14 July 2026
Un.Scrolled - The founder, unfiltered
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The internet has spent two decades rewarding attention. AI is now making attention cheaper than ever. In a world flooded with content, the next battle online may not be over AI, but over who people trust.
A creator spends three hours making a video while an AI account can generate 50 versions before lunch.
A journalist can spend weeks investigating a story, only to watch dozens of websites summarise it within hours. A photographer develops a style over years while a prompt can produce something visually similar in seconds.
Most of the conversation around AI has focused on what it can create: better images, faster writing, more content, and greater productivity. The bigger question is what happens when content itself stops having value.
Since its inception, the internet has rewarded scale. Publish more, post more often, react faster, stay visible, and keep scrolling. Attention is the currency and volume is the strategy because creating something worthwhile still requires time, skill or experience.
AI changes that.
When anyone can generate hundreds of images, articles, videos or social posts in minutes, the internet faces a problem it has never really had to solve before. If content becomes unlimited, how do people decide what deserves their attention?
For years, creators were told that consistency was everything. Post daily. Stay active. Feed the algorithm. More content meant more opportunities to be discovered, more chances to appear in feeds, and more opportunities to build an audience.
Today, volume is becoming easier to automate, outsource and generate. What remains difficult is building an audience that understands who you are, what you believe, and why your work matters. Scarcity used to create value and credibility may increasingly do the same.
Authenticity has become one of the internet's favourite buzzwords, often stripped of meaning through overuse. Credibility feels more useful because it isn't something you claim. It's something you earn.
Journalism sits right in the middle of this shift. There's a growing narrative that AI will replace journalists, yet journalism was never simply about producing information. AI can summarise articles, rewrite reports, generate headlines and aggregate existing material, but it can't build relationships with sources, understand local context, challenge institutions, or accept responsibility when something goes wrong. It can’t report from the heart of a war-torn city and convey the fear and despair that comes with lived experience.
Verification, accountability, and the willingness to put your name against your work remain difficult to automate. As more content becomes machine-generated, those qualities become more valuable. The journalists who carry influence over the next decade may not be the fastest, but the ones whose names still mean something.
Increasingly, audiences are asking different questions. Is this AI? Is this useful? Is this genuine? Is this somebody worth listening to? The creeping doubt is real. Ultimately, people don't like feeling fooled, and they're getting much better at spotting when they are.
The loudest voices are often the least informed, and the most widely shared content is not always the most useful. More content doesn't necessarily create more connection.
At the same time, many people understand less and less about the systems shaping what they see. Recommendation engines remain largely invisible, moderation decisions often appear inconsistent, and content can disappear without explanation.
People are questioning what they’re seeing and asking questions they never thought to ask before:
Why am I seeing this?
Who decided this belongs in my feed?
Was this created by a human?
Can I turn this off?
These questions are less about rejecting technology and more about transparency, accountability and control.
Platforms spent years chasing the same numbers: clicks, views, time spent, and engagement. The result was an internet optimised for reaction rather than understanding. Platforms may increasingly be judged not simply by how much content they surface, but by how clearly they explain what people are seeing, why they’re seeing it, and whether users feel they have any say in the experience.
This is why the next battle in technology may not be over AI at all. It may be over credibility.
AI itself isn’t the problem. It’s a powerful tool that removes repetitive work, speeds up workflows, and lowers the bar for who gets to create. The more important question isn’t what AI can generate, but who people trust.
As content becomes easier to produce, credibility becomes harder to earn. Reputation, trust and transparency may become some of the internet's most valuable assets.
The internet has always rewarded whoever could win people’s attention. The next decade may reward whoever can win people’s trust.
Trust, unlike content, cannot be generated endlessly.
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About UpScrolled
UpScrolled puts people back in control of their social media experience. Founded by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, it was built on a simple principle: social media should serve people, not exploit them. No shadowbanning. No data sales. Share freely, connect safely, trust your feed. Fairness and freedom in a digital landscape that has lost its way.
Media contact
Leila Dastyar | PR Director | leila@dna.online
