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Use of AdNauseum is more of a "fuck you" to companies like reddit or google who have turned the internet from a forum for free expression to a tool for censorsh
by BastardGas 9y ago
Use of AdNauseum is more of a "fuck you" to companies like reddit or google who have turned the internet from a forum for free expression to a tool for censorship and social control.
- jedberg 9y agoIf you don't like the rules, you are welcome to not participate. But that's a terrible excuse for knowingly causing damage. Or do you also think it's ok to steal from Walmart because you don't like their corporate policies?
- davidgerard 9y ago> If you don't like the rules, you are welcome to not participate. Playing your ads in my browser is "the rules" now? If you want to claim it's "the rules", you need a paywall. Oh, you're not putting up a paywall? Fancy that. Do you offer legally enforceable indemnity against people getting malware from ads you serve? If not, then you can't really tell them not to block the ads.
- jedberg 9y agoWe're talking about people who install a program to defraud advertisers. The complaint was, "we're sticking it to people who censor and use social control." "The rules" in this case are that censorship and social control (presumably) exist on the platform. If you don't like that, don't participate. But don't say, "OMG censorship" and use that to justify defrauding advertisers while continuing to use the free site that you deride.
- davidgerard 9y agoYou didn't answer the question: Do you offer legally enforceable indemnity against people getting malware from ads you serve? If not, then you can't really tell them not to block the ads.
- jedberg 9y agoI don't work for reddit anymore, so I don't offer anything. But no, I don't think reddit offers that, as no site does. That's a perfectly fine excuse to run adblock, but my original thesis was that people say, "If you let me remove ads I'll pay" and those people are being disingenuous when they don't pay. It still doesn't justify the topic at hand, which is a program that attacks the ad networks and defrauds the advertisers.
- wu_tang_chris 9y agoNo. The topic at hand is whether or not I'm allowed to run the program on my computer. And regardless of what argument you or any other business man 2.0 can proffer, I am. Because it's my computer.
- grzm 9y agoAs I understand it, the issue is whether you can run AdNauseam on Pale Moon on your computer. Are there other browsers that allow you to use AdNauseam?
- wu_tang_chris 9y agoYes. Thanks to this HN post, I just started using it on Chrome.
- jhasse 9y agoFirefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adnauseam/ https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adnauseam/
- czep 9y agoWhoa! It's not defrauding advertisers, unless you want to claim that clicking a link on the internet without intending to purchase something is considered fraudulent.
- chii 9y agoActually, a court of law take into account intent. Misclicking on a link is not fraud, but intentionally misclicking is indeed fraud, if you know if had an intended effect on the budget of the advertiser.
- slavik81 9y agoIs it? The user would have to be making a misrepresentation by doing so. Is clicking an ad link really a statement that meaningfully communicates anything? Or is the advertiser merely inferring a meaning and getting it wrong for that user?
- evilDagmar 9y agoThat has no bearing here because it's not the user mis-clicking on the link, but the app in question deliberately following a link on behalf of the user with the stated goal of causing harm.
- ImSkeptical 9y agoI would think there's a much stronger case for fraud against people who put misleading advertisements on their websites. Visiting a link automatically demonstrates an intent to protest advertisers, not defraud them.
- chii 9y agoFalse advertising is already against the law. You can protest legally by blocking ads, but there's such a thing as too much civil disobedience. Its a slippery slope, because this argument can be used to justify DDoS.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ImSkeptical 9y agoTo paraphrase a wise person, I can install what I want on my browser, and if you don't like it, feel free to shut your website down and do something else.
- revmoo 9y ago"knowingly causing damage"? Is this a joke?
- dingo_bat 9y agoThat's like saying if you don't want to get raped don't book an uber. But if you have then you have to play by the rules.
- vectorpush 9y agoThis makes no sense. Have you ever used a web forum before reddit? People get banned all the time for arbitrary reasons on forums all over the web, why should reddit be any different? "The internet" has not been turned into anything, it remains the same as it has always been, a place where communities of varying interests can interact at their own discretion, a freedom which includes the prerogative to exclude anything the administrators deem off topic, offensive, annoying or even boring. The internet gives everyone the freedom to create a community of their own, and it's easier, cheaper and the experience is better than ever when doing so. There are already popular "anything goes" discussion forums (e.g. 4chan, voat) that give much wider room to "freedom of expression", so how have companies like reddit or google prevented others from operating in any fashion they find acceptable within the confines of their own communities? The answer is they haven't.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI've used Slashdot before reddit. Nobody got banned for anything except spam.
- junkculture 9y agoI've been on BBSes and various forums since 1987. Reddit is the only site where I've been banned off a single sub. And this was to correct an error referencing my own work and expertise. As far as I can tell, they've gone overboard on their censoring, marketing and propaganda.