this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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New study finds bots and fraud farms responsible for 73% of web traffic::undefined

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[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 63 points 1 year ago (2 children)

More evidence for the Dead Internet Theory

[–] 3TH4Li4@feddit.ch 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not yet but soon it will be

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Death by a thousand ~~cuts~~ bot/shill posts.

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[–] sennheisenberg@lemmy.sdf.org 54 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"73% of web traffic" does not mean 73% of comments, posts, content, etc.

[–] indepndnt@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It amazes me when I spin up some random server on a cloud provider and it's immediately getting tons of traffic from bots searching for insecure ssh servers and default WordPress admin credentials and then like. If that's the short of stuff they're counting, I'd believe it. But yeah, it's not like all the commenters on this post are bots.

[–] Enigma28@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah we had a presentation at work from AWS , they said expect all ports and protocols on any aws server you spin up to be scanned in less than 1min of any instance being created

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The web is like a shitty neighborhood now, with stalkers and unpleasant people coming up to you frequently to sell their shady stuff.

Still works for finding answers to technical questions but if I wasn't working in tech, I would probably question why im using it in the first place. Is the entertainment value worth the cost?

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Depends does hentai count as entertainment cayse if so. Yes.

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[–] arandomthought@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Holy shit, thinking of all the resources that are just wasted for this shit... Imagine you could just slash all web infrastructures by two thirds.

[–] JDubbleu@programming.dev 46 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I really hate the phrase "bots" because it gives the appearance that they're all useless and malicious. I guarantee you they lumped in the following extremely valid uses of "bots":

  • Automated personal scripts that many programmers use, these are technically bots. Hell, I use a "bot" to auto-clip digital Safeway coupons
  • Moderation bots on sites like Lemmy/Reddit
  • Archive efforts

Are AI chatbots bots? If they use a loose enough definition all this means is humans utilize fuck tons of automation over the Internet, both programmers and not.

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Tech journalism is fucking garbage. Its always trying to tell me what to think rather than present legit unbiased information. It seems to get worse every year as if these journalist have a hate on for the tech they write about

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why do you think that such bots cause a relevant amount of traffic?

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[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not really, as with many others the headline is sensationalist. It's missing the "... on login page attempts for sites that pay for and or use bot protection services."

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[–] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Soon there will be content created and consumed entirely by generative "ai," an almost shadow-culture.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'll have memes beyond our understanding!

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

100% on Twitter, 150% on Facebook. Or maybe the other way around 🤷

[–] shadowspirit@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was scrolling through Facebook as I still use it to keep in touch with family. 20 sponsored posts for every one actual post. Facebook is terrible.

[–] OminousOrange@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just went on my annual visit. I'm not sure if it was ublock or what, but it was actually a fairly pleasant experience with no 'sponsored' content. Reminded me of the Facebook of old. Accessed through the browser, of course. I don't want that cancerous app on my phone.

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[–] dreamer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How are you about to do that on Facebook? I can't even sign up without it asking for my ID

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[–] grayman@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Horse shit.

Sandvine still released traffic reports. So does Cable Labs.

Maybe attempted connections, but not volume / tonnage / bytes.

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[–] JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah dead internet. And I hope this news will kill online marketing for good

[–] 3TH4Li4@feddit.ch 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As long as real users exist on the internet, marketing will follow. If centralized social media will be even more of a shithole than already is, then they will slowly target the decentralized. You won't escape marketing.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But if 73% of traffic is fake, and they monitor traffic to determine sentiment and marketing strategies, then who are they actually marketing TO?

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Those left over who are still human.

But you do bring up a great point, what happens when the Internet is nothing but bots/shills?

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[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So the same as snail mail and phone calls?

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I miss the days when the internet was a fad that most people were apathetic towards.

before we even had search engines, and had to rely on websites listing links to every website.

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[–] affiliate@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

i hate it when i open my laptop and there’s an error sign blocking the trackpad

[–] Newguy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago
[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

No I'm not!

[–] Synthead@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

!veryrealtechpics@lemmy.world

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