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  • 2 days ago
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00:00Wikipedia is losing human readers, and TikTok might be to blame.
00:04Looks like Wikipedia is having a bit of an existential crisis.
00:08Human page views have plummeted 8% year over year, and honestly, we're not entirely shocked.
00:14According to Marshall Miller of the Wikimedia Foundation,
00:17Wikipedia's recent bot detection upgrade revealed that a chunk of its previously impressive traffic numbers
00:22were actually sneaky bots playing dress-up as humans.
00:26Classic internet move, right?
00:27But the real kicker isn't the fake traffic, it's that actual humans are genuinely visiting less.
00:33The culprits?
00:34Your friendly neighborhood AI overlords and Gen Z's TikTok addiction.
00:38Google's AI-powered search results are now spoon-feeding answers directly,
00:43eliminating the need to actually click on Wikipedia links.
00:46These declines are not unexpected.
00:49Search engines are increasingly using generative AI to provide answers directly to searchers,
00:54rather than linking to sites like ours.
00:56And younger generations are seeking information on social video platforms, rather than the open web.
01:02Meanwhile, younger users are getting their facts from 30-second videos,
01:06instead of, you know, actual researched articles with citations.
01:09This trend is genuinely concerning for Wikipedia's survival.
01:13Fewer clicks mean fewer volunteers contributing content and fewer donations rolling in.
01:18The Wikimedia Foundation is scrambling, developing new content attribution frameworks,
01:23and begging AI companies to actually send traffic back to the source material.
01:28Here's what you can do.
01:29Actually click through to sources when researching online.
01:32Look for proper citations, and maybe, just maybe,
01:35consider that a 30-second TikTok isn't equivalent to peer-reviewed knowledge.
01:39Wikipedia isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot more reliable than whatever influencer is explaining quantum physics between dance trends.
01:46The Internet's collective brain is at stake here, people.
01:49Act accordingly.
01:50The Internet'sMary Channel
01:51LE minutes
01:52Goodbye.
01:53Certainly.
01:53öglich
01:54Yeah.
01:56Why
02:02hmm
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