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Cloudflare CEO says bot internet traffic has overtaken humans
Mashable ^ | June 4, 2026 | Matt Binder

Posted on 06/07/2026 10:11:18 AM PDT by Twotone

"Welp, that happened faster than I predicted."

That's what Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince had to say as his company released data finding that there's now more traffic from bots than humans on the internet.

"Thought it would be end of 2027, then early 2027 but agentic traffic growing so fast that bots have now passed human traffic online for the first time in the Internet's history," said Prince.

Cloudflare is perhaps one of the most integral companies on the web, providing services like CDN (Content Delivery Network) and DDoS mitigation for some of the biggest sites on the internet. Cloudflare basically helps popular sites handle all the traffic they receive, so the company is certainly an expert in this realm.

Cloudflare's data shows that at any given point during a day, between 52 percent and 62 percent of traffic on the internet comes from bots. Over the past seven days, Cloudflare says roughly 57.4 percent of traffic has been the result of bots, which includes search crawlers from companies like Google and AI bots from other AI companies. Around 42.5 percent of internet traffic has been from humans.

(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bots; cloudflare; exhibita; internet
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1 posted on 06/07/2026 10:11:18 AM PDT by Twotone
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To: Lazamataz

Are we screwed?


2 posted on 06/07/2026 10:12:49 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: Twotone

If we can count the bots, then lets block them.


3 posted on 06/07/2026 10:13:00 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: FreeReign

> If we can count the bots, then lets block them.

They run the search engines that you use every day. Do you really want to go back to 1995?


4 posted on 06/07/2026 10:17:03 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: FreeReign

Then who would post Kremlin and mullah talking points here on FR?


5 posted on 06/07/2026 10:17:05 AM PDT by In_Iowa_not_from
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To: FreeReign
If we can count the bots, then lets block them.

If you can figure out how to reliably do that, your fortune awaits, and Alan Turing would be impressed.

6 posted on 06/07/2026 10:17:22 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (If it ain't fun, you ain't doin' it right.)
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To: FreeReign

Working in cyber security I have actually seen some pretty reliable sources that even 10 years ago nearly 80% of social media traffic was bots. They will never be blocked at a high level because it would cause a massive loss in advertising revenue for the like of Meta and Google.


7 posted on 06/07/2026 10:17:30 AM PDT by bak3r
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To: dayglored

I’d like to go back to 1985.


8 posted on 06/07/2026 10:19:49 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: dayglored
They run the search engines that you use every day. Do you really want to go back to 1995?

I'm talking about social media posts.

9 posted on 06/07/2026 10:20:12 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: BenLurkin; Lazamataz

> Are we screwed?

Not as long as there is adequate bandwidth for human activities as well. The bots are doing a tremendous amount of work to keep things running. Of course, a lot of of them are garbage, and a good number of them are malicious. But there’s still plenty of bandwidth for human activities.


10 posted on 06/07/2026 10:20:31 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: Twotone
ef943f2ddd1f9acafa70c9d03012a71c
11 posted on 06/07/2026 10:20:34 AM PDT by V_TWIN (America....so great even the people that hate it, won't leavebussed )
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To: dayglored

The time it takes me to get on and say get my mail or for YouTube to load is as bad or worse than 1995.


12 posted on 06/07/2026 10:21:17 AM PDT by TalBlack (Their god is government. Prepare for a religious war.https://freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=4322961%2)
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To: Twotone

I think they’re voting in California, too.


13 posted on 06/07/2026 10:22:30 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady (The greatest wealth is to live content with little. -Plato)
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To: FreeReign

> I’m talking about social media posts.

You’ll have to take that up with the people who run the social media, not Internet services like Cloudflare.


14 posted on 06/07/2026 10:23:03 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: BenLurkin

> I’d like to go back to 1985.

A good case could probably be made for that.


15 posted on 06/07/2026 10:24:04 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: Twotone

I have to wonder how long until AI bots can discover unused online IDs and narrative manage attach themselves to established web sites, forums and posting boards.

Working for the NWO NSA Tavistock Intelligence establishment purposes to skew group thinking, control the message, trivialize or misrepresent actual news, throw out time-wasting puff pieces masquerading as real news or science.

Run out the clock on the truth.


16 posted on 06/07/2026 10:25:14 AM PDT by captmar-vell
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To: BenLurkin

I’d like to go back to 1985.


Ah, no one ever left alive in nineteen hundred and eighty-five will ever do.


17 posted on 06/07/2026 10:25:27 AM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: BenLurkin

I think you need 1.21 Gigawatts to do that...


18 posted on 06/07/2026 10:26:11 AM PDT by HombreSecreto (The life of a repo man is always intense)
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To: TalBlack

> The time it takes me to get on and say get my mail or for YouTube to load is as bad or worse than 1995.

Point granted. But I don’t know how much of that is attributable to bots, versus other factors.


19 posted on 06/07/2026 10:26:29 AM PDT by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: V_TWIN

Skynet is not far away.

My wild prediction is that in 10-15 years may be less, the Department of War will have a AI based system that monitors everything.

The system will be distributed so it can’t be taken out by destroying a single or multiple locations.

It will monitor all signal intelligence around the world; it will monitor every news source in the world, it will monitor all internet traffic in the world, basically one giant data vacuum cleaner sucking up enormous amounts of data and all processed by AI supercomputers to detect the slightest movements of our adversaries.

How will it all be built, I’m not sure, part of it IMO will be this alternate Starlink network being built by SpaceX for the DOW.


20 posted on 06/07/2026 10:35:42 AM PDT by srmanuel
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