How dead is the internet?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the “dead internet theory”.
This suggested that, instead of a vibrant digital super-community where people freely share things like cat videos and conspiracy theories, the internet was instead basically dead - an AI dystopia controlled by the deep state, where almost everything you see and interact with is generated by computers. The theory that the internet is 100% dead can be easily disproven, but the theory does hint at something real. The internet certainly is full of “bots”, autonomous bits of software that are definitely not alive.
In this episode, we investigate one specific claim about the number of these bots on the internet - the idea that more than half of internet traffic is bots. Where does this claim come from, and is it true?
Presenter/producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Giles Aspen Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's Lucy Worsley here and we're back with a brand new series of ladies swindlers. |
| 0:07.5 | Promise never to mention a word of what is going on. |
| 0:10.1 | Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men. |
| 0:19.5 | This is a story of working class women trying to get by in a world made for men. This is a story of working-class women trying to get by. |
| 0:24.4 | This is survival. |
| 0:25.3 | Join me for the second season of Lady Swindlers, where true crime meets history with a twist. |
| 0:31.4 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.1 | Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast. |
| 0:39.0 | We're your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and on the internet. |
| 0:43.1 | And I'm Tom Coles. |
| 0:47.3 | In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online. |
| 0:52.5 | It's called the dead internet theory. |
| 0:56.0 | Sorry, I'm not sure what came over there. |
| 0:58.0 | Anyway, this theory suggested that instead of a vibrant digital super community |
| 1:02.0 | where people freely share things like cat videos and conspiracy theories, |
| 1:07.0 | the internet was instead basically dead, |
| 1:09.0 | an AI dystopia controlled by the deep state, |
| 1:12.9 | where almost everything you see and interact with is generated by computers. |
| 1:18.2 | Now obviously, the internet isn't totally dead. |
| 1:20.8 | You can prove that wrong by posting something nice about more or less on Facebook if you like |
| 1:25.1 | and asking a friend to take a look. |
| 1:30.3 | But the theory does hint at something real. The internet is full of things that are not alive, things called bots. |
... |
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