Studium Generale | Why the current internet sucks

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Op de afbeelding zit links een speelgoedhondje met een kleine koffiemok in diens hand. Op de koffiemok staat "This is fine". Rechts van de hond staat een vuilnisbak met een geillustreerd lachend gezicht, ook staat de vuilnisbak voor de helft in brand. De achtergrond is een vlammenzee.
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Media scholars Lucie Chateau and Michael Stevenson, and legal scholar Catalina Goanta on how Big Tech killed the internet.

AI-generated posts, influencers selling stuff you don't need, and bots in the comments. The chaotic, creative and deeply personal free space that the internet once was, is gone. Now, it’s shaped by big tech’s algorithms and filled with ads. Experts call this ‘enshittification’. How did this happen? 

Media scholar Michael Stevenson (UvA) looks back at the web’s utopian ideals. Social media researcher Catalina Goanta (UU) examines how influencer culture and platform economies have reshaped our identities and attention. Lucie Chateau (UU) explores the ‘dead internet theory’, asking whether capitalism has remade it into a space by bots, for bots. How can we make the internet human again?

In collaboration with the Utrecht Public Library.

Start date and time
End date and time
Location
Neude Library
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Free
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Not necessary!

More information
Studium Generale Website