and does not apply broadly to people who maintain the view that "dead internet theory" is a thing. 88.129.69.131 (talk) 12:43, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

It's fine that you think that, however we have multiple sources that call it a conspiracy theory. If you disagree, you can publish your thoughts in a venue for original research and we can then consider how it balances with the other sources on the topic. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:45, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I think the real problem people are touching on is that the way most people seem to use the term "Dead Internet theory" today isn't the same as the original usage. I feel like most people using the term today are simply suggesting the basic idea that internet content will be (or currently is) created and consumed primarily by AIs/bots and not humans.

The way the article is written, it suggests when people use the term, they're conspiracy theorists that believe the government is using AI to control the masses or something, and that seems very far off. I would imagine that if you looked at many of the cited sources in this article, you would see that many people referencing "Dead Internet Theory" aren't talking about some government control conspiracy theory, just that AI is generating and consuming more and more content. I think the conspiracy theory elements should be put in a "history" or "origins" section to distinguish it from how people are actually using the term today, otherwise, this article appears to me to be quite misleading. Qualie (talk) 00:46, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

We don't have to imagine what the sources say in the article, the ones that clearly define the DIT describe it as a conspiracy theory, and there isn't one that makes the clear distinction you're describing. What you're describing would be an excellent topic for a systemic review paper, and I encourage anyone reading this to try and make such a paper and submit it to a journal. That said, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original research, and what you're describing would be a synthesis. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:48, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

There are already a number of sources in the article explicitly defining DIT that don't mention anything about anything like population control, and essentially only mention the notion that our internet content is or will "die" - i.e. primarily produced and consumed by non-humans. The second paragraph of "Expert Views" already cites some of these sources ([2], [17], [18], [19]) which don't include any mention of things like population control. I would also argue that [5] is included here as well.

Two other academic sources from a quick Google search suggesting this simplified definition (both on the first page of results, I didn't dig very far):

1. The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media

2. The ‘dead internet theory’ makes eerie claims about an AI-run web. The truth is more sinister

Also, I know Reddit isn't a reliable source, but in the absence of a well-conducted poll, you can see the most popularly upvoted comments include no mention of the more fringe conspiracy claims: Eli5: What is "Dead Internet Theory"? : r/explainlikeimfive

I agree that objectively quantifying this shift in usage precisely would be ideal, but I also think that publishing a whole research paper to change a Wikipedia description is a big ask, and I would argue that we have evidence from all the sources to make a small change. Just moving what's essentially being said in passing in the second paragraph of "Expert Views" to the top of the article alongside the more radical conspiracy claims would be less misleading. I still think most of the more radical conspiratory stuff should be moved to an "origin" or "history" section, but at least reflecting the shift in usage more prominently would be an improvement. Qualie (talk) 22:31, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

I should mention that The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media does discuss the more conspiratorial elements of DIT in the "Theory Origins" section, however, in the Abstract and in the Introduction, and for the working definition for the purposes of the study, it offers a more simplified definition. This type of format is what I believe is more appropriate for the Wikipedia article as well. Qualie (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

The issue we have is that sources don't all mention the conspiratorial part of the theory, but that doesn't mean they are stating it is not a conspiracy.

I've been watching the article The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media, but last I saw it was in pre-print. Now that it looks published, we need to look at the journal "Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science," as I'm not sure if it is predatory or not. So far, it looks like it passes the sniff test, so we can probably include it. The authors do specifically use the word "redefined," I wonder if they have seen my pleas in this talk page. I'm not sure how much one source over turns multiple others for the lede, but it can definitely be mentioned somewhere. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

I just attempted to add the following text from The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media.

A 2025 article in the Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science surveying artificial intelligence use on social media sought to redifine the term in an academic context, spcifically stating:

"From the perspective of social media, the Dead Internet Theory (DIT) can be redefined as the idea that modern online platforms have transitioned from spaces of genuine human interaction to ecosystems dominated by artificial activity, primarily driven by bots, AI-generated content, and corporate algorithms."

This got flagged as using a potential predatory journal. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Just wanted to note I created a discussion related to Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Looking for guidance on including it. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:56, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I would say that quote sums it up nicely, and if you're going to use that source, it definitely makes sense to look at the credibility of the journal. Also, I would like to say that I'm not arguing against the term "conspiracy" as some other people are, just that I don't think the article is appropriately reflecting the shift in how people are using the term DIT.

It's a pretty new term/idea (and Google Trends suggests searches for DIT only really started to pick up in late 2023, likely spurred by the use of Generative AI on social media), so I don't want to partake in the discussion splitting hairs over whether it's appropriate to call it a conspiracy theory or not. The original usage I would say absolutely is, and I would say the more simplified version you're quoting above would still be as well, so I'm not disagreeing with calling it a "conspiracy theory". Qualie (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the reliable source noticeboard says that it is a predatory journal. We are left with several published sources calling it a conspiracy theory, and a general vibe that the public is using the term in a new way. We don't have a source that clear source that gives us a definition or framework we can work with that clearly separates this, honestly we're skirting pretty close to original research as it by splitting it apart by saying "Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Also, pasting the source article into undetectable.ai yields a 95% AI score. Ironically, at the same time as making the source unreliable, it adds to the anecdotal evidence: the internet is so full of AI slop that even the articles about it being full of AI slop are themselves AI slop.

Unfortunately, as much as I feel like this article is wrong, we really need RS to say that. Amberkitten (talk) 11:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I can see there are some problems with the discrepancy between the article as is and what I see on YouTube views. Unfortunately, we can't be the ones to review the ontology here. I was really hoping the source in question would do that for us, but it is only a matter of time. Academia is publish or perish, I can't see this topic going unexplored for more then a few years. It already has entered the peer-reviewed literature after all. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 14:51, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough, and that source likely being AI generated is very ironic for sure. My angle on of all this is just that while people are going to want to view this article to understand the origin and evidence for DIT, they will also be reading it to simply understand what people mean when they use the term DIT. I'm suggesting that those people would be misled by this article as it stands right now. I understand that an encyclopedia isn't a dictionary, but the contrast between what's written in the article and how "DIT" is actually being used is very apparent and seems to be what some people are reacting to (even if they're being uncharitable).

My suggestion, in the absence of more sources, would be featuring what's being said in the second paragraph of Expert Theory more prominently at the top of the article in some form or fashion, as we do still have multiple RS demonstrating an evolution of the use of the term in these particular contexts.

Otherwise though, I don't have more to add to the discussion right now. I think I've stated my opinion reasonably and I don't currently have any more sources to contribute, so I appreciate you taking the time to look into all of this. Qualie (talk) 00:30, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

@GeogSage I read through your sources and they're mostly conjecture. I'm not sure how you can have multiple people tell you that your article is biased and outdated, but you aggressively refuse to consider that they may have a point? Is that not intellectually dishonest to yourself and everyone reading your article? 74.109.39.200 (talk) 04:37, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

It isn't my article, I just have written a good bit of it. Over the past year, the article has averaged 6,404 daily views, from a purely numerical perspective, I'd expect several people to disagree with what is written. That said, if the article is biased and outdated, it should be really easy to find high quality sources. The article reflects the existing literature, and there is plenty of evidence I can point to in this thread that I'm actively looking for and considering new sources as they're presented. If you have an opinion on the topic, you should get it published in a reputable source and then we can discuss integrating it into the article. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

It’s still a theory. But it is proving to have been mostly correct. It did overreach regarding the proposed intent and operative nature of the phenomenon, though. Senriam (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

There are two uses of the term "Dead Internet Theory" - one is conspiratorial in nature, the other is not (simply referring to the increasing prevalence of AI generated content online). Just make this clear in the introduction. That's it. 2A00:23C6:DC53:4501:EC64:5A88:E805:A476 (talk) 20:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I have said this several times, but there is not a high quality source that defines two separate terms unambiguously. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:08, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I think it's actually very important that this gets changed as soon as there's a usable source, the article in its current form can arguably be harmful. Because by describing it as a conspiracy theory, when the real-world usage has changed to refer to an observably true phenomenon (AI-generated content taking over the internet), that lends credence to conspiracy theories. JvJGavle (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

The term hasn't completely changed usage, a parallel usage may have emerged. We need a source to document that, but I don't think it is going to be dramatic enough to allow the over write people rushing here after viewing the latest viral video are going to want. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:06, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

References

rephrasing the opening statement

Rephrasing the "The dead Internet theory is a conspiracy theory" into "The dead Internet theory is a theory mostly regarded as conspiracy theory" would alleviate the biggest problem of this article now: it speaks of CT and quotes articles describing it as a CT, yet the whole tone covers it as a rational theory, just one that doesn't fully hold and/or is biased by other aligned views. This has been discussed before here, and I think that simply rephrasing the opening sentence to be more accurate and to reflect the material better would help, while not moving POV or doing OR here.

