John Von RaderNov 26, 2023
Neil Brown

Don’t feel bad about dealing with entitled sites which are trying even harder to shove ads at your eyeballs by trying to block anti-surveillance tools.

You didn’t ask for a web with surveillance as its business model.

You didn’t agree to being spied upon, and to having your personal data shared with thousands of organisations, just to access a web page.

You are not responsible for fixing this situation.

Heck, you shouldn’t have to be responsible for protecting yourself, yet here we are.

Nov 22, 2023 at 6:38amWeb
Show threadpiofthingsNov 22, 2023
@neil I used to pay for guardian, but that doesn’t stop them from running a few hundred trackers! Even when I am signed in! Well guess what…
Show threadpiofthingsNov 22, 2023
@neil oh to make matters worse Guardian’s “algorithm” used to float up absolute trash maga news articles and things that I actually wanted to read about, I would find their links into guardian from twitter! Imagine the irony! Finally I bought “Surveillence Capitalism by Soshona Zouboff” from their site, read only part of it and then cancelled their subscription 🤣🤣🤣!
Show threadJulian BeachNov 22, 2023
@piofthings
I used to subscribe to Tortoise Media and they did the same but worse you couldn't access site resources unless you accepted the ads and trackers. Much as I support their aims, I'm not paying for ads and surveillance. The UK Met Office app recently popped up a cookie message with hundreds of trackers too. There is no escape!
@neil
Show threadpiofthingsNov 22, 2023
@trink_uk @neil ah yes tortoise media! Tried them too but their app was just too broken (probably to do with my network ad blockers, didn’t think of that at the time)!
Show threadDon ThompsonNov 22, 2023
@neil
I can’t help but think that companies, who expect their product to be promoted are getting a bad deal.
I don’t have any specific evidence for that thought save for the apparently random stream of irrelevant product promotions that reaches my screens.
Show threadAnton PiatekNov 26, 2023
@neil I'm always happy to close the page if they object to my privacy protections. They're welcome to show any adds they want, without trackers
Show threadDragon-sided DNov 26, 2023

@neil
> you shouldn’t have to be responsible for protecting yourself

I strongly object. You *are* responsible for your own safety. Online and IRL.

Unless, of course, you are a child or otherwise not a fully autonomous adult.

Show threadChris JohnsonNov 26, 2023
@neil Exactly.
Show threadGeorge DinwiddieNov 26, 2023

@neil @Saket It’s easy enough to serve ads from the server. I’m ok with that.

I’m not ok with allowing random code to run on my computer.