Much of the laughter and joyous celebrations may come from the upcoming New Year in 2024, but the internet may be broken. With internet outages for Facebook, spikes in stocks, and other events, there is something in the internet space that definitely indicates that the internet is broken. This may be a momentary event, but Fringe Fiction highly suspects something more. Whether politics is involved, Fringe Fiction cannot say. It gets weird when everything including the suggested links gets repeated. Not just once but three or more times over, but it is simply your own. Something is not right here.

The Internet, with a capital “I,” may be seriously corrupted by political and financial forces. What once was a bastion for all may have transformed into a bastion for the few. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Fringe Fiction, one has to agree that the Internet space has definitely changed. It is no longer for the people but for those in the political and financial spheres. Even science has been relegated to politics even more than previous years. No more hiding for those involved in science or science-adjacent projects as the political and financial engines have taken over. Microsoft, Amazon, et. al and their global servers prop the enter Internet infrastructure in some form or another. On a side note, we may be one hack away from no internet. Perhaps that may be a good thing. Perhaps a Neo or another version of Neo may be in order to indeed change the world for the better — or at least our world.

Doesn’t one find strange that none of the older bots or spiders are not around — even during the holidays? These bots and spiders have all but disappeared. Perhaps it is because they are competing with the current relegated champion of the internet, artificial intelligence, or perhaps they have been eradicated altogether — a clean sweep of the old bots and spiders that once proliferated the internet. It seems that algorithms and artificial intelligence now dominate the Internet space, and bots and spiders have been replaced.

These algorithms are particular and constantly changing. These algorithms could like a product or idea one week and then censor it the next. As LinkedIn has changed their algorithms recently to supposedly expand reach and content, Fringe Fiction remains skeptical. As Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix so aptly put it, “it is a form of control.” Algorithms by social media companies ultimately regulate the information that goes out to the consuming public at least in the beginnings of 2024. Perhaps things will change, but Fringe Fiction does not remain optimistic for change. We are more inclined that to think that more social media companies to change their algorithms to benefit them solely and not their creators or consumers. In other words, the New Boss will be more or less the same as the Old Boss, maybe with different stripes and different coloring, but much will remain the same.

Fringe Fiction still has some speculation as to what may happen in 2024 — or even within the next few months of 2024. What do you think 2024 will bring? Freedom or simply an illusion of freedom?