It's All FAKE | The Dead Internet Theory

what if i told you that most if not all. of your online existence is fake. the articles you read the twitter. accounts you follow even this video. you're watching right now it's all. fiction created by artificial. intelligence whose job is to keep you. clicking on content that doesn't matter. and keep you buying products that you. don't need. you me everyone we're living in a real. life matrix designed to distract you. from the truth that we're just drones in. a digital anthill we live work and die.

so that the wealthy and powerful can. grow more wealthy and powerful this is. called the dead internet theory and. there's some compelling evidence that. it's real. let's find out why. [Music]. the core premise of the dead internet. conspiracy says that most internet. content and the consumers of that. content are fake they don't exist so how. much content on the internet is actually. created by ai actually it's more than. you think studies say that only about 50.

percent of web traffic is human and that. number is going down every year in 2013. the times reported that half of youtube. traffic was bots masquerading as people. and this was so scary that youtube. employees were worried about an. inflection point where their algorithms. would be so overwhelmed by bot traffic. that they couldn't tell what was real. eventually seeing actual human traffic. as fake they called this event the. inversion. ominous it is i see these bots on this. channel but most days i get 10 or 20.

comments it should be more it should but. that's not my point but sometimes i wake. up and i've got a thousand comments and. they're all very generic comments posted. by people with very generic usernames. and they're not watching the videos. subscribers to this channel watch 60. 70. even 100 of each video you people who. watch 100. we salute you we do but the bots they're. watching for 10 seconds and then leaving. a weird comment and then moving on to. watch another video for 10 seconds when.

i look at the channel's stats after a. wave of bots it's like locusts it's. swift and it's destructive. so why is this happening what's it about. money. money. take facebook yeah do we have to we do. it's been alleged that facebook has been. overstating its reach and. misrepresenting its data for years in. 2018 a facebook product manager emailed. colleagues that their metrics are quote. unquote a lawsuit waiting to happen what. happened a lawsuit.

i see what you did there it's a class. action suit filed by facebook. advertisers they claim that facebook. overestimates its traffic by between 150. and 900 percent now facebook claims they. only overstate their traffic by. 60 to 80 percent either way it's fake. traffic it's fake traffic but the money. facebook collects from advertisers. that's real money if you're a business. and you spend money on online ads you. want your ads viewed by actual people. not viewed like this.

oh what the hell am i looking at this is. a chinese click farm hundreds or. thousands of bots are currently clicking. on videos leaving comments creating. engagement row after row of smartphones. watching videos and more importantly. watching the ads now the platforms know. this is happening but they aren't in a. rush to change it according to the. leaked emails facebook knows that there. are millions of duplicate accounts on. the platform but it leaves them active. on purpose an internal analysis claimed. that removing fake accounts would cause.

a drop of 10 or more of facebook's. numbers is that a lot. well last year facebook took in 84. billion dollars in ad revenue that's. actually grotesque. i agree facebook is not going to give up. 20. 10 percent or even 1 percent of that. money the numbers are too large this is. billions of dollars now to be fair. facebook says these allegations are. without merit and we will defend. ourselves vigorously. but. mere hours after the lawsuit was made. public.

facebook changed its policy to say. potential customer reach is an estimate. not a guarantee of actual customer reach. your mileage may vary exactly. so bots for profit totally predictable. but is it darker than that it's darker. according to the dead internet theory. much darker. like so many good conspiracy theories. the dead internet theory started out in. some of the darker corners of the web. places like 4chan wizardchan and agora.

road the first person to put a name to. it goes by the online handle illuminati. pirate name checks out the theory goes. like this sometime around 2016 the. internet started becoming sterilized and. homogenized content that was always. generated by humans was now being. generated by ai bots and the bots are. subtle they're designed to sound human. and blend into the background but if we. look a little more closely eerie. patterns seem to emerge on twitter. there's a type of account that uses a.

certain formula first the profile. pictures aren't people they're usually. anime characters or hearts or stars or. other generic looking icons and the. colors are soft usually pink purple or. light blue posts are short written in. all lowercase and contain the same kind. of message i'm young i have a crush i. enjoy simple things i am optimistic but. most of all i'm relatable people who. believe the dead internet theory say. they've been seeing the same content. repurposed over and over for years. supermoon right every year we're slammed.

with articles about the super moon. murder hornets murder hornets every year. climate change oh climate change is real. you believe anything that's for another. time so why why is content on the. internet so bland and repetitive. well according to the dead internet. theory and this is a quote it's because. the us government is engaging in an. artificial intelligence-powered. gaslighting of the entire world. population get my tinfoil head. coming up.

the original post about the dead. internet theory says that a few online. influencers are working with. corporations and the united states. government in order to manipulate our. behavior and manipulate how we think. well as far as social media platforms go. this is true take facebook again hey let. me ask you is facebook evil uh they're. very profitable you didn't answer my. question no. on facebook you're shown posts that. you're likely to engage with so politics.