Mind me, the idea of using 2ndary sources is to clearly say what others are claiming, and not to claim things when there is any reasonable doubt. If we assume Wiki has to stay neutral, changing statement that "X is Y" (which is suitable only for pure, undisputable facts) to "X is considered to be Y/X is claimed to be Y/X is defined as Y" etc. does seem like a correct step. 95.199.239.64 (talk) 14:52, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Call a spade a spade applies here. The reliable sources we have refer to it as a conspiracy theory, and we don't have a good source that is refuting that. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:07, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

CASAS is about brevity and clarity. CASAS doesn't apply to differentiating between something that is and something that is widely but not univerally considered something (like effectiveness of drugs that have inconclusive trial result or research that has different possible conslusions, of which only some are widely accepted and some are fringe).

Also, I have to disagree on the "we don't have a good source to refute that". Many of the citations in the bottom (criticism) section actually highlight this - that DIT is salvageable, i.e. parts of it accurately reflect the reality, making it a theory instead of conspiracy theory. A quick net search provides those debate point quite freely, even from reputable sources. See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/30/techscape-artificial-intelligence-bots-dead-internet-theory e.g. - it clearly says "it was a conspiracy thoery, but it is not strictly a conspiracy theory now". I'd call Guardian a reputable source on current mass media and sociology affairs, YMMV. 2A00:801:727:6C2:0:0:3A95:3488 (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I do not see that quote in the article. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 14:05, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

@GeogSage (FFS, do you have to use stylized writing in your signature to make it less legible?) :

If you "do not see that [quote] in the article", you have eye problems I assume. I haven't said it's a direct quote, I said the article says it (i.e. it's a paraphrase) - and it does.

>The theory wasn’t wrong – it was just too soon.

>Talking about a dead internet the summer before the release of ChatGPT is like the Guardian colleague who confidently declared, in the summer of 2016: “It’s been a mad rush of political news since the 2014 local elections, so it’s weird to think that there’s just Brexit and the US election and then everything will be quiet for the next few years.”

>In 2021, the internet felt dead because aggressive algorithmic curation was driving people to act like robots. In 2024, the opposite has happened: the robots are posting like people.

4th paragraph of the article etc. 95.196.14.53 (talk) 13:40, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Odd to accuse someone of having eye problems after stating you are struggling to read something. The article does not clearly say: "it was a conspiracy thoery, but it is not strictly a conspiracy theory now." You put that in quotation marks, and I do not see that quote in the article because you presented your paraphrase as a direct quote. I don't agree with your conclusion, in fact, despite the article you quote discussing how the "theory wasn’t wrong – it was just too soon", it does refer to "the 2021 version of the conspiracy theory," without ever giving a new definition or directly stating it isn't in fact a conspiracy theory. We do cite this source in the article already, specifically focusing on the "felt dead" part. Feeling dead and being dead are different statements though, and this is one source weighed against many. Often when I read these sources, I can tell the author likely at least glanced at the Wikipedia article. Until we have very clear high quality sources that say something unambiguous, we need to be cautious to avoid Circular reporting and a citogenesis incident. There is a cartoon on it by xkcd here. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:18, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Putting aside everything irrational and illogical you state, your very line of behaviour shows there's no point in discussing anything with you further. Saying "Until we have very clear high quality sources that say something unambiguous" when talking about cultural and/or internet phenomena, which is transient and ambiguous by definition, is a fallacy in itself, and you failing to understand that actually closes any gateway to a sensible discussion.

Seeing how you fare when other people try to communicate with you only confirms what I see now, that you're just mentally stuck on proving you are right whatever the cost, and against all reason, just appealing to higher and higher authorities. First "there is no reason nor rationale to". Then, when provided with reason and rationale, "there are no sources". Then, when provided with sources, "the sources are lacking, irrelevant and of low quality". You get prime outlets of culture and discussion? Not enough, "this is one source weighed against many". I could find like 5 articles from major media with statement with a cursory Google search. You already got some of those sources from other people. Well, what's the bar? How many do you need? What scientific journal needs to state the obvious for you to be able to change your effing mind? Just state the exact amount or boundary, because currently you're just raising the bar as it goes, as long as it allows your ego to do the "I'm rational, I have reasons" dance, even if it's obvious from outside you already failed.

"Often when I read these sources, I can tell the author likely at least glanced at the Wikipedia article." - God, I haven't imagined there are people who can seriously write something like that _about a columnist from Guardian writing about internet phenomena_... Hell, if you don't understand how quotes work, maybe you need some Caps Lock?

YES, HE PROBABLY EVEN READ THE ARTICLE. HE'S DEBATING THE CORE STATEMENT THAT IT'S STILL A CONSPIRACY THEORY, AIN'T THAT OBVIOUS?

Sorry, but I can no longer assume your good faith, because you're failing the litmus test of NPOV and a rational human being by a mile at this point. 95.197.176.185 (talk) 19:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:No original research: "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that one is not adding original research, one must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented."
• Wikipedia:Verifiability: "In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means that people can check that facts or claims correspond to reliable sources. Wikipedia's content is determined by published information rather than editors' beliefs, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it. If reliable sources disagree with each other, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight."

This isn't Urban Dictionary, I'm actively trying to collect and add reliable sources to this article. We're not trying to find evidence for or against the theory here, we're trying to summarize and represent what reliable sources say about it. We have multiple extremely high quality sources that refer to the dead internet theory as a conspiracy theory, including a CRC Press book with a glossary entry for the Dead Internet Theory that explicitly defines it as a conspiracy theory. Two articles have come close to stating a new definition has spun out of it I believe, and I ran both through the reliable source noticeboard here and here. Both had issues, not the least of which is that both were likely written with a lot of help from generative AI. There is a reason you can't pull a direct quote from the guardian article that says it is not a conspiracy theory, and that is because it is not clearly stated. We can not imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the source. I can point to clear evidence that I'm actively trying to entertain changing the article if we can get sources, if you really think I'm being overly aggressive on this, feel free to open a RfC. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:54, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

>We can not imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the source.

We do have different definitions of "clearly" then. At this point, any further discussion would be either semantical or ontological. I appreciate the amount of work you did here, but at this point we will have to be in disagreement. I never proposed turning this article into UD entry, on the contrary. "No original research" doesn't mean "just direct citations and grammatical conjunctions are allowed", because maintaining NPOV requires being able to notice subtelties in the compelxity of ambiguous subjects and express those through careful and neutral wording. If a Jane Doe would be called "a bitch" by an article in a reliable source list, would you write "Jane Doe, a bitch" in the opening statement of a wiki article? Please ponder on that. There's a difference between calling a spade a spade, and calling a spade "a dirty spade" because you only found high-quality articles abouy dirty spades.

As to RfC, I was honestly thinking about it, but this is not my hill to fight on. I'm no longer an active wikipedian for about 15 years, even since wiki started hitting rock bottom for the first time. I reckon somebody will do an RfC here sooner or later if you don't change your approach, mate. I've seen how edit wars go, and this one somewhat escalates lately. If I were you, I'd step down myself, because a personal agenda always fails, even if the reasons for it are righteous (or self-righteous, YMMV). There's a difference between applying the truth and bending the truth. I detest mob rules, but Wikipedia is a mob writing experiment, and treating it otherwise always ultimately fails. 2A00:801:7A3:AB8A:0:0:4E51:FFA7 (talk) 13:01, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

It seems that the "conspiracy theory" part is the claims that folks make that it's somehow deliberate and orchestrated - the "why" so to speak. But it seems that in this case, the conspiracy theory was based on a rising truth - the huge increase of bots and AI slop, spam etc... Given time, the part of the theory that is about the increasing crap and the destruction of value will only increase. I'm sure there will always be folks who just feel there has to be a conscious motivation behind it - some deliberate agency - not sure how one goes about differentiating, but yeah the Internet is kind of dying and the conspiracy theory did kind of predict it - right for the wrong reasons? DigitalSorceress (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:57, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

TBH there is a "deliberate agency" if it's done by corporations handling the bot/AI traffic for the sake of monetary gain. And that's not even secret, the very corporations themselves are open about it, be it Google, Microsoft or OpenAI, they present that as a rationale of high-level management decisions in their to-investor communications.

