The Dead Internet Theory
What is the Dead Internet Theory? What it is. The Dead Internet Theory (DIT) claims most of today’s web activity—posts, comments, even “people”—is actually bots/AI, and that big platforms (sometimes governments) coordinate this to steer opinion and suppress organic human speech. The meme spread widely after a 2021 forum post by “IlluminatiPirate” and coverage in The Atlantic. Sources: Wikipedia summary; The Atlantic explainer. Why it feels plausible. Independent telemetry shows bot traffic is massive. Imperva’s 2025 Bad Bot Report says automated traffic surpassed human traffic in 2024 (~51% of all web requests), with “bad bots” alone ~37%. That supports the “lots of bots” part—not a grand conspiracy. Source: Imperva 2025 Bad Bot Report. ...