wise you're going to be shown an. overwhelming amount of content that. supports your worldview which keeps you. on the platform which keeps you clicking. on ads. and you're also going to be shown. political posts that make you angry. prompting you to respond which keeps you. on the platform. and keeps you clicking on ads you won't. see a lot of posts saying you know i may. disagree with your opinion but i respect. and support your right to have that view. now let's discuss the issues on which we. actually agree of which there are many.

facebook profits by having you produce. dopamine which keeps you clicking and. cortisol and adrenaline which keeps you. clicking how does facebook know what. content keeps you on the platform well. you tell them all the time with every. link you click every site you visit and. how long you spend on those sites now. don't take my word for it here's mark. zuckerberg i wish i could keep telling. you that our mission in life is. connecting people. but it isn't. we just want to predict your future. behaviors.

spectre showed me how to manipulate you. into sharing intimate data about. yourself and all those you love for free. the more you express yourself. the more we own you he said that well. technically no but that's exactly what. facebook does which leads to another. part of the dead internet theory i'm. confused well that wasn't mark. zuckerberg that was a deep fake which is. a computer-generated video made to look. like a human and deep fakes they're. getting good i'm gonna show you some. magic.

it's the real thing. i mean uh. it's all. the real. thing. even tom cruise as a tic tac yeah that. wasn't tom cruise deep fake deep fake. the technology uses artificial. intelligence to sort through hundreds or. thousands of images to find frames that. match the actual person in the video but. millions i mean millions of people. thought those videos were real well.

we're not crazy enough to trust. zuckerberg. are we and nobody's crazy enough to. trust an actor. do right. that's why you're here. but what about a deep fake from a. trusted world leader president trump is. a total and complete. now. you see i would never say these things. at least not in a public address but. someone else would now that video was a. joke and created by jordan peele but. what if in today's climate someone.

released a video of a politician saying. something racist or radical the media. would believe it well of course the. media would believe it they believe. everything a deep fake is a computer. simulation of a real person and people. are fooled by that but what about a. computer simulation of a completely. artificial person. could people be fooled by that yeah i. don't like where this is going. michaela souza is an instagram. influencer with over 3 million followers. lil michaela as she's known is a.

brazilian-born model who posts about her. glamorous la lifestyle photo shoots. product endorsements and all the typical. bumper sticker social activism that. instagram models are known for she. sounds pretty hollow well how's this for. hollow in 2018 michaela's account was. hacked and it was revealed that she was. completely fake computer generated no no. her fans couldn't believe it eventually. a media slash marketing company called. brud confessed that she wasn't real did. her fans abandon her nope since then.

she's amassed about two million more. followers did he know she's fake well. some do most don't care and michaela. doesn't bring it up so this is dangerous. more dangerous than you think this is a. completely fake computer generated. character created by humans okay but. there is a piece of technology that is. completely autonomous runs on artificial. intelligence on its own and is. programmed to kill humans rising the. machines. there's a drone quadcopter called cargo.

2 produced by a defense contractor stm. developed in turkey cargo 2 uses machine. learning to classify and identify. threats then completely on their own. swarms of drones working together will. attack their target according to the un. the drones are programmed to attack. targets without requiring an operator in. effect a true fire forget and find. capability they just analyze a bunch of. data and decide yes that's a murder. target without any human analyzing their. work.

these things have killed people oh yeah. since 2018 they've been deployed by the. turkish military both foreign and. domestically it's currently killing. people in ukraine how many people were. wet well they won't say of course well. let's put these pieces together now as. the algorithms get better and better at. showing us content to keep us engaged. what's to stop those algorithms from. actually creating the content to keep us. engaged nothing nothing and isn't that. the natural progression of this a google. whistleblower has said that google has. algorithms that can write other.

algorithms google's auto ml0 does. exactly this what does google say well. google says the allegations are false. that means it's definitely true look if. artificial intelligence can create. social media accounts attract millions. of followers generate billions of. dollars influence elections and drop. bombs on people all without human. intervention well the internet really is. dead and real living people people like. you and me are here to do nothing more. than feed it our money and our knowledge. so these systems can become smarter and.

even more powerful now facebook is. launching metaverse will you experience. your entire life online through virtual. reality if you think online culture is. toxic now wait we're spending all of our. time there the metaverse is gonna make. us long for the good old days of the. matrix and where's neo when you need him. thank you so much for hanging out with. me today my name is aj that's hecklefish. this has been the y-files if you had fun. or learned anything do me a favor. subscribe like share comment all that. stuff really helps the channel the.

algorithm has not been kind to us videos. like this don't help that's true but. with your help we can't overcome until. next time be safe be kind and know that. you are appreciated. [Music].

you. [Music].