And yes, the "we don't care about people, we care about the money only while pretending to care about the people" is actually a tangible agenda.

The problem with the term "conspiracy theory" is that it implies that all theories based on conspiracy as the key element are automatically magical thinking and false. The problem is, history was actually shaped by conspiracies, whether one likes it or not. Wars and conflicts were always started by conspiracies and ended by conspiracies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_conspiracies (not exhaustive, this is only the list of well-known and well-verified ones) - This didn't change in XXI century at all. Now imagine what people said when someone pointed out those were orchestrated at the time they actually were - "you are insane, nobody would do that, that's fringe thinking".

Yet here we are. If you throw a 100-sided die, all results apart from one are "irrational and absurd" at the time you look at the die. Yet a moment before, all of them were equally probably. 95.196.14.53 (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

"Conspiracy Theory" vs. "Theory": What's the Difference?

Slapping the word "conspiracy" on any non-approved theory essentially shits all over the credibility of that theory, and so I'm asking directly if Wikipedia's official stance on the "Dead Internet Theory" is that it is bogus, fake, the result of mentally-ill political extremists all conspiring to undermine the stringent level of control over the human mind that currently exists...

Or what?

I'm astounded when I contemplate the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of eyes that land on this Article, and each and every one of them reads this as the very first and most important sentence of the entire Article:

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.

What's a "conspiracy theory", what is a "theory" and who decided that the "Dead Internet Theory" is a "conspiracy theory" and not simply just a "theory", that contained within the Article, seems to have quite a bit of evidence to support it's legitimacy. Who here at Wikipedia is interested in disparaging and denigrating humanity's best and brightest, that very small minority of minds that can see things that other people cannot, or do not, wish to see, and why is it that Wikipedia is interested in essentially shitting all over the best and brightest humanity has to offer, in order to... what? Silently assert that none of this "conspiracy theory" is true, and that everything is all transparent and everything is exactly as it appears to be? Or what, I wonder. Who here asserts that the Dead Internet Theory is completely and 100% discredited and "not-legitimate" and advocates in FAVOR of maintaining this word "conspiracy" as a means by which to maintain control over the narrative and deny any constructive change? Further, I wonder to what extent the AI/ChatGPT bots have not already taken over Wikipedia, and are currently enforcing their rules and policies over the human population, particularly to include this Article.2603:8082:DB40:2E:B4BF:95F4:23E:262B (talk) 23:44, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

There are several posts about this. We have multiple sources (some critical to passing Wikipedia:Verifiability) that use the term Conspiracy theory when describing the dead internet theory. There are a few sources that are ambiguous about it and seem to only use part of the theory, and a few that suggest that it may no longer be one or that it feels more real. We lack a good source that clearly states a new definition, and even if we had such a source it would need to be considered with the existing sources that describe it as a conspiracy theory. Our opinions on it are irrelevant, the sources are what matters, and they say what they say.

If you look at the statistics, most of this article is written by me. If you look at the talk page, I'm the one currently enforcing rules and policy (although if you look at the page statistics for the talk page here, there are 313 people watching it). I'm not an AI/ChatGPT. If any admin needs to check that, feel free. I have my own opinions on the DIT, and in fact the reason I'm interested in it at all is because it tangentially was/is related to some of my professional work. I have specifically suggested some routes of research on this talk page for anyone who is interested in trying to publish in a reliable source. I'm confident we will see something new as this term has already entered the academic literature, and I struggle to think a buzz word like this won't get investigated by some CS researcher. I was excited to see one recently, but it turned out to be in an unreliable journal and likely written mostly with AI, you can see the saga above in this talk page. Until we get a good source that says otherwise, we are left with the sources we have. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I was looking at this topic for quite a while and I found some, I think, reliable sources that are academic publications. Here's a list of 4 that I found, along with my comment on each. I'm listing them here so that someone can edit the article or maybe add these references. I tried not to repeat sources already used in the article on this talk page, but I might have missed one (i'm sorry if I did).

1. The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media (arXiv, many authors; Jan 2025); This is a peer-reviewed survey (accepted for publication and posted on the arXiv) that looks at the origins, terminology and implications of DIT. The authors never use the word "conspiracy" at all, and they don't frame DIT as one either. It explains that DIT claims that "much of today’s internet [...], is dominated by non‑human activity [and] AI‑generated content" and studies how bots, algorithmic content generation and engagement metrics have weakened real human interaction.
2. Artificial Influencers and the Dead Internet Theory (Springer, Yoshija Walter; Feb 2024). Published in AI & Society journal, this article looks at the rise of AI‑generated “virtual influencers” and connects that to DIT. The author doesn't call it a conspiracy theory, instead describing DIT as the theory "that the internet is predominantly populated by AI‑generated content". They argue that generative AI has made what used to be a speculative idea observable today, and they what that means for authenticity, digital labor, and online trust. I found this quote really interesting: "Ten years ago, the theory used to be rather speculative, but with the wake of generative AI, it can now be observed first-hand, and it highlights a disturbing trend: the blurring lines between human and AI-driven interactions."
3. The Dead Internet Theory: Investigating the Rise of AI-Generated Content and Bot Dominance in Cyberspace (Pakistan Journal of Engineering, Technology and Science; many authors; June 2024). This paper looks at whether the internet appears "dead" because of the rise of automated bots and AI. The abstract says the theory describes a virtual world becoming lifeless as “automated creatures and AI‑generated content” take over. The introduction also says that asking if the internet is dead isn't a metaphor but a recognition that AI‑generated content and bots are increasingly wide-spreading. Not only does this article not label this theory as a conspiracy theory, it actually says that it should not be considered as such (if I read it right): "Another research states that a startling 47.4% of all internet traffic in 2022 turned out to be bots, according to Imperva's Bad Bot Report. We converse and share in what seems like a busy virtual town square, yet over half of the people there are merely robots. This introduces the controversial dead internet theory into our everyday online experiences, removing it from the domain of conspiracies."
4. Between the Self and Signal: The Dead Internet & a Crisis of Perception (OCAD University Major Research Project; 2025). This graduate research project studies how synthetic media and algorithmic systems affect human perception. The glossary defines DIT as "The belief that the internet is primarily populated by automated bots and synthetic content rather than genuine human activity." The introduction argues that the dead internet is not a distant dystopia, but something real and happening now, warning that bots and synthetic actors damage trust and contribute to an epistemic crisis. The author writes that recent advances in generative AI have "transformed what is termed the Dead Internet Theory from a fringe conspiracy into a legitimate area of academic inquiry as synthetic activity increasingly dominates online spaces."

Wcalenieja (talk) 18:23, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

(EDIT: Obviously just after posting the message, I noticed that the second source I found (Artificial Influencers and the Dead Internet Theory) is already used in the article. But as far as I can see, it is only used in this cluster of 6 sources and in the other place in the cluster of 4 sources, as well, so I think it's worth checking out.) Wcalenieja (talk) 18:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

To respond:

1. I was watching this source in the arXiv for a while, but it was published in Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science. We discuss it above, and I tried to incorporate it, but it had issues. See discussion at Reliable source noticeboard here. In short, it is likely mostly AI written and published in a predatory journal.

2. As you noted, this is included. We could try to flush things out a bit using this, but there isn't a ton of meat on this. The article is in what the journal calls the "Curmudgeon Corner" and is a "a short opinionated column."

3. Pakistan Journal of Engineering Technology and Science looks predatory on first glance. We will have to go to Reliable source noticeboard for it, created the post here. We will see what is said.

