Enshittification of the internet: all the things we are not thankful for

I hope you had many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. It's also okay if you felt quite the opposite, as the holiday mood may have felt forced upon you.

My coworker, who moonlights as an English teacher, let his teenage students take over the class this past week. Instead of doing a 30-second standup where they were asked to share what they were thankful for, they decided to rant for half a minute about what they hated.

Ranting is something that every journalist, typically more cynical than most other professionals (excluding perhaps doctors and law enforcement), is a master of. While there has been significant innovation in the tech field, promising to save more lives and help fight climate change, it has been drowning in clever marketing ploys, online hogwash, and deception, among other things.

Therefore, I decided to bring you a few stories Cybernews journalists focused on this week.

If you're looking for specific items to buy, you could get lucky during shopping holidays, including Cyber Monday, if you do your research. But I can't emphasize enough the importance of doing your homework. You might end up with a deal for a TV that looks like a steal, yet it could be manufactured using cheaper materials.

Even if you're not looking to purchase anything, you're still in for a ride. The online sphere is filled with sale-oriented content packaged as conversational "expert" articles or influencer videos.

My friend, for example, is looking for a UGG Lowmel shoe model to buy for his daughter. In Europe, at least, it's a scarce item, and he wants to ship it from the US. Since UGG shoes aren't exactly praised for their looks, I started researching why teenagers would desperately want them. There are over 62 million posts about UGG Lowmel on TikTok. Did the trend start naturally, or did young influencers somehow boost it to create demand? We're looking into this.

Back in the day, the media led dinner conversations. But these days, influencers on TikTok and elsewhere shape our discussions and purchases. On TikTok, at least, there are more young influencers, as well as women and liberal voices. However, as one study discovered, elsewhere, it's mostly right-leaning men leading conversations around news.

If that isn't bad enough, misinformation on social media spreads faster and evokes stronger emotional reactions than factual news.

Real-life horrors, especially when presented scientifically, often remain on the margins. For instance, wildlife cameras used to monitor animals in Northern India are being exploited to surveil local women chanting in the forest. Abusers capture pictures of women going to the toilet and post them online for ridicule. The songs these women perform while harvesting in the forest also keep predators away. Knowing they're being watched, women sing more quietly, and researchers have linked this to a tiger killing a local woman.

This week, our newest addition to the editorial team – the aforementioned English teacher Marcus Walsh – brings you a curious story about "yamibaito," a disturbing cybercrime trend in Japan in which young adults are lured into committing deceptive crimes. It's said that the gangs, led by fraudsters known as "tokurū," are even harder to dismantle than the Yakuza, a mafia-like criminal organization dating back to the 17th century.

Technology is both exciting and exhausting. If the latter resonates with you more, there's a word you can use to describe the never-ending ads on Facebook and Instagram, subscription fatigue, and any injustice you witness online – ENSHITTIFICATION. It's the Macquarie Dictionary (Australia) Committee's Choice Word of the Year for 2024 and perfectly describes digital decay.