It was also found that a large portion of Wikipedia's traffic was generated by bots.
The last bastion of entirely human content on the internet, Wikipedia, is losing visitors. According to the Wikimedia Foundation, the number of visits to Wikipedia by people has fallen by 8% over the year.
As Marshall Miller from the foundation explained, the drop in traffic was noticed after an update to the system that distinguishes humans from bots. It turned out that an unusually high traffic in May and June was actually generated by bots trained to bypass filters.
Miller explains that the reason is not just this. More and more people are getting answers directly from chatbots and social media without visiting Wikipedia.
Modern search engines are already capable of showing a structured answer to a query right on the search page. Meanwhile, the younger audience prefers to search for information in short videos on TikTok or YouTube Shorts.
Miller says that the foundation is not against new ways of acquiring knowledge, as even if people do not visit the site directly, Wikipedia materials still underpin many AI responses. But the fewer people visit the site, the fewer volunteers edit articles, and the less donations come in to support the project:
"When people stop realizing where information comes from, the desire to support those who create it diminishes."
Therefore, the Wikimedia Foundation urges companies that use Wikipedia content to encourage users to visit the site. The organization is already developing a new content labeling system and is looking for volunteers to help attract new readers.
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