4. I've read this actually, there are a few masters theses out there that mention the DIT actually. I don't want to make any firm accusations against the author, but it feels like some of the sources/writing from this Wikipedia article might have "rubbed off" on this thesis, and I question the methods a bit. That said, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources states "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." I don't believe this has risen to the point of significant scholarly influence. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 21:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

• After taking the article The Dead Internet Theory: Investigating the Rise of AI-Generated Content and Bot Dominance in Cyberspace to the reliable source notice board, the general conclusion is that there isn't evidence the journal is predatory, but the article itself seems to be mostly written by AI. @Headbomb stated the "paper certainly isn't RS."

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

• Link to the archived Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard discussion on Pakistan Journal of Engineering Technology and Science article titled The Dead Internet Theory: Investigating the Rise of AI-Generated Content and Bot Dominance in Cyberspace here.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:31, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Should there be a separate article discussing simply the hypothetical, general concept of the internet becoming obsolete? Perhaps, “Death of the Internet".

This would be different from the “Dead Internet theory” article which not only claims that the internet is already effectively dead but also makes very specific claims as to how its death came about, such as assertions of governments and corporations intentionally curating what users see online as a way to control the population, which is just one of a multitude of different ways the internet could die. Also, there are a number of Wikipedia articles that discuss hypothetical scenarios or widespread perceptions that, while aren’t necessarily true yet, are believed by many people to be true (or are seen as a serious matter of concern) or could possibly become true at some point. Examples of such articles would be “American decline” or “Human Extinction”. Those articles aren’t framed as conspiracy theories that can be traced to a certain individual or group nor do they make a single, main claim about how those events would come about. Rather, they’re framed in a broad way that mentions several possible interpretations and causes that could cause those events to transpire.

Basically what I’m asking is whether it would make sense to have a separate article about the “Death of the Internet” as a general topic to distinguish it from the more specific “Dead internet theory” which is a very specific idea that makes very specific claims. The Death of the Internet as a matter of general concern has become widespread due to the rise of LLMs and Generative AI which means that concerns of the internet one day “dying” are no longer fringe or overblown. A separate article would also resolve some of the disagreements I’ve seen above of people debating whether this article should still describe the dead internet theory as a “conspiracy” or not. MoJoBroBro (talk) 02:20, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

@MoJoBroBro There should not be such a separate article because the content of that article would be wp:original research. Original research is forbidden on Wikipedia. Content must be wp:verifiable using sources. The sources must be wp:reliable sources. —Alalch E. 02:33, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Per above, anything is possible if sources exist. I don't think there are nearly enough for what you're describing. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:45, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Potential source for Evidence section

The SEO firm Graphite made a study on the prevalence of AI-generated text on the web over time, which was covered by several reliable sources. Criteria for selection:

We need a representative sample of English-language articles on the web. To do so, we randomly select 65k URLs from CommonCrawl, and confirm that each is in English, has an article schema markup, is at least 100 words, has a publish date between January 2020 and May 2025, and is an article or listicle as classified by the Graphite page type classifier.

According to Graphite, AI content makes up roughly 50% of texts selected using these criteria as of May 2025, and this has plateaued since May 2024.

Seems relevant & some commentators have highlighted the link to DIT, though admittedly I couldn't find a reliable source that references DIT explicitly. Amberkitten (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I couldn't find a reliable source that references DIT explicitly. Until we have that reliable source, this is interesting but not something we can really include. Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material. We're not trying to find evidence for or against the theory here, we're trying to summarize and represent what reliable sources say about it. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:28, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

References

Time to update this page

Clearly we are on the precipice of the accessible "internet" being majority fabricated by bot and AI generated content. It's a bit unusual to be so protective in claiming the Dead Internet Theory as conspiracy, when all web browsers use AI and machine learning to provide filtered information. The internet is not a reliable source of information. Accessing the internet to gain knowledge is now plundered with the responsibility of fact checking across multiple sources, hence rendering the internet as a Dead source for reliable information. Perhaps this was always the case considering the reliability of news and media sources, but now more than ever the bot and AI generated content has poisoned the field condition. Update this page - Remove the Conspiracy claim.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/10/13/ohanian-and-altman-warn-of-dead-internet-theory-what-is-it-and-how-is-ai-making-it-happen/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/youre-reading-more-ai-generated-content-than-you-think/

https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study/

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ai-overviews-clicks/558608/

2600:1700:B47:D000:6179:3CD1:5BDF:610C (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Definitely (past) time to remove "conspiracy" from the opening. Here is an actual definition from the current academic literature:

"From the perspective of social media, the Dead Internet Theory (DIT) can be redefined as the idea that modern online platforms have transitioned from spaces of genuine human interaction to ecosystems dominated by artificial activity, primarily driven by bots, AI-generated content, and corporate algorithms."

P. Muzumdar, et al. 2025. “The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media”. Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science 18 (1):67–73. https://doi.org/10.9734/ajrcos/2025/v18i1549.

I fell down a very deep DIT rabbit hole and can also share additional sources, both academic and popular. Some of these include information about the technological and political developments, especially from about 2015 onward, that have enabled the proliferation of massive botnets, data mining, and bot-driven (inter)actions, as well as increased public awareness of their existence. While LLMs and related tech may be a relatively new idea for much of the public, they and other deep neural networks are not new to academics, governments, and Big Tech companies. Predictive, generative, and surveillance AIs underneath UIs have been essential to the rise and continued dominance of the internet in general and social media in particular. The presence and sophistication of bots have only grown throughout the course of internet history, but GPTs have accelerated that growth even more. Neonlio (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

That journal article has already been brought up above. When I took it to reliable source noticeboard, it came back as a predatory publisher and likely written largely by AI. You can see the discussion here. Restating the same things over and over is tedious, we have several high quality sources that describe it as a "conspiracy theory." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:01, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see that, how disappointing. Certainly not disagreeing with that article/journal being predatory AI content, but someone mentioned the irony in the other thread. I'm not saying it counts as legit evidence, but does the fact that we have to check online journals for AI content not lend credence to the idea that the internet is on the cusp of (if not already) dead?

Additionally, I don't understand the current separation of the "Expert View" and "Evidence" sections. Under "Expert View", the first 3 citations are not from peer-reviewed journals: the first is The Atlantic article published pre-ChatGPT release, the second is from a non-peer-reviewed social conservative advocacy journal, and the third is from a pop sci article written by an author whose self-reported areas of expertise are earth, geology, history, medicine, and space. Only after these sources does it refer to 3 different peer-reviewed academic journal articles, all of which support interpreting the dead internet theory as conceptually legitimate. Can you direct me to the current reputable sources that explicitly call it a conspiracy? Neonlio (talk) 21:49, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

does the fact that we have to check online journals for AI content not lend credence to the idea that the internet is on the cusp of (if not already) dead? We aren't looking for evidence, we are looking for sources that have analyzed the evidence.

Additionally, I don't understand the current separation of the "Expert View" and "Evidence" sections. This is a bit of a compromise with people pushing for the theory, and part of the evolution of the article as new content is published. Initially, there were three sources we could use for Wikipedia:Verifiability: The Atlantic article, The New Atlantis (journal) article, and the CRC Press book. The CRC Press book is noteworthy because it has an entry for the DIT in it's glossary, and is not ambiguous with its definition. Of these, The Atlantic article is probably the single most important article on the DIT that brought it into mainstream, and the expert opinion cited is Caroline Busta within that article. The IFLScience article was a recent addition after checking if the source was legitimate. The 2023 The New Atlantis (journal) was one of the three best sources on the topic for a long time, and it is a parent source you will see regurgitated within much of the Grey literature. These three sources were not all we had until 2024, but they were the best, and most of the other sources are mostly repeating the content in these sources with their own spin on the topic.

