The Meme Fossil Record
The dark forest theory of the web points to the increasingly life-like but life-less state of being online. Most open and publicly available spaces on the web are overrun with bots, advertisers, trolls, data scrapers, clickbait, keyword-stuffing “content creators,” and algorithmically manipulated junk.
Maggie Appleton • The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
‘The internet is forever’ has long been the refrain of neurotics who wring their hands over privacy. But, back in the earliest days of online interaction, we couldn’t conceptualise what forever meant for digital experiences. They seemed ephemeral, intimate. We were blissfully unaware that our little exchanges might one day be part of ‘Big Data’ to ... See more
Do I really want the net to forget my teenage self? | Aeon Essays
“Maybe this is another reason why print media is having a resurgence – the internet is becoming an increasingly unnavigable Takeshi’s castle-style obstacle course of terrible user experience and useless, nonsensical content,” says a writer and podcaster Georgia Graham in response to an essay about the AI-induced weirdness of the internet. “Finding
... See morereadwise.io • Busy Corner Text Media Report
There is no end of theories for why the internet feels so crummy these days. The New Yorker blames the shift to algorithmic feeds. Wired blames a cycle in which companies cease serving their users and begin monetizing them. The M.I.T. Technology Review blames ad-based business models. The Verge blames search engines. I agree with all these argument... See more
