Feeds present repetitive, low-quality posts and coordinated accounts offering clickbait and spam, often promoting crypto or "free pics." Recycled short videos and AI-stitched clips circulate across platforms, producing distorted or uncanny visuals. Algorithmic prioritization amplifies engineered content and manipulative replies, reducing visibility and engagement for genuine human posts. Influencer presence once signaled real people, but the attention economy and generative AI have undermined authenticity and the social contract of platforms. Platforms now function more as marketplaces for consumption than as spaces for personal connection. Research indicates large volumes of machine-written posts flooding major social networks.
At first glance, the feed looks familiar, a seamless carousel of "For You" updates gliding beneath your thumb. But déjà‑vu sets in as 10 posts from 10 different accounts carry the same stock portrait and the same breathless promise - "click here for free pics" or "here is the one productivity hack you need in 2025." Swipe again and three near‑identical replies appear, each from a pout‑filtered avatar directing you to "free pics." Between them sits an ad for a cash‑back crypto card.
Scroll further and recycled TikTok clips with "original audio" bleed into Reels on Facebook and Instagram; AI‑stitched football highlights showcase players' limbs bending like marionettes. Refresh once more, and the woman who enjoys your snaps of sushi rolls has seemingly spawned five clones. Whatever remains of genuine, human content is increasingly sidelined by algorithmic prioritization, receiving fewer interactions than the engineered content and AI slop optimized solely for clicks.
Social media was built on the romance of authenticity. Early platforms sold themselves as conduits for genuine connection: stuff you wanted to see, like your friend's wedding and your cousin's dog. Even influencer culture, for all its artifice, promised that behind the ring‑light stood an actual person. But the attention economy, and more recently, the generative AI-fueled late attention economy, have broken whatever social contract underpinned that illusion. The feed no longer feels crowded with people but crowded with content.
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