The term is quite over used in my opinion, it is very often used in hyperbole. Whether it is in terms of popularity and driving traffic to a website or a threat said to break the Internet, it doesn’t seem to live up to the meaning of the term.

  • Usernameblankface@lemmy.worldOP
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    10 months ago

    So, it would take an even more world-shattering event to overwhelm the Internet to the point that normal functions have to be downgraded to basic functions as a result.

    Is it even possible to overload the Internet in that way anymore?

    • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Yeah, let a nuclear bomb go off in any American city with over 50,000 residents.

      That would probably do it

      • Usernameblankface@lemmy.worldOP
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        10 months ago

        At that point, the EMP would wipe out some important components of the Internet as well as overloading whatever is not directly affected.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          LOL, the internet was invented specifically to route communications around nuclear bomb blasts.

          You got me wondering though, things have changed a lot since DARPANET. Taking out Amazon US-EAST-1 would leave a massive hole in the internet.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      We might be safe from that insofar as… the only thing that would get the entire world’s attention that rapt is something that would also kill enough people that the servers wouldn’t get overloaded.