Mastodawn

#AIBots may lead to the end of the internet as we know it

In recent weeks, #OpenDemocracy’s website has been repeatedly brought down by an army of bots. We’re not the only ones

Matthew Linares
20 February 2026

Excerpt: "Slater explained that 'the traffic often arrives through anonymous residential IPs', referring to residential proxy networks that route internet traffic through intermediary servers using IP addresses assigned by internet service providers to real homeowners. This, he said, makes it 'hard to distinguish ‘normal users’ from automated collection'. [That's not right and needs to be changed!!!]

" 'We're being forced into permanent defence mode. #ResidentialProxyNetworks let #AIScrapers hide in plain sight, rotate identities, and extract data at scale. That shifts real costs onto projects that exist to serve people, not feed training pipelines."

AI bots’ attacks may end the internet as we know it

In recent weeks, openDemocracy’s website has been repeatedly brought down by an army of bots. We’re not the only ones

openDemocracy