The second paragraph is mostly newer content that has been added over time, mostly based on stuff published 2024 and after. With these academic sources, extracting definitions is a bit more challenging, and doing so requires us to read between the lines a bit. There are a few things to note:

• First, of the academic articles, the AI & Society one is an opinion column within the journal, I don't believe it is peer-reviewed. Academics are looking for citations in academic journals, so it appears fairly consistently after it's publication. The closest this article gets to a definition is where it states the DIT "posits that the internet is predominantly populated by AI-generated content, relegating human activity to isolated instances." The definition does not address the 2nd part of the theory other sources mention, but does not necessarily imply this is ALL the DIT posits. In a vacuum, this definition would be good enough, but we have other sources with their own definitions to consider.
• The Journal of Cancer Education is not concerned with if the DIT is real or not, but instead the impact the perception of it might have on patient confidence (If a patient believes the DIT is real, they might not take support groups as seriously). This paper does mirror the language of the AI & Society paper where it states the DIT "posits that the internet is predominantly populated by AI-generated content, relegating human activity to isolated instances." Ignoring that this text is not in quotations within the article (which I would consider blatant plagiarism from the AI & Society), the article goes on to cite the CRC Press book when discussing what the DIT suggests. This cancer article is not specific to the DIT, so they don't claim to be delivering a complete definition, making it harder to read between the lines and state the authors are taking a stance that it is ONLY the first part of the theory, especially with all the qualifiers and the citation of the CRC Press book.
• The third article in Philosophy & Technology is probably the best we have on the topic from recent publications. It cites the AI & Society article, and states "The basic idea behind the dead internet theory is that AI- and bot-generated content have surpassed human-generated elements in the realm of digital artifacts, effectively overtaking the human-generated internet." The issue again is that the author is not concerned with defining the entire theory, but exploring the implications of it, preferencing the definition with "The basic idea." This suggest the author is aware/believes their definition isn't comprehensive.

From these, we have synthesized the statement in the lede "Several sources regarding non-human web activity speculate that many of the theory’s original precepts, excluding its conspiratorial elements, may represent a realistic prediction of the future of the Internet." I do not think these are enough to completely throw out the other (original) source definitions on the topic, especially when they are unambiguous in the use of the term "conspiracy theory." We are completely missing a source that says "Originally a conspiracy theory meaning _________, the DIT has been adopted to mean __________," and anything that comes close sources back to the same AI & Society opinion column.

The evidence section is listing out common phenomena across multiple sources used to support the theory. It isn't the view of it, but a collection of stuff used to support views. This section traces back to the early page where we needed verification, and probably needs to be rewritten a bit. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Adding to what GeogSage has written, the 'Dead Internet theory' is not the same thing as 'there are lots of bots online'. TarnishedPath^talk 02:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

RFC What should this article be about? Like, really?

I feel like we need to gather broad consensus for what we should talk about under this topic. Over the years, this talk page has had loads of topics saying "it's not a conspiracy theory" to which people reply "yes it is, because sources says so". Therefore, let me state very clearly that my intention of this RFC is not to discuss the article's sourcing, be it what they say nor which are reliable. Instead, I want to create consensus for what the article should be about – in other words, what text and topic should be discussed inside a Wikipedia article titled "Dead Internet theory"?

There is really 2 theories here – the sentiment "bot activity online is drowning out humans and it feels depressing" and the sentiment "bot activity online is brainwashing by them to control the world". And although both theories are generally referred to with the article title, they are extremely different in terms of what they propose, how they came about, and what emotions are targeted by their respective theorists. One is rooted in anti-AI and general doomerism which are quite recent phenomena, and the other is a renewed phrasing of the good-ol' "evil people are secretly controlling us" which is as old as antisemitism.

As such, I don't believe it works very well to describe the two in interwoven prose as if they were equal. For example, the topic named "New World Order" has been split across several articles, including the political sense and the conspiratorial sense. Similarly, brainrot is a separate topic from brainwashing although the two concepts largely present the same methodology. And as a third, and blatantly more obvious example, we don't talk about goyslop in Criticism of fast food.

So we should pick one and only one topic to discuss in this article. And it should be whatever the WP:COMMONNAME of "Dead Internet theory" is used for, as to be determined by the community. By my personal unsourced observation, the by far most prominent topic of the two is the anti-AI one.

How to accomplish this and what to do with the other topic should also be a point of debate – we could split or fork it off into a separate article, we could put it under its own heading here, we could deem it not within project scope and delete it, or do something completely different. Let’s hear it.

My personal opinion of how to resolve this: Contentfork this article into its two constituent topics, perhaps titled Dead Internet theory and Dead Internet conspiracy theory. They are separate topics that both deserve coverage but should be covered separately. Any actual overlap between the two may be described in the destination articles. If the community supports this path, I'd be happy to start writing towards it myself.

Rose Abrams (T C L) 12:36, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

The article should be about reflecting the sources. Wikipedia:Consensus is not a vote, and we can not have a discussion about content that does not involve sourcing for that content. Defining a common name based on our "personal unsourced observation" is literally just original research, and I do not believe there is enough literature to support verification of a separate article without the conspiracy component.

We do not have sources that clearly state they are separate topics/theories, several refer to it as two parts though. We are just starting to get some sources that hint at a divergence, but even they cite content that clearly defines it as a conspiracy theory. There are some that discuss only the non-conspiracy side, but they explicitly state they are not describing the full theory.

We really only have one high quality source (an opinion piece in a peer reviewed journal) so far that has focused on it entirely without mentioning the conspiracy aspect, one that cites that opinion piece, and another that cites both the opinion piece and the CRC press book (with a glossary entry for Dead Internet Theory that defines it as a conspiracy theory). Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources, if no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Above, a separate article was proposed by @MoJoBroBro, and responded to by @User :Alalch E.. Wikipedia:Content forks are not acceptable for POV for Point of view (POV) forks. In terms of a separate heading, I have tried really hard to scrape content, stretched conclusions as far as I could, and "read between the lines" to the point it is borderline OR to capture the use of it outside being a conspiracy theory. The specific line "Several sources regarding non-human web activity speculate that many of the theory’s original precepts, excluding its conspiratorial elements, may represent a realistic prediction of the future of the Internet," is borderline synthesis because while I can point to three sources in particular, this is not "explicitly stated by any of the sources," and might violate a strict reading of Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material. Two articles that got close both failed on the reliable source noticeboard. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:23, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. Virtually all reliable sources treat DIT as a single subject (or, at most, a single subject with two parts) that is a conspiracy theory. Woodroar (talk) 19:18, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Reliable sources on the subject are generally written with the hook "This used to be a creepy conspiracy story... but now after the AI boom it's perhaps becoming a reality".

My opinion is that the "original conspiracy theory" should be described in the first paragraph of the lead. Fine to keep "conspiracy theory" adjective here.

A second paragraph should be added to the lead describing the "reality" of the situation in the post-AI boom world.

Prose should be broken into two major sections: the original conspiracy theory, then the AI boom situation.

I oppose a content split of the article. It isn't needed. They're both referred to as some subset of the Dead Internet Theory and are somewhat related; both should be discussed on the same page in different sections.

PK-WIKI (talk) 19:53, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: most of the reliable sources are using it as a bit of an attention grabber for sure. The issue is reading the exact wording on them, most say "Conspiracy theorists might be right" and end with something like "perhaps in the near future." They don't say it is not a conspiracy theory, and do not explicitly separate the two halves of the theory as separate entities. The closest we get is the source Artificial influencers and the dead internet theory which states: "An emerging problem of this shift is encapsulated in the so-called “Dead Internet Theory”, which posits that the internet is predominantly populated by AI-generated content, relegating human activity to isolated instances." In a vacuum, this would be a slam dunk, but it does not say this is all the DIT posits, even if this is the only part the author addresses. We have many other sources that offer definitions that include the "full theory," and need to read between the lines to see the author of Artificial influencers and the dead internet theory means to exclude the second half of the theory. Without a source saying "It used to mean two things, but now we only use it to refer to one," and with several sources that do clearly define the whole theory, we are stretching the sources to say what we want them to say, not what they say. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:46, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

That's fine. A second paragraph in the lead, and a major subsection, describing the post-AI boom coverage in reliable sources is WP:DUE. This will be very easy to source, almost all sources cover it. I'm not asking for us to "explicitly separate the two halves" but we do need coverage of the second half in the lead and body. It can also be written in future tense / "sources predict". PK-WIKI (talk) 23:58, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

We have the start of this in the lede, and a bit in Expert view/Evidence section. Going much beyond what is written is not as easy as you might think. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:05, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) Let me just say I had never heard the conspiracy theory. I generally understood the "theory" as a model for how the internet, as a result of SEO optimisation and bot activity, would gradually become filled with material without a human author, potentially making it unusable eventually. I will just admit I have toyed with this view in the past, but the way you describe the theory is rather different from how I've heard it described.

