11 ms·

Edward Snowden says it's your 'duty' to install ad blockers

28 points by hellofunk 11y ago

hellofunk 11y ago
Ironically, this site presents a huge ad at its top that makes reading on a small laptop a challenge until the ad disappears.
- krapp 11y ago
  "Edward Snowden Says X" has become pretty effective clickbait.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    It's hard to deny that he says smart things that make sense, that's probably why. Whatever people may think about what he did, he remains quite an intelligent fellow with a good knowledge of relevant matters.
    - krapp 11y ago
      It's also hard to deny he's become a brand, and most of what's attributed to him, now, comes second and third-hand from sources with a stake in viewership. Not that this discredits anything, but if we're moving into a post-Snowden age in terms of most coverage being meta-coverage, people might need to start being concerned about the biases and motives behind stories attached to him.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I'm guessing that Edward pays for all content and services he uses along with the rest of the world so the ad model is unnecessary. And so his advice doesn't equate to stealing. ;)
- feld 11y ago
  The ads are "stealing" your: cpu, battery, bandwidth. Thanks to economies of scale it costs them almost nothing to serve the ad while it costs you a measurable amount to download it and display it. If it cost equally for them to serve the ad there wouldn't be so many obnoxious ads. Also, malware.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    They're not stealing anything. You are agreeing to them when you consume ad-supported content. You are free to never use that site again. Yet, you come back because you think the benefits are worth the cost. There are people who don't come back and gripe about a different kind of ad: those snuck into paid services by oligopolies. I feel their pain as they are getting shafted by the power the oligopolies have. The rest of you want to freeload and aren't getting the freeloading experience you desire. Feel free to try but be responsible enough to admit what you're doing. Otherwise, many services that are ad-supported can be replaced with paid ones with more privacy-focused ones than ever post-Snowden. There's also the alternative of not using what you won't pay for in attention to ads. If you're just getting robbed by ads, feel free to give up the content as it had no value to you and was a robbery rather than an exchange.
    - serge2k 11y ago
      I do pay for ad free content (hulu, netflix, aiv, hbo now, etc...), or I pay then block ads (youtube channels w/ patreon). The problem I have isn't so much that I'm worried about ads, or entirely anti advertising. It's that online advertising has reached the point where it's too annoying not to block it. The amount of ads I was seeing outweighed the value I got from the content, so I block them all.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Now there's a more honest answer and approach. I agree with you on how annoying they're getting. Far as paid vs unpaid, the question is are you blocking ads only from sources you're paying or also ads that are paying for content you aren't paying for? I'd bet it's still piracy partly or mostly. To be clear, I block them too for their annoyance and malware risks they pose. I push for solutions to that (eg Adblock's Acceptable Ads, ADsafe). Well, some like Youtube I let through because they're easy enough to ignore (esp with mute button). Amazon and eBay have those, too. On rare occasions, it's actually something I'm interested in. The rest are blocked by default. And you won't catch me lying about essentially ripping them off until they ditch their annoying, dangerous BS in favor of acceptable ads or option to pay. Note: One thing I miss about late 90's and early 2000's Internet is that there were tons of good subscription, services plus "all on a CD" paid content. Our modern stuff is more fun and diverse for sure but innovative efforts like Patreon show there's room for improvement in ads vs paid.
zeveb 11y ago
I happen to agree that it's a good thing to use ad blockers (and that malvertising is becoming a bigger and bigger problem), but it's a bit much being lectured on duty by someone who betrayed his duty, betrayed his colleagues and betrayed his nation.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  You sound like a propaganda sponge.
- ionised 11y ago
  How did he betray his nation exactly? From where I'm sitting, it looks like he did everyone except the government a huge fucking favour. Your government is not your nation, and your government are the ones betraying you.
  - zeveb 11y ago
    > How did he betray his nation exactly? He revealed information about supposed national-security intelligence-collection measures. > From where I'm sitting, it looks like he did everyone except the government a huge fucking favour. He certainly did the Chinese and Russian governments a huge favour. > Your government is not your nation, and your government are the ones betraying you. Hardly. Nothing he has alleged is illegal; nothing he has alleged is unconstitutional; everything he has alleged was appropriately targeted. I'll grant him this much: he doesn't think he's evil; he thinks he's doing good. But what he's actually done is cause exceptionally grave damage to the government and people of the United States of America (and, insofar as the United States act as guarantors of the Pax Americana, he's endangered the rest of the world as well).
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Well that's the whole argument there - what he revealed was illegal and unconstitutional. Denial of that makes him look pretty bad, I admit.
probablypat 11y ago
Im personally more concerned about trackers more than ads. I don't want commerical companies collecting more than 2000 data points on me then selling it to some other data broker. I've used many tracker blockers, and one that lets me keep organized is https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redmorph-browser-controll/ghpfnohpiocmklpejkcliiloniceahdo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redmorph-browser-c....

