Flutterby™! : At least use an ad blocker

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At least use an ad blocker

2025-11-12 19:56:25.379669+01 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

My mom called me up again, recently, because her computer once again was locked in some state where a voice was warning her that the Facebook police were going to come get her or something. After going through Ctrl-W and the usual things and having that not work, we went for a reboot, and of course once the browser quit the voices stopped.

Now she's got some whackadoodle conspiracy health beliefs, and that leaves her prone to surfing the less savory aspects of the web, but that Facebook knows that at least 10% of its ads are scams (I mentioned that I'm surprised it's that low) and the Nevada ransomware attack happened because a state employee confused a malicious Google ad result with a valid download, indicates that our media culture is irretrievably broken.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*) @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange observes:

Given this and the recent Facebook news, there's a very strong case to be made that an ad provider is legally an accomplice to any crime committed by their ads. If they are profiting financially from enabling crime, they are criminals.

and... I realize that us web publishers have some legal protections, but I'm starting to think that between stuff like this and the various age verification laws going in various places, that maybe it is time to move comments and annotations into the client/aggregators that pull from various different places, and make publishers liable for what they publish.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Health Sociology Law Current Events Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement California Culture Conspiracy Archival Government ]

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