Meta puts the ‘Dead Internet Theory’ into practice – Computerworld

Meta cheerfully boasts about its intentional creation of AI bots, but mainly to drive engagement. 

Meta’s fake-user initiatives remind me of its failed “metaverse” programs. 

As with the “Dead Internet Theory,” the “metaverse” concept was a dystopian nightmare dreamed up by novelists as a warning to mankind. The “Dead Internet Theory” is a conspiracy theory that attempts to explain how the internet went horribly wrong. But to Meta, the “metaverse” and “Dead Internet theory” are product roadmaps. 

Meta is proving itself to be an anti-human company that’s working hard to get people away from the real world and trapped for many hours each day, going nowhere, doing nothing, and interacting with no one. 

Meta will fail. The public will reject its dystopian goals.

But the rest of us should learn from their bad example. What the public really wants — something Meta used to understand — is human connection: people connecting to other people.  Advertising, articles, posts, comments, and chats made by people rather than bots are becoming harder to find and, as such, also more valuable.

Because a “connection” with nobody is no connection at all.