28 points by hellofunk 11y ago

Ironically, this site presents a huge ad at its top that makes reading on a small laptop a challenge until the ad disappears.

krapp 11y ago
"Edward Snowden Says X" has become pretty effective clickbait.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  It's hard to deny that he says smart things that make sense, that's probably why. Whatever people may think about what he did, he remains quite an intelligent fellow with a good knowledge of relevant matters.
  - krapp 11y ago
    It's also hard to deny he's become a brand, and most of what's attributed to him, now, comes second and third-hand from sources with a stake in viewership. Not that this discredits anything, but if we're moving into a post-Snowden age in terms of most coverage being meta-coverage, people might need to start being concerned about the biases and motives behind stories attached to him.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I'm guessing that Edward pays for all content and services he uses along with the rest of the world so the ad model is unnecessary. And so his advice doesn't equate to stealing. ;)

feld 11y ago
The ads are "stealing" your: cpu, battery, bandwidth. Thanks to economies of scale it costs them almost nothing to serve the ad while it costs you a measurable amount to download it and display it. If it cost equally for them to serve the ad there wouldn't be so many obnoxious ads. Also, malware.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  They're not stealing anything. You are agreeing to them when you consume ad-supported content. You are free to never use that site again. Yet, you come back because you think the benefits are worth the cost. There are people who don't come back and gripe about a different kind of ad: those snuck into paid services by oligopolies. I feel their pain as they are getting shafted by the power the oligopolies have. The rest of you want to freeload and aren't getting the freeloading experience you desire. Feel free to try but be responsible enough to admit what you're doing. Otherwise, many services that are ad-supported can be replaced with paid ones with more privacy-focused ones than ever post-Snowden. There's also the alternative of not using what you won't pay for in attention to ads. If you're just getting robbed by ads, feel free to give up the content as it had no value to you and was a robbery rather than an exchange.
  - serge2k 11y ago
    I do pay for ad free content (hulu, netflix, aiv, hbo now, etc...), or I pay then block ads (youtube channels w/ patreon). The problem I have isn't so much that I'm worried about ads, or entirely anti advertising. It's that online advertising has reached the point where it's too annoying not to block it. The amount of ads I was seeing outweighed the value I got from the content, so I block them all.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      Now there's a more honest answer and approach. I agree with you on how annoying they're getting. Far as paid vs unpaid, the question is are you blocking ads only from sources you're paying or also ads that are paying for content you aren't paying for? I'd bet it's still piracy partly or mostly. To be clear, I block them too for their annoyance and malware risks they pose. I push for solutions to that (eg Adblock's Acceptable Ads, ADsafe). Well, some like Youtube I let through because they're easy enough to ignore (esp with mute button). Amazon and eBay have those, too. On rare occasions, it's actually something I'm interested in. The rest are blocked by default. And you won't catch me lying about essentially ripping them off until they ditch their annoying, dangerous BS in favor of acceptable ads or option to pay. Note: One thing I miss about late 90's and early 2000's Internet is that there were tons of good subscription, services plus "all on a CD" paid content. Our modern stuff is more fun and diverse for sure but innovative efforts like Patreon show there's room for improvement in ads vs paid.

zeveb 11y ago

I happen to agree that it's a good thing to use ad blockers (and that malvertising is becoming a bigger and bigger problem), but it's a bit much being lectured on duty by someone who betrayed his duty, betrayed his colleagues and betrayed his nation.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
CyberDildonics 11y ago
You sound like a propaganda sponge.
ionised 11y ago
How did he betray his nation exactly? From where I'm sitting, it looks like he did everyone except the government a huge fucking favour. Your government is not your nation, and your government are the ones betraying you.
- zeveb 11y ago
  > How did he betray his nation exactly? He revealed information about supposed national-security intelligence-collection measures. > From where I'm sitting, it looks like he did everyone except the government a huge fucking favour. He certainly did the Chinese and Russian governments a huge favour. > Your government is not your nation, and your government are the ones betraying you. Hardly. Nothing he has alleged is illegal; nothing he has alleged is unconstitutional; everything he has alleged was appropriately targeted. I'll grant him this much: he doesn't think he's evil; he thinks he's doing good. But what he's actually done is cause exceptionally grave damage to the government and people of the United States of America (and, insofar as the United States act as guarantors of the Pax Americana, he's endangered the rest of the world as well).
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Well that's the whole argument there - what he revealed was illegal and unconstitutional. Denial of that makes him look pretty bad, I admit.

probablypat 11y ago

Im personally more concerned about trackers more than ads. I don't want commerical companies collecting more than 2000 data points on me then selling it to some other data broker. I've used many tracker blockers, and one that lets me keep organized is https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redmorph-browser-controll/ghpfnohpiocmklpejkcliiloniceahdo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redmorph-browser-c....