Back to today’s briefing

Story perspectives

Wikimedia Faces 50% Surge in Bandwidth from Bots

4/2/2025

49 7

Summary

Story summary

The Wikimedia Foundation has seen a staggering 50% surge in bandwidth usage from automated scrapers since January 2024, heavily affecting multimedia downloads. These relentless bots, disregarding traffic rules, are draining valuable resources, forcing the Foundation to take action. This alarming trend poses a threat to open internet access, pushing developers to find effective solutions against the growing tide of AI crawlers.

1 of 1

Story summary

The Wikimedia Foundation has seen a staggering 50% surge in bandwidth usage from automated scrapers since January 2024, heavily affecting multimedia downloads. These relentless bots, disregarding traffic rules, are draining valuable resources, forcing the Foundation to take action. This alarming trend poses a threat to open internet access, pushing developers to find effective solutions against the growing tide of AI crawlers.