So basically the confluence of how browsers, social media algorithms and other algorithms that curate what we see are pointed towards a certain kind of content, or intentionally pointed away from the highest functionality (which is a kind of "conspiracy" theory (without an actual conspiracy) regarding Google, mostly) and the way bots and websites are competing for attention under this regime, and the additional fear that, especially on social media, bots/ai would be taking part in all three roles (search/feed algorithm, such as ai answers on google, posts/websites AND the requesting entity (bots scraping the internet or bots engaging on social media).
The idea would be a vicious cycle (bots consuming ai generated content spitting out new content they learned w/o a human source) gradually drowning out human contributions rather than an intentional breakdown of the internet. Still a dystopian image/future (or present?), but not necessarily one born out of (intentional) malice.

In my opinion, if this view (how I've described it above or something similar) is roughly what is supported by sources (and I would strongly prefer print media over social media or blogposts etc here when it comes to notability) we should focus the article on the theory like this, and include a (sub)section about the (I would hope) minority view that there is some sort of intent to reach this state.

Let me be very clear however, unless the conspiracy model is actually the most notable, (in which case I would actually prefer deletion unless it is really that notable) I do NOT think it should have its own article. Just not. This is on the edge of an editorial judgement, but I really do not think conspiracy theories deserve to given a Wikipedia platform, unless they are so well-known that they can no longer be considered mere esotery.

So in summary, I agree (although I do not share their experience, as evidenced by my description of how I had understood the subject) with User:PK-WIKI and I lean towards deleting entirely after reading their contribution. Slomo666 (talk) 21:19, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: The page passes Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Notability by even strict measures at this point, and has averaged 6,462 views per day since October 2023. It is a fairly well known topic at this point that has been referenced by multiple reputable news outlets, and at least three peer reviewed journal publications. There is a substantial List of conspiracy theories on Wikipedia. I don't think it meets any reason for deletion per the Wikipedia:Deletion policy. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 23:32, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Could someone who (hopefully in a pleasantly neutral and dull way) actually knows the broad strokes of all the "options" for what "is" dead internet theory can be... summarize it? Like a few words on what each "is"?

If I'm keeping up, it's a conspiracy theory that an orchestrated bot army drowned out humanity online to some end; or just capitalist insanity broke the internet with bot armies; like a "Make the Internet Great Again" to it's pre-commercial days (?) idea, and also a variety of memes and online culture gags? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Here are some uses/definition of the term from the articles I posted below:

The observable decline of human-centered, participatory, and transparent digital discourse - replaced by content that is algorithmically curated or AI-generated, often lacking clear origin, intention, or accountability

From Öğüç article

The dead internet theory is not really claiming that most of your personal interactions on the internet are fake. It is, however, an interesting lens through which to view the internet. That it is no longer for humans, by humans – this is the sense in which the internet we knew and loved is “dead”.

From Ostrovsky article

This discussion will show how Baudrillard’s notion of simulation and the proliferation of the sign foresaw the consequences of AI-generated media and content, which subsequently led to what is now subsumed to as the “dead internet theory” (Walter, 2024; Mariani, 2023; DiResta & Goldstein, 2024). From this perspective, the internet is no longer a digital representation of a once analog human culture. It has rather become a self-recreating force that has modulated and strayed away from its human origin through AI-generated content that has automated and now spreads across social media platforms, pushing human-generated content out of the virtual sphere

and

Bots, AI texts, and images are spreading uncontrollably across various digital platforms and environments, creating a sphere that becomes increasingly detached from an element of human connection and representation, therefore, a “dead internet”

and

While the dead internet theory is not a scientific theory, it reflects the growing public awareness of a fundamental shift within the digital infrastructure

From Sommerer. You might need to have some background knowledge in Baudrillard to understand this type of material though.

My summary, "dead internet theory" refers to both some specific conspiracy that all/vast majority of internet activity was replaced by bots a while ago (not true, empirically false) and also a way a lot of people refer to the increase in AI slop on the internet. While that usage isn't very precise, it is how a lot of people use it and that's why there is such protracted debate over it here. Katzrockso (talk) 03:09, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Essentially, yes. A bit of a timeline on it:

• Started as a post on a discussion board. The "thesis" of the original post was "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence-powered gaslighting of the entire world population."
• Became a bit of a Copypasta meme.
• In 2021, The Atlantic published Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago. This brought it into the mainstream.
• Several publications regurgitated points from The Atlantic article.
• In 2023, this Wikipedia page was created.
• In 2023, a book published by CRC Press included it in the glossary. They defined it as "The Dead Internet Theory is a conspiracy theory that suggests the Internet has died and that much of the content we see online is now artificially generated by Al to manipulate the world population. The theory raises concerns about the impact of Al on propaganda, art, and journalism."
• In 2024, the peer-reviewed journal AI and Society published Artificial influencers and the dead internet theory in a section for short opinionated columns. This article defined it when it said, "An emerging problem of this shift is encapsulated in the so-called “Dead Internet Theory”, which posits that the internet is predominantly populated by AI-generated content, relegating human activity to isolated instances."
• Content creators have made lots of videos about the DIT on YouTube and TikTok during this time. You can see times it has gone viral in the pageviews for this article. Highest daily views was 122,750.

The DIT is comprised of two points:

1. That organic human activity on the web has been displaced by bots and algorithmically curated search results.
2. That state actors are doing this in a coordinated effort to manipulate the human population.

The argument is essentially, several people believe that the definition used on the page should focus on point number 1, and drop the term "conspiracy theory," while others (me, mostly me and a few others) think the literature does not support that yet, and it is a conspiracy theory comprised of both points 1 and 2. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:12, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

The fact that many people (including myself), before reading this Wikipedia page, had 0 idea that "state actors are doing this in a coordinate effort to manipulate the human population" is even remotely related with the "dead internet theory" suggests that the common usage of this term does not reflect its origin.

There are increasingly many uses of the term in this sense, especially this year; The possibility of integration becomes increasingly relevant in light of scenarios like the ‘dead internet theory’, which suggests that AI might already generate a significant portion of online content without human users being aware of it (Walter 2024) [1], A mere four years later, the capacity for LLMs to maintain a coherent narrative across long stretches of text has become common. Some are raising the alarm about the “enshittification” [49] or the “death of the Internet” [53] due to GenAI content, and words like “AI Slop” are now commonplace [53]. [2]. Katzrockso (talk) 03:23, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

The fact that many editors didn't know something is not a source. People using a term in a sense is not the same as a clear definition in the literature. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:30, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Words/phrases in practice don't always have "clear definitions in the literature" and the refusal to recognize is quite strange, especially when this is an evolving topic of discourse. There's obviously polysemy going on here, I think there are some issues regarding semantic flexibility in this discussion. Katzrockso (talk) 03:39, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

In this case, the literature does have clear definitions, in multiple sources. If there is obvious polysemy, it should be easy to find a definition in reliable sources. Per Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight:

• "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources."
• "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public."
• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true, or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:12, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I provided such definitions in multiple of my existing comments. Katzrockso (talk) 04:21, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• The Öğüç article definition is the "Dead Internet Hypothesis," and the definition given is for the "Death of the Internet." It only mentions Dead Internet Theory in a citation. This article is questionable to me. First, the article cites a journal that has already failed Reliable source noticeboard (which is the one mention of the Dead Internet Theory in the article), and it repeatedly states "Source: Author’s own work" within the text. The journal website looks like several predatory journals I've seen. Using Grammarly, large portions of this article resemble AI text. I have opened up a discussion at the Reliable sources Noticeboard here to get more opinions.
• The Renzella and Rozova article looks pretty good, but the definition given does not necessarily contradict the conspiracy theory aspect or demonstrate the emergence of a new term. It does not use the word "conspiracy theory," but it states "The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet, including social media accounts, are predominantly being created and automated by artificial intelligence agents. But the dead internet theory goes even further. Many of the accounts that engage with such content also appear to be managed by artificial intelligence agents. This creates a vicious cycle of artificial engagement, one that has no clear agenda and no longer involves humans at all." It then goes on to discuss "Bot-fuelled disinformation." The use of the word essentially suggests that it is not a comprehensive definition, and the article discussion of examples like "More recently, several large-scale, pro-Russian disinformation campaigns have aimed to undermine support for Ukraine and promote pro-Russian sentiment" in the context of the DIT just seems to be a rehash of the discussion made by other articles.
• The [Sommerer] article is included already in the article. It states "The basic idea behind the dead internet theory is that AI- and bot-generated content have surpassed human-generated elements in the realm of digital artifacts, efectively overtaking the humangenerated internet. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly visible, especially as social media platforms integrate more automated AI content." The use of the word "basic" again shows the author is not attempting to give a comprehensive definition. They cite the paper in AI & Society, which states "An emerging problem of this shift is encapsulated in the so-called “Dead Internet Theory”, which posits that the internet is predominantly populated by AI-generated content, relegating human activity to isolated instances." This definition is one of two in the academic literature, but it does not state that this is all the DIT posits, or address the other parts of the theory. In a vacuum, this is a slam dunk, but we have other sources that need to be weighed with this. The Walter source is the basis of the second paragraphs in the lede and expert view section (just fixed that to make sure it was included in that paragraph), and likely the place to start in the literature to support your argument as this is the origin of many articles definitions. We need to be cautious not to synthesize sources or read things into sources that they do not actually say.

GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:21, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I definitely agree with this proposal that there are two different topics in a sense in this article - there is a "dead internet theory" and a "dead internet conspiracy theory". The idea is taken seriously by some academics (I first recall coming across such discourse in a Baudrillardian context), moreso in recent years - I have always had the impression / understanding that it referred to discussion of increasing bot activity on the internet over time. Personally I'm not particularly worried about AI bots taking over the internet, but it's certainly an interesting topic.

These are some sources I found, with varyingly reliability, that treat the topic as serious, but caution that earlier theories were conspiracy theories.

See:

• Sommerer, Thomas (2025). "Baudrillard and the Dead Internet Theory. Revisiting Baudrillard's (dis)trust in Artificial Intelligence". Philosophy & Technology. 38 (2). doi:10.1007/s13347-025-00878-5. ISSN 2210-5433.
• Muzumdar, Prathamesh; Cheemalapati, Sumanth; RamiReddy, Srikanth Reddy; Singh, Kuldeep; Kurian, George; Muley, Apoorva (2025-01-06). "The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media". Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science. 18 (1). Sciencedomain International: 67–73. doi:10.9734/ajrcos/2025/v18i1549. ISSN 2581-8260.
• Renzella, Jake; Rozova, Vlada (2024-05-20), The ‘dead internet theory’ makes eerie claims about an AI-run web. The truth is more sinister, The Conversation, doi:10.64628/aa.n5axxgun6
• Ostrovsky, Nikita (2025-09-10). "Inside the 'Dead Internet' Theory—and Why It's Spreading". TIME. Retrieved 2025-11-05.
• Öğüç, Çağdaş (2025-09-28). "Dead Internet Hypothesis: AI, Censorship, and the Decline of Human-Centered Digital Discourse". İmgelem (Yeni Medya Çalışmaları). Bilgitoy Bilgi, Bilim, Eğitim, Araştırma, Geliştirme ve Strateji Association: 751–776. doi:10.53791/imgelem.1650961. ISSN 2602-4446. Retrieved 2025-11-05.

I do not think we should have separate articles about this topic though, since they are too closely related in our sources to justify that.

I think there is an issue here in terms of different sources talking past another one. For example, I found this source that says [3] The dead internet theory is a conspiracy theory that states that all interactions and posts on social media are no longer being made by real people, but rather by autonomous bots. But not all uses of the term "dead internet theory" refer to the same thing - obviously the people taking the "dead internet theory" seriously don't believe that "all activity on the internet" is driven by bots. But the idea that some (and maybe an increasing amount) is driven by AI/LLM/bots could be taken seriously, and in that second sense this same source is saying "the dead internet theory may be true". Wikipedia doesn't always do a great job with these messy polysemic concepts, but I think this is what's going on here.

The following is my own WP:OR, meant to demonstrate a point, not an argument for inclusion in the article. I have seen numerous LLM slop posts with hundreds/thousands of likes from accounts that are obviously not real people on Facebook, often times repeating the same bizarre phrases and using the same images/same type of image. If some people describe the fact that this phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent, who are we to say they are wrong to use the term in that way - and the idea that people are not using the term in this sense is increasingly untenable. Katzrockso (talk) 02:58, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: I haven't seen all these sources yet, but Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science failed when taken to reliable source noticeboard. See relevant discussion here. The Sommerer article is pretty good and I believe already included. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:19, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I said of varying reliability since I didn't check in-depth, just a quick look, but thanks for the note. The fact is that different groups are using different senses for the terms and to use the term as univocal in Wikipedia's voice doesn't reflect this discrepancy.

Re your comment above about the state-actor coordinated part, I do not think that a substantial majority of the sources use "state-actor" in their descriptions/definitions. A few of them point out that was the origin, but a lot just refer to "majority of online activity is by AI, bots, and agents", sometimes "Dead internet theory posits that bots now write most of the content on the internet". I see a lot of different definitions that posit varying "levels" of activity, some refer to the original conspiracy theory from 2021, etc. Katzrockso (talk) 03:35, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

The original post that coined the dead internet theory is cited/referenced in the article Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago, where it quotes, "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence-powered gaslighting of the entire world population." GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:47, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that was the original definition. The first use of a term has never fixed its extension and many sources make no reference to that fect. Katzrockso (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Many sources make reference to term as a conspiracy theory. If you go through the talk page archives, it was necessary to clearly define who the conspirators were. Sources not referencing a fact (in this case, many sources use the term "conspiracy theory" without elaborating on who exactly is to blame) does not change that some do. The sources that do not state this are not contradicting the ones that do. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:20, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

So your suggestion is that we read the minds of article writers and attribute to them positions they do not hold?

When this page was created in 2023, it made no reference to "state actors". At one point, the article accurately stated "Before this, the dead internet theory mostly emphasized government organizations, corporations, and tech-savvy individuals, but ChatGPT put the power of AI in the hands of average internet users." [4], citing this article [5]. What do you suggest "the theory got a shot in the arm thanks to the release of an experimental new product" means in the article here? This article also an "original conception" of the conspiracy theory (which we all agree refers to "deliberately created by a government agency or some equally shadowy entity"). Katzrockso (talk) 04:30, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

"Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written." In this case, I was almost certainly the one who wrote that (read the Dif). There have been many discussions on this, specifically Talk:Dead_Internet_theory/Archive_1#"Conspiracy_Theory", that insisted we name who the conspirators were in the conspiracy theory. We have sources for that, so it was easy enough. My suggestion is that we do not attempt to read the minds of article writers and attribute to them positions they do not hold. There is not a good source that states the term has split and no longer includes the 2nd component. There are a few sources that don't mention the 2nd component. We have a clear definition in a CRC Press textbook glossary, and several sources that elaborate on the entire theory though. At least one of the sources that does not go into the 2nd half of the theory cites the CRC Press in their definition. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Holy hell this is a mess. But not insurmountable.

Proposal:

• Background section: what all led up to the divergent two main "ideas", internet history, etc.
• The Split section: whatever RS can cite (and seems like they can?) and explain how things firmed up to the two concepts.
• Concept A section: what this is.
• Concept B section: what this is (whichever can go first that is more robust OR chronological I guess, may need nuance).

^ each concept section should have it's own specific-to-it analysis/criticism/whatever subsections.

Then:

• General/top level/meta analysis section: presumably this exists too.

Frankly, for the interested editors, you guys are sitting an easy Featured Article here for the scope alone. And probably not even that hard to write; mirror the concept sections as closely as you can by subsection names/concepts, and the whole thing screams easy compartmented writing. You guys got a meatball here, a nice one. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 04:30, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I've never edited this article before, but I just checked the talk page and it seems there is a strong pushback by GeogSage to argue that the term "dead internet theory" is only used to refer to the original conception of the theory (i.e. that there is a shadowy cabal causing the bot activity on the internet). The term was only coined in 2021, but the idea behind it in a broader sense ("bot activity on the internet") has a much broader scope. I wonder if that would be worth a separate (?) article - the rise/influence of bot activity on the internet, because that's really what people are fighting about - that "dead internet theory" is colloquially used to refer to various conceptualizations of "bot activity on the internet". I am not wedded to the term "dead internet theory", like I said before coming across this article via some noticeboards a few weeks ago, I had never heard that the "dead internet theory" originated on a forum stating that bot activity was directed by intelligensia.

