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We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

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Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#121

Post by ToucanLoucan »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #106
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: remove Section 230 protection for algorithmically-elevated content. If you're going to have attention-mining addiction-creating software funnel people into rabbit holes, then those rabbit holes need to be verified, safe-to-consume stuff. Watching 5 hours of 5 minute crafts is at worst, going to make someone spend too much money at Hobby Lobby. Certainly not good, but a workable issue. Watching 5 hours of whit…

Would you support blocking BLM and black supremacist propaganda too? Essentially you are just proposing traditional government censorship. The good thing about Soviet TV is that it had only wholesome content - not that western capitalist stuff.

BLM content does not promote hate the way white nationalist content does and I'm immediately suspicious of your motives with you trying to make that equivalence. BLM is about justice and equality under the law. White supremacy is decidedly not, like, it's in the name. That's the supremacy part.

As for black supremacist content, yeah nix that shit too. It's corrosive for the exact same reasons. Was this supposed to be a hard question?

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#122

Post by PaulKeeble »

antfarm wrote: post #34
_cenw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are using the inferior way to block ads, which will continue to degrade as advertisers take advantage of Google killing synchronous blocking of web requests with Manifest v2. https://ublockorigin.com/#manifest-v3-section

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the superior way? Pi-Hole?

Pi holes don't swallow everything, in stream ads like on Youtube and Twitch and served by the domain all make it through the Pi hole approach. It also doesn't allow you to turn it off for a particular page or site either, if you want to allow ads on Phronix you can't do it without enabling that advertiser everywhere since it lacks the context of the DNS calls.

The advantage is it works with every browser on every device, its network wide and it blocks a tonne of other calls that aren't made by the browser such as telemetry.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#123

Post by notpushkin »

andrekandre wrote: post #71
nathan_compton wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know man, I guess we could like try to build a sort of system where people get together and vote on what kinds of behaviors society should allow which we should discourage and then when a majority of people agree on that stuff we could like make people stop doing bad stuff by using force after some kind of process to make sure that its fair? And like we could vote periodically to make sure that our rules cont…

> I guess we could like try to build a sort of system where people get together and vote on what kinds of behaviors society should allow which we should discourage and then when a majority of people agree on that stuff we could like make people stop doing bad stuff by using force after some kind of process to make sure that its fair? you mean, like some kind of... democracy? idk, one of our internet vulture-capital m…

> you mean, like some kind of... democracy?

Yeah, I think that was the point.

And yeah, I agree, except governments are slow and, most of the time, corrupt. I really, really wish it worked! (There are counterexamples, I’m sure.)

So while I’m waiting for a GDPR 2.0 that would outlaw the bullshit data collection altogether (and not just put it behind a cookie banner), I’m still going to install an adblocker on every of my friend’s computers – because it works today.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#124

Post by _DeadFred_ »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #106
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: remove Section 230 protection for algorithmically-elevated content. If you're going to have attention-mining addiction-creating software funnel people into rabbit holes, then those rabbit holes need to be verified, safe-to-consume stuff. Watching 5 hours of 5 minute crafts is at worst, going to make someone spend too much money at Hobby Lobby. Certainly not good, but a workable issue. Watching 5 hours of whit…

Would you support blocking BLM and black supremacist propaganda too? Essentially you are just proposing traditional government censorship. The good thing about Soviet TV is that it had only wholesome content - not that western capitalist stuff.

They aren't proposing blocking content. If a business-controlled algorithm recommends something, the company should be responsible for what it pushes because amplification falls outside what Section 230 protects. Hosting is protected. Deliberate, profit-driven curation is not.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#125

Post by eesmith »

sssilver wrote: post #51

Am I right that the only truly systemic solution to the problem of ads is government regulation, with communism as its final degree?

You sound like a 20th-century cigarette company representative using the fear of communism to keep the US government from restricting cigarette ads.

Edit: Now, I don't know if an ad exec actually said it, but I can find examples like:

> (2015) "Smoking ban is slippery slope toward communism" - https://eu.statesmanjournal.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/0...

> (1948) "Rep Flannagan told the House of Representatives that tobacco will also help in stopping communism." - https://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/tobac6.html

> (2007) "Smoking bans are an act of Communist aggression. " https://www.mesabitribune.com/news/smoking-bans-are-acts-of-...

More to the original point, Bern banned some outdoor advertising last year (!). https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-news/bern-approves-... says "SVP councillor Alexander Feuz was the most strident [opponent], calling the change a “step towards Stone Age communism.”"

Looks like São Paolo has a widespread advertising ban since 2006(!!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

Bern and São Paolo don't seem all that communist.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#126

Post by zargon »

antfarm wrote: post #68
colecut wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@antfarm: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/24/google_v2_eol_v3_roll...

Thanks, but this does not apply to me, not using Chrome is part of my ad blocking strategy.

Safari is limited in the same way as Chrome manifest v3, allowing basically only a URL blacklist. They're crippled compared to uBlock Origin's various other blocking capabilities.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#128

Post by tehjoker »

sssilver wrote: post #51

Am I right that the only truly systemic solution to the problem of ads is government regulation, with communism as its final degree?

DPRK has been described as ad block for your life, but even under communism to have a consumer economy a limited number of regulated ads can be useful so ppl know products exist, but not this brand combat to the death oversaturation.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#129

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

jorgesborges wrote: post #81

Is it possible to launch an offensive against advertising by spoofing humans that consume ads so numbers increase so dramatically they’re meaningless?

I don’t think so. Ads were still common and widespread back in the analog days when there was no such thing as a click through rate to measure.

Re: We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads [video]

#130

Post by _DeadFred_ »

leereeves wrote: post #53
sssilver wrote: post #51

Am I right that the only truly systemic solution to the problem of ads is government regulation, with communism as its final degree?

I would say communism is the final degree of "government as provider" not of "government as regulator". The final degree of regulation could be any variety of authoritarianism.

Much better to have capitalism replace political tyranny with economic tyranny. Where survival depends on serving someone else's profit with the requirement their margin grows every year.

When markets control basic needs, capitalism becomes its own form of authoritarianism that forces everyone to self comply. But it's freedom because they voluntarily choose to not starve to death/be homeless.

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