"The foundation works to distinguish between traffic from humans and bots, and Miller writes that the decline "over the past few months" was revealed after an update to Wikipedia's bot detection systems appeared to show that "much of the unusually high traffic for the period of May and June was coming from bots that were built to evade detection." Why is traffic falling? Miller points to "the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information,""
"Miller says the foundation welcomes "new ways for people to gain knowledge" and argues this doesn't reflect any decline in Wikipedia's importance, since knowledge sourced from the online encyclopedia is still reaching people even if they don't visit the website. But this shift does present risks, particularly if people are becoming less aware of where their information actually comes from. As Miller puts it, "With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.""
Wikipedia experienced an 8% year-over-year decline in human pageviews after an update to bot-detection systems revealed much of the unusually high traffic in May and June came from bots evading detection. The Wikimedia Foundation separates human and bot traffic and links the decline partly to generative AI and social media changing how people seek information. Search engines increasingly use generative AI to answer queries instead of linking to sites, and younger generations often turn to social video platforms rather than the open web. Wikipedia content still reaches people via other channels, but fewer visits may shrink the volunteer base and reduce donations.
Read at TechCrunch
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