• 0 Posts
  • 53 Comments
Joined 10 days ago
Cake day: February 2nd, 2026
  • IratePirate@feddit.orgtoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•"i am shocked at how many people don't have an actively hostile relationship with advertising"
    23·
    21 hours ago

    You’re not wrong. But as you said yourself, this only applies to your own hardware. Some of us do engage in this weird thing called “going outside”, with some taking it as far as not only going there to touch grass, but also meet other people (gross, I know).

    In these situations, even I, an individual who has

    • a private e-mail that is exactly that: private (through aliases and strict protocols as to who gets the root address)
    • a physical mailbox mostly clean of ads because advertisers either do not get my address in the first place, or they get a friendly letter telling them where to shove their catalogues
    • adblocker plugins in every browser
    • hosts-based blocking on top of that and
    • a network-wide DNS-based adblocker just for good measure,

    even I, builder, king and prisoner of this privacy fortress, am exposed to ads when I occasionally leave it.

    I see ads when my kid asks me to read out to him the contents of that colourful banner above the parking lot.

    I see ads when I watch cable TV with my parents and they just let the ad break wash over them like a jovial stream of diarrhea.

    I see ads when I go shopping and I cannot focus on my own thoughts because only a few metres away there’s an ad screen loudly announcing the technological marvels of Buddy’s Fully-automatic Butt Crack Scratcher to the world.

    In these situations, I really feel the contents of that OP. I feel the brazen attempt to steal my attention when all I want is to be present. I feel the insult to my intelligence because some twat in marketing decided I’m unable to or unworthy of making my own decisions. And I feel the need to quell this frivolous invasion of my time and headspace.

    And that’s why, in these situations, I take the liberty to turn off the shop’s TV while I’m there. I take my parent’s remote, mute the ad diarrhea and strike up a conversation. And I promise the kiddo to read him something proper once we get home, but not one of those stupid ads.

    (We recently pulled up in front of another giant ad banner, and the little guy went: “Dad, that’s just another one of those stupid ads, right?” Imagine how proud dad was, seeing that another system-wide adblocker had been installed…)

    Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

  • IratePirate@feddit.orgtoNews@lemmy.world•British Woman shot by dad in Texas after 'arguing about Donald Trump'
    7·
    1 day ago

    Let’s flip this argument on its head: family is potentially the best place for political discussions, as it’s one of the few places in life where bonds should be tightest, respect should be mutual and all actors should act in good faith. It should be the safest of spaces and, if intact, should be able to easily withstand disagreements on things outside the family, such as politics. If it doesn’t - like in this case, apparently-, doesn’t that tell us more about the family in question, and/or the state of political debate in our country?

  • IratePirate@feddit.orgtoTechnology@lemmy.world•The Department of Homeland Security Is Demanding That Google Turn Over Information About Random CriticsEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    I will admit that YouTube is the strongest vice in my life, I just can’t get enough of it.

    Well, do it like everyone trying to shake off a vice: if you feel you can’t go cold turkey, switch to a less harmful surrogate. Ditch the YouTube app and switch to something like Newpipe or FreeTube that both give you access to YouTube’s content, but at the same time comes with more functionality (background playback, downloads), protects your privacy (accountless subscriptions and playlists) and also fucks with Google’s bottom line by blocking ads.

    Google’s got my data by the balls. I think it’s a bit too late for me.

    I get this post-privacy fatalism a lot, but luckily for you, it’s patently false.

    Big tech’s business model - at least for now - is to profile you and sell this image of you off to advertisers and other businesses for personalised targeting (and possibly other shenanigans, but let’s not get into that). In order to be valuable to them, this profile must be accurate and up-to-date.

    Now, luckily, people aren’t static beings. We change as we grow, not just older, but as human beings. We change jobs and even careers, social circles and places of residence. We change our marital status (hopefully only once ;), the number of people in our family (hopefully only incrementally ;) and the people we want to spend most time with. We change contact details and bank accounts, brand preferences and spending habits. We change our beliefs and habits, political convictions, our outlooks on and goals in life. Just try to picture the person you were ten years ago, and, I hope for you, you’ll see a Venn diagram that may have some overlap, but also some pronounced areas of difference. As time goes on, these differences will become larger and larger, until the profile of ‘old you’ is entirely worthless to any advertiser because it gives them little to no idea who ‘present you’ is and how to target them.

    You may be right that the best point in time to untether yourself was yesterday. But the next best is today.