Yikes. “As it currently stands, both the rapid growth of AI-generated content overwhelming online spaces and aggressive web-crawling practices by AI firms threaten the sustainability of essential online resources.”

Ars Technica

Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries

AI bots hungry for data are taking down FOSS sites by accident, but humans are fighting back.

I know things are bad on the open web…but it could get even worse. Imagine any of these scenarios: 1. What if the Internet Archive got shut down after all those lawsuits. Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41482620 2. What if Google suddenly stopped high-ranking Wikipedia links. Ref:

Mastodon

Richard MacManus (@ricmac@mastodon.social)

@wdenton@cosocial.ca That Wikipedia page is brand new!? I must admit I didn’t know who he was, so googled him after seeing @tante@tldr.nettime.or...

3. What if the next generation of internet users doesn’t read and so short looping videos *completely* take over. Ref:

The End of Reading — Plain English with Derek Thompson — Overcast

Scary times. All we can is continue to support #openweb.

I've moved my Mastodon account that posts screenshots of old websites to a new handle: @npub13lcx...vge2. It's a manually curated bot that posts memorable websites from the past, like this strange 2006 site that appeared out of nowhere (was it microblogging, was it a new form of txting? Nobody knew at that point...)

Indieweb.Social

Classic Web (@classicweb@indieweb.social)

Attached: 1 image twitter.com on November 09, 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20061109073453if_/http://twitter.com/

I know feeds have trained us all not to click on links to blog posts, so here's the summary of my web values: 1. Support open source software like Mastodon over “walled gardens” like X. 2. Support open web platform technology; ideally blessed by the Web’s governing body, the W3C. 3. Distribution on the web should never be throttled. (think Net Neutrality, but for social media platforms!) 4. External links should be encouraged, not de-emphasized. Speaking of which 👇

Cybercultural

My Web Values: Why I Quit X and Feed the Fediverse Instead

I stopped posting on Twitter, now known as X, in November 2023. X isn't open, it throttles distribution, and devalues links. Simply put, it doesn't...

It’s cool what Ghost is doing here. As an #11ty user, I’m wondering if anyone is hacking something up that will achieve similar fediverse connectivity? I have tried webmentions on my 11ty site before, but it wasn’t that satisfying. But longer term, I do hope to integrate Cybercultural somehow into the fediverse.

Mastodon

Neville Hobson (@jangles@mastodon.social)

Attached: 1 image Ghost is now federated! 🌍🚀 With its new social web beta, Ghost(Pro) integrates with Mastodon, Flipboard, WordPress & mor...

You may not be familiar with the name Alice Mary Hilton, but I'd argue she's just as significant as Marshall McLuhan in the history of cyberculture theory. In fact, she invented the word "cyberculture"! What's more, her 1960s focus on the practical impacts of computer automation on society is more important than ever in 2025, with the rise of AI. I'm quite proud of this post, so I hope you click through to learn more about this super-smart lady.

Cybercultural

Cyberculture 1960s-1990s and the Legacy of Alice Mary Hilton

Alice Mary Hilton coins the word 'cyberculture' in 1963, and by the mid-90s it’s in common use. Yet Hilton never gets her due, especially compare...

#InternetHistory

Sometimes I think the fediverse is actually saving the Web. I don’t know about you, but I want the web to always be a HUMAN network. I’ll be producing my “pretty .html static pages” for many years to come, for human readers not LLMs. I get why it makes sense for software documentation to be 99% for AI, as Karpathy says, but it’s his “Repeat for everything” that I find incredibly obnoxious. Fortunately that kind of nonsense is mainly on X. I feel like the fediverse is human-first and web-first.

I need to add more classic web designers to the rotation of the @npub1ptas...6ux5 bot. Look at this beautiful 1999 design from @npub1zpyd...je3a. Suggestions for other designer websites to add? https://indieweb.social/@cybercultural/114151648909214393