this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023

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"Block The Rich" is like an ad-blocker, but for obscenely wealthy people with overinflated egos. (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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About 8 months ago I got pretty tired of seeing billionaire spam online. I could not bear to read about yet another rich guy who launched themselves (or their $200,000 car) into outer space 🚀 . I did not care about their expert opinion on the latest meme coin back then. I do not care about their expert opinion on the dangers of AI today.

So... I developed a tiny, free, and open source Firefox browser add-on called "Block the Rich". It is completely local and private. No data is tracked. No data is phoned home.

The concept is pretty simple: whenever I load a web page, the extension quickly analyzes the content and intelligently blurs out any references to the Forbes Top 10 Billionaires. Some former and wannabe billionaires are blurred out of courtesy as well (I'm looking at you Trump and Kanye 🙄).

This project is a very early prototype that I built in the span of a few days. I have so many awesome ideas for enhancements but the truth is that the wind got completely knocked out of my sails when I put myself out there on Reddit many moons ago. There was absolutely zero public interest. To this day my wife and I are the only ones using the original prototype.

People of Lemmy, do you think there is a place on the internet for such a project, or is it time that I let it go?

Edit: I am blown away by the support from you all. Thank you! I am so excited to start polishing this baby up!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My only request would be to have a version that not just blurs the parts but completely removes the DOM elements where they are mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

maybe even integration with uBlock if possible?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wrote a plugin similar to this a long time ago because uBlock couldn't do it, at least not efficiently. I mentioned it in another comment already so I won't repeat everything.

The thing I made turned out to work better for getting rid of links you never want to see (facebook, twitter, quora, etc). You can apply whatever CSS you want to matches, so you can blur using a transform, redact (color: black; background-color: black), hide (visibility: hidden), remove (display: none), etc.

I even showed it to gorhill but I don't think he looked to hard at it and suggested I try something in uBO I already knew didn't work effectively.

Source - Add-on

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is a great suggestion and is pretty similar to what some of the other commenters also requested. I am thinking to support multiple modes:

Blur The Rich (current prototype)
Block The Rich (your request)
Mock The Rich (replace the names of these billionaires with less flattering nicknames e.g. "Space Karen", etc)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

KNOW THY ENEMY

I think this project is a terrible idea (no offense OP, since I can see this comes from a level of frustration). Simply burying your head in the sand does not make these people go away. It doesn't stop their abuses of power. It doesn't make them any less of a bunch of douchebags. We the public need to know what they do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can see a (theoretically) positive outcome in media realizing that these articles don’t get the clicks they used to (if, i dunno, 30% of users use this extension).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

"The clicks" don't matter when these individuals own the media outlets and the social media platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Great idea. Could be cool to blacklist people. Say you're reading an article and think to yourself "damn, that man or woman is a muthafucka!" Then you just highlight their name, right click, and bam! The summaremoved ain't to be seen agin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Reminds me of Black Mirror White Christmas episode. I could use that feature.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I laughed out loud at this suggestion. Love it. I can imagine this could lead to some confusion if a user blocks a common name, like John Smith... but let me give it some more thought!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I've always believed it would be useful to have a thing like this but for brand logos.

But instead of blurring or blocking the brand logo like an adblocker what it does instead is show you the face of the top shareholder in that brand. Remove the brands and show the assholes that own them. Where it's not a single person you replace that brand with the name of the hedgefund or bank that owns the investment.

It would bring people's attention away from brand consumerism and to a constant consciousness of the ruling class looming over them in everything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But then everything everywhere would look the same - whatever random picture it uses for Blackrock

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Probably the ugly face of Larry Fink! 😬

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's kinda the point. Being able to see just how few people own literally everything and thus are influencing opinion through means that people currently completely overlook is powerful. Advertising is literally propaganda. Consumer culture is propaganda. When you cut through that and make people conscious of it on a constant minute to minute basis you will see rapid radicalisation occur. Our society relies on a system of carefully designed barriers that create separation between the people and the ruling class in a way that is unnoticeable to the average person without prompting.

Think of it like pulling back the curtain in the wizard of oz for people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The way I would like to see it done is that any company name can be hovered over and the top 5 shareholders pop up and if applicable it tells you who the parent company is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This would be a useful additional feature, I think the shock value of the method I'm suggesting would have potential to interest at least some press outlets (probably not the major ones who would recognise it as damaging to the people they represent though). You need some novelty in this kind of thing to get it to spread.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Can I get one that applies to millionaire celebrities?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Bro I thought this was satire!💀This is real???? I need this plugin!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is exactly what I need! Thank you. I'm sick of hearing about these few people, who think their word is better than ours because of their wealth and inheritance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I was also thinking it, but the thought of "building your walls up so high, that you eventually don't know what is really happening around you" might become problematic. I am still thinking of how to implement it, I think such a projects is worth the effort, especially if you have full control of what you want to view.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Please don't do this! Rich people love living in obscurity, it keeps attention and anger from their stupid decisions away from them and on to some scapegoat. This is like the opposite of the Streisand Effect and will only serve their interests. I know it's annoying to keep seeing the same billionaires in the headlines but the alternative is to be passive about their awful projects and the harm they're doing to the world. You'll only be doing them a favor with this addon.