I think it might more productive to write an article on "bot activity on the internet", which has tons of reliable sources that have been excluded from the article because connecting them to the "dead internet theory" has been called [{WP:SYNTH]]. The "dead internet theory" is merely one aspect of this broader topic. Katzrockso (talk) 04:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Two things: if the broader understanding of the word has evolved such that it is now used to describe something other than what GeogSage thinks this article should be, the article should change accordingly. (Definitions are not set in stone and new definitions and concepts can be born. Wikipedia should reflect this. )

Either by having the most prominent version be prominent in this article alongside another definition, or by having a short section for the minority (with a {{main article}} template (a sort of redirect) going to wherever that minority is described in more detail, which can be an article on its own or if that is the minority, (a section of) the “bot activity” article you mention. (I would also think there’d need to be a disambiguation template at the top of the article in that case.)

(which is the second thing: how to actually format this. IMO: if we do split part of the subject off into a separate article, we should still link and or refer to that article as people may come here expecting one of the two concepts (assuming they don’t overlap too strongly, btw, which is another issue I fear) ) Slomo666 (talk) 14:06, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: As far as I know, we are missing sources for a split actually occurring. I can see one, kind of, but no one has said it clearly in the literature. The authors often will discuss only the first part of the theory, but don't clearly state they are rejecting the second, or specify a change in how the term is used. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Well... if it were me, that structure is what I'd 100% be thinking about hard as starting position. It doesn't need to be perfect anytime soon, and that's a lot closer than the messy thing is now. At worst then you've got comparted sections that are tidy for people to maintain and curate. That would leave the logical "split" area as the only ongoing headache until someone comes up with a good idea for it.

As/if each of the Concept sections then get big enough (page hits 150k+ size?) start thinking about setting up forks of both of the concept pages and this becomes the top level. Years long easy FA +2 GA forks, I'm telling you. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 14:22, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• Question: Do we have any reliable sources that estimate what percentage of the the Internet is from humans and what percentage is from bots? Do we even have the slightest clue? Of course, any such source would have to be careful about definitions: One pirated copy of all of the episodes of Law and Order would account for far more bits than all the text typed by humans on the Internet ever but does that make it "more"? Or YouTube; it sees approximately 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, and a lot of it is AI generated, but most AI generated content on YouTube has fewer than 10 views - they are uploading a huge amount in hopes that one or two will take off. But I digress. Has anyone even attempted to get actual percentages? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:45, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

  Several sources discuss this, the article references a few in the section "Bot traffic." The 2016 Imperva report is the most heavily cited, and it was 52% of the web was automated in 2016, 49.6% in 2023. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• "I want to create consensus for what the article should be about – in other words, what text and topic should be discussed inside a Wikipedia article titled "Dead Internet theory'"?...I apologize if this comes off as harsh, but this sentence sounds like the sole reason for this RfC is to obtain consensus without consideration for policies and guidelines. Focusing on editor feelings and personal opinions tend to get WP:FORUMy. Things like WP:MOS, WP:POLICY and WP:5P are there to help us more easily navigate how to make articles better. Cheers. DN (talk) 03:51, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

  I get where you’re coming from but eventually the decision to add a subject to Wikipedia always has an arbitrary factor, which is the personal/intellectual inclination of an editor to decide to submit it into an evidence- and guidelines-based process. (Of which they themselves are the first step, in determining notability) If no one came up with the idea that this might be something they’d like to add to Wikipedia, the article wouldn’t exist.

  As I understand it, the RfC is still meant to be based on the community’s interpretation of policy. But personal preference (call it editorial bias) will still play a role in that regardless of how much we intend to proceduralise things. (Otherwise, why would we need to have RfC’s on things: they serve to establish a consensus, based on policy, as argued/agreed by the community.) Slomo666 (talk) 13:49, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• No to any POV fork. Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC)
• Yes to splitting into two articles. Both are fascinating concepts and should be documented separately. LDW5432 (talk) 18:39, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

  How would splitting the two aid the reader? The two are often described in tandem by sources, who note that the original conceptualization of the theory (bot activity directed by state or otherwise nefarious actors) is false but that the idea of bot activity on the internet in some way constituting a problem is legitimate. Katzrockso (talk) 20:56, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• I have to say, naming one article "Dead internet theory" and the other one "Dead internet conspiracy theory" sounds really confusing. In my experience, there's always a continuum between "X is bad because [entirely sensible reason]" and "X is bad because [absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory]", so using a compare-and-contrast structure might work better than trying to reconcile all the different variations. It might also help to have separate sections for Before ChatGPT (theory about bots, and the idea makes people feel lonely and isolated) and After ChatGPT (theory about AI, and the idea makes people feel anxious).

― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 13:14, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: A page called "Dead internet conspiracy theory" is not really the wording that most reliable sources use. Trying to get separate verification for not only the two concepts, but that wording in particular, would be really challenging. The amount of overlap would be enormous. In trying to find possible sources to entertain the split, I found a new source Bots Talking to Bots Synthetic Media, AI-Generated Content, and the “Dead Internet” Conspiracy Theory (already incorporated it into article a bit), and it uses the terms ""Dead internet" conspiracy theory", "dead internet", and "Dead internet theory" interchangeably throughout the text. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:33, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

This seems to be a dispute over the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the article. WikiNav has most views for the article from within Wikipedia as coming from AI slop. [6], with Clanker at #2 (in the See also section), while List of conspiracy theories and Enshittification are close at 3 and 4. I think the editors here who are objecting to the format of the current article dispute WP:PT1 and WP:PT2. Katzrockso (talk) 18:43, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what the WikiNav views have on the definition, the terms clanker and AI slop don't lend weight to any of the primary topics discussed over others. The two topics do not diverge enough to warrant separate pages, and there is a large amount of unambiguous literature that clearly defines it. Other topic choices do not have clear, unambiguous, wording. The term is often used as an attention getter for shock value, with a common article format starting with "The once dismissed Dead Internet Theory might be coming true," and generally ending with, "The internet isn't dead yet, but if something doesn't change, it might." Some literature discusses the first half part of the theory without discussing the second, generally citing back towards the same paper, but we have more that defines it as a conspiracy theory. We do not have research on what first comes to mind, and even if we did, that is not the primary argument. Users coming to this page from viral social media posts are looking for a summary of the topic as it appears in the literature, not the opinions of what editors think it should say. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

• Some thoughts. For example, the topic named "New World Order" has been split across several articles, including the political sense and the conspiratorial sense. This is a false equivalency. The DIT article is roughly 2K words long. The NWO conspiracy theory article is roughly 10K words long, the NWO politics article is roughly 7K words long. (All word counts are readable prose, as given by Prosesize.) The other NWO articles are clearly about different things (the Baha'i religious concept/prophecy, a professional wrestling stable, books/songs/video games with the same name). The guidelines at WP:SIZE say that articles with more than 15K of readable prose should "almost certainly be divided or trimmed". The DIT article is at 2000 words.

Similarly, brainrot is a separate topic from brainwashing although the two concepts largely present the same methodology. Another false equivalency; brain rot doesn't have a "methodology". From the articles in question:

In Internet culture, the term brain rot (also brainrot or brain-rot) describes digital media deemed to be of low quality or value. The term also more broadly refers to the harmful effects associated with excessive or disordered use of digital media, especially short-form entertainment and doomscrolling.

So, basically an update of "TV is making people stupid".

Brainwashing is the systematic effort to get someone to adopt a particular deceptive, loyalty, instruction, or doctrine without their will or awareness. "Brainwashing" is also a colloquial term that refers in general to psychological techniques that manipulate action or thought against a person's will, desire, or knowledge.

Unlike brain rot, brainwashing is deliberate, systematic, coercive, and done with manipulative intent.

And as a third, and blatantly more obvious example, we don't talk about goyslop in Criticism of fast food. Because "goyslop" is not an analytical or scholarly criticism of fast food, it's an obscure 4chan slang expression that just means "I think fast food is gross". But hey, it does have a Wiktionary entry! ― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 08:02, 8 November 2025 (UTC)