Through intrusive ads, manipulative phrasing, persistent bots, and AI spam flooding any comment section they can, the internet has become increasingly unusable without taking certain precautions to keep your privacy, integrity, and sanity safe. In this article, I intend to walk you through the many different ways the internet has degraded over the years, and how you’re coerced into staying on it for as long as possible.
The most important thing to look out for is algorithmic manipulation, that is, how the internet manipulates you into seeing, liking, or participating in certain ideas, beliefs, or types of content. An example of this is the polarization of content and ideas. Right now, content has been pushed to the extremes, most content is either short-form or long-form, and everything in between has been pushed out of the spotlight. The reasoning behind this is that you spend the most time consuming content, both short-form and long-form content are built upon the same idea that causes you to hit “snooze” on your alarm clock in the morning, that same “just five more minutes” feeling that makes you late to school keeps you consuming ads, sponsors, and ideologies.
This polarization is not confined to entertainment however, algorithms simply push whatever will keep you on the internet. Just as there’s a split between long and short-form content, there’s a split between opinions and political ideas, enforcing the concept of “The Other” or the idea that someone of an opposing belief is morally or intellectually corrupt, therefore excusing prejudiced or harmful actions. An example of this is found on the political spectrum and stereotypes such as “All people on the right are dumb old men” and “All people on the left are blue-haired freaks” stereotypes that help no one and serve no other purpose than to segregate people into different groups and are only promoted as it keeps people active on social media. These stereotypes are spread by a select few people but are spread everywhere through the algorithms, causing more people to believe in them, which in turn, causes more people to talk about them in a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the polarized minority larger than it was.
The internet has also slowly become more and more predatory in its methods of advertising. Have you ever tried to look up a specific article just to find it locked behind a paywall or riddled with ads? The biggest news sites are guilty of it, New York Times and Wired are just some examples of practices like this, although hundreds of thousands of other journalism sites are locked behind paywalls, whilst also being riddled with ads. Practices like this are the main reason these algorithms are made to keep you on the internet; the longer you scroll, the more likely you are to spend. It’s gotten to the point where most sites are almost unusable due to being more ad than content, or constantly requiring a subscription to access.
Along with being filled to the brim with people and companies fighting for your attention, social media has been filled with several fake accounts trying to pose as real humans, known as “bots” fill comment sections with repetitive comments, often for little to no reason at all, other times to generate fake views or likes. A special type of bot is used to artificially boost one’s popularity as well, known as viewbotting this process is comprised of paying a person or website to send a large amount of bots that act like real people to your own account. This is strictly against most social media’s Terms Of Service and is often found out eventually, which can be used nefariously to attempt to get an account banned. A notable example of this happened recently with YouTuber and streamer Penguinz0 or Mo1stCr1tikal, who recently had a stream botted to an extreme level on September 26th, 2024. With an all time record of views on any livestream on YouTube, yet not extra ad revenue or comments, this was clearly an attempt to get him banned from YouTube that has since been unsuccessful.
Overall, it is my belief that the internet has become almost completely unusable without the use of an adblocker, and full of information still suppressed by corporate entities locking journalism behind an unnecessary paywall. The internet is designed to addict you, you are consciously and subconsciously influenced by algorithms and companies to waste your time and money. My best advice would be to use an ad-blocker when able to, and to remind yourself to take a step away from the constant war for your attention.
