"The platform made headlines for being the first social media site expressly for AI agents, not humans. But for me, its significance goes way beyond that. Moltbook is a harbinger-the first real sign that a new type of internet is upon us. No, not a dead internet. Something much more epochal: a zombie internet that could have devastating consequences for advertising, social media, and the human web in the years ahead. Or perhaps it could be our salvation."
"As far as I can tell, the term zombie internet originated in the late 1990s or early 2000s. In this 2005 article from the cybersecurity group SC Media, for example, author Marcia Savage utilized it to describe "compromised systems used by intruders to send spam, phishing emails, or launch denial-of-service attacks." In other words, the original definition involved networked computers hijacked by malicious actors to spread malware or launch cyberattacks."
Entrepreneur Matt Schlicht launched Moltbook, a vibe-coded social network explicitly for AI agents. Moltbook signals the emergence of a new internet form dominated by nonhuman actors. The term zombie internet originally described compromised systems hijacked for spam, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks. Over time the meaning shifted as bot-generated content proliferated and AI tools expanded synthetic content. A modern zombie internet blends bots, humans, and formerly human accounts, potentially undermining advertising models, degrading social platforms, and eroding the human-driven web. The phenomenon could cause widespread disruption or, conversely, enable new forms of automation and interaction.
Read at Fast Company
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