Show HN: How to Kill the Dead Internet

Show HN: How to Kill the Dead Internet(chromewebstore.google.com)

5 points by bigger_fish 9 hours ago | 4 comments

Ok, so maybe "how to revive the internet" would be more accurate, but if you're reading this, I got your attention, right? Here's why I want you to read on: I built a free extension, D-slop, to disincentivize anyone from posting AI writing, and eventually images and video as well, on the internet.

For writing, it checks known vocab and punctuation tells, as well as subtler tells related to cadence, and assigns it a score subject to an adjustable threshold. If the text fails, users have the option to flag offending text, hide it, or block the page entirely (with the option to see anyway).

For media, it's admittedly fairly weak, as it relies on C2PA metadata which is stripped from all of the social media sites where it would be most helpful. (Anyone else have chronically online boomer parents continually gobbling up slop like it's real information?)

I have a D-slop+ version in the works that should be able to handle the media itself, but it's going to have to make API calls to have real teeth, which means I can't offer it for free. If this extension validates the concept, I'm happy to build it for y'all.

Yes, I vibe-coded it, but an ancillary bonus to the project accrued when it inspired me to cook dinner listening to Metallica's "Fight Fire with Fire," which in turn brought my 5 y/o running into the kitchen with every musical instrument in the house for an impromptu karaoke speed metal session.

It's MIT license open-source, full brief at https://github.com/jared-the-automator/d-slop; This forum is full of people smarter than me, so I'm open to suggestions.

O1111OOO 7 hours ago |

This is not intended as an insult or judgement. Is this gatekeeper software? That we might be seeing the development of a new type of category. It's kinda' off-putting but I understand the need for it.

As an aside... have you ever noticed that there is a common way of communicating online. A kind of "average-speak". Lots of us fall into this category. It's all of us influencing how many of us express ourselves online.

I think that the influence of AI will eventually (sooner than expected) influence what words we use, how we express ourselves too. That AI-speak may very well become "average-speak".

bigger_fish 25 minutes ago | |

I suppose that depends on what you mean by gatekeeper. Is it intended to keep the robots out? Yes, in that sense it belongs to the Cloudflare camp of bot detection software, not really a new thing.

AI-speak won't become average-speak if I have anything to do with it. I want people to continue using their own brains to construct sentences rather than farming them out to machines.

HerbManic 8 hours ago |

I like that it doesn't block the content but merely highlights it. That is a smart move.

The limit ultimately will be how well the algorithm can keep up with changes in LLM cadence over time. This is usually were project like this come undone, the concept it easy enough to build, it is the up to date data set where the real magic is.

But other than that, very cool to see and interested to see how it goes.

bigger_fish 17 minutes ago | |

Thanks! It's actually dynamic. The backend contains a sequence that checks daily for new model updates and human-published documents regarding AI writing tells, then adjusts scoring accordingly.

That scoring methodology is the only part of the extension that's not open source; it's hidden behind a Cloudflare worker to prevent reverse engineering.