this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Privacy

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[–] lime@feddit.nu 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

advertising is just propaganda without a cause

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

idk about other languages, but in Portuguese it's literally the same word

[–] ugandan_airways@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The cause is to separate you from your money and time. To reinforce and promote capital as the ultimate gatekeepers.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

yeah but it's not made by the people the propaganda works for. they're just cogs. normal propaganda is made by the people championing the cause in question.

[–] ugandan_airways@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago

If you work for an advertising agency, you know that your job is to separate people from their money. They celebrate this. They have awards for this. It’s the whole purpose of their job.

[–] 6stringringer@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Please put me on the haters list. (For advertising & marketing)

[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

my kids have grown up with my adblocked version of the internet, when they connect to other internet thats not a filtered feed they get annoyed by ads in their games and on their videos

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

My wife initially hated my piholes, because they broke some of her phone’s stuff. She runs stock Samsung Android, so lots of the built in Google stuff got broken. She was constantly complaining about it. We eventually spent an evening hunt-and-peck’ing the various blocked DNS requests, to see which ones were required for her phone to work properly, and which ones were just Google Adsense BS. Got her set up with a WireGuard VPN connection that automatically activates when she’s disconnected from the home WiFi, so she’s always protected.

Now that she’s used to it, it’s like a wake up slap whenever she encounters ads. We moved a while ago, and all of my more advanced networking stuff (including the pihole) was sitting in a box until I had time to set it all up. She suddenly started seeing ads again, and was absolutely gobsmacked at how pervasive they are. What really sent her over the edge was when our Roku TV was paused, and went to its idle screen. The idle screen is an auto-scrolling image, and it had an ad plastered across the scrolling image. She was like “what the fuck we’re not even watching anything right now! It’s just idle! Why the hell are they advertising to us on the damned idle screen??” That was what finally pushed her to give me an evening to set all of the networking stuff back up.

[–] howsetheraven@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do you have links to any knowledge base docs or guides? I tried setting this up a few years back and couldn't really nail it down and just kinda gave up because it broke too many websites and my smarttv apps wouldn't work either.

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

If you want to actively shit on them, there is AdNauseam, which is a fork of uBlock Origin but in addition to blocking the ads, it clicks on absolutely everything, sending fake signals. Polluting their database is costing them money and they have to deal with all the noise.

Not for everyone, but definitely an active hostility towards these fucks.

[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Except it still rewards the site for hosting ads in the first place

[–] agingelderly@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

As someone who works in marketing - they will tote these clicks as a great success and continue to do what they are doing, maybe even more so, but will be distraught by the lack of follow through when it comes to sales. I guess if it happened long enough, And on a big enough scale, they might eventually give up but it would take years

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol -1 points 6 months ago

Or, more likely, they would not include the fake clicks in their metrics at all, and marketing would never see the inflated metrics.

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's a cute idea, but they would just incorporate some amount of false clicks into their metrics.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Exactly, its data poisioning.

If someone is trying to build an ad profile on you (even if you personally dont see the ads) then it feeds them junk data instead of real date.

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you think clicking all the ads makes a meaningful difference, then all the power to you.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Its purely out of spite, plus, im not clicking anything.

I run the full ad blocking suite anyway and see more ads watching a sportsball game with the family than I do on my home network over the course of months.

  1. I dont see the ads
  2. The data they generate is wrong and random, if that is used to train AI it runs the risk of poisioning the model.
  3. The site Im on gets paid by the ad vendor, even though the interaction is fraudulent.

I call it a win-win

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Blocking ads definitely doesn't help the site get paid, that's what I was talking about above.

For the same reason, it's probably not doing any meaningful "poisoning" either.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Then go read what the AdNaseum plugin does and we will talk then.

https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/

[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol -1 points 6 months ago

Whatever table you imagine clicks to be stored in, add a column called "Using adblocker".

Filter out any rows where that column = true.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ad-blocking is a property right. I have every right to control what my device does or does not display, by definition of ownership. Conversely, advertisers or other parties attempting to colonize my device by forcing it to display something against my (the owner's) will is a hostile act that violates my rights.

[–] IndieGoblin@lemmy.4d2.org 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thats fair if you also hold the stance that they can block you if you aren't paying to use the service. But i doubt you do.

[–] Grazed@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Everything belongs to the working class brother

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It might be an unpopular opinion, but I like the ads! They are very useful because they help me remember the brands not to buy. Edit: /s was not obvious it seems

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

True but at the same time entire businesses are built on advertising and wouldn't exist without it. All your favorite YouTubers, virtually all internet published media, etc.

[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If they can’t exist without ads then it’s time to die

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Great, wave goodbye to all your favorite publications.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Bad take. There's also subscription models for example. Or grants or donation / donor based.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Bad take. Those are simply not sustainable in most cases on their own. They just subsidize other revenue models.

[–] alastel@lemmy.ml 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Such a small share of ad-revenue goes to creators it's not worth it. You lose in wasting time, getting your brain turned to mush and getting manipulated by the ads. It costs less to support the creators directly.

I just wish there were easier ways to do so. Something decentralised with all the creators where I could fix an amount per month to spend on content creation and getting it split between what I appreciated.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 6 months ago

Such a small share of ad-revenue goes to creators it's not worth it.

Uhhhh I mean there are lots and lots of people doing it every day, so it very clearly absolutely is worth it for them.

It costs less to support the creators directly.

That's great but it's not sustainable.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] jafra@slrpnk.net 0 points 6 months ago
[–] devilsedvocate@lemmy.zip -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don’t forget; sports events. Even the Olympics don’t exist without ads. Adds rule the world (unfortunately). It gets problematic when your privacy gets compromised.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Sporting events existed for thousands of years before advertising—don’t mistake current conditions for necessary ones.