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?

  • ChiselerNeil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I can understand where you’re coming from in terms of PR circle-jerking, which I am beyond over, but it keeps getting pushed at me for some reason by content aggravators aggregators. But sometimes we need to know when the ultra-privileged are actively undermining things the rest of us depend on, or might depend on if they were ever allowed to exist. Those issues need as many eyeballs as possible. So how would you separate the one from the other?

    • aCosmicWave@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      My solution is to block them from my consciousness by default. Then when I feel like catching up I’ll temporarily disable the plugin (I just added this feature). This way I can have the best of both worlds!

    • FringeTheory999@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Well, while I acknowledge that it’s important to know what the rich are doing to undermine society, I like that the app would give me control over what I’m seeing, and when I see it. I think if it gives the option to unhide stuff so that I can digest it when I am best able to, than it is a good thing. Like a NSFW filter. It could just have a “show billionaire related content” button on it. Besides, if their mucking about is impacting something that’s important to you, it’ll probably be referenced in content you’re actively seeking.

  • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • jtk@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        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

    • aCosmicWave@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      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)
  • vd1n@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • aCosmicWave@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      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!

  • DharmaCurious@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I absolutely love this! God, I need it. There are several websites I have to use for school that have bullshit articles on the side bar that I would love to block these assholes from. And for the people talking about blocking them being ignoring the problem, you don’t have to keep it turned on all the time. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to scroll through something without having to know what the fuck warren buffet thinks, or how the emerald heir is going to cure cancer with the power of a truck that looks like a PS1 asset.

    OP, I love this. Please tell me there’s a way to do to this from Android?

    • poweruser@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Firefox beta on Android can use extensions that are designed for desktop. Some only work in desktop mode but so far all the ones I’ve tried work. The setup is a little complex if the author hasn’t marked it as compatible with mobile, but it is possible

      • DharmaCurious@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        You wouldn’t be able to link me to a tutorial to do that, would you? I’m not trying most technologically inclined, tbh.

        • 2014MU69@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Not the person you’re replying to but here’s the tutorial

          Btw the setup while completely doable is pretty convoluted. It’s clear that Mozilla really doesn’t want us to do it.

          This option only exists to shut up a few loud nerds.

          Edit: I actually tried to follow the tutorial and a few issues showed up.

          1. If you’re adding addons to your collection for first time it only shows mobile addons in the search results. To see desktop addons you need to open the page in desktop mode and tell it to show desktop addons.

          2. Mozilla’s addon search results are really bad. Searching “block the rich” only gives you bad results. “Block rich” or “the rich” aren’t any better. Only search term that worked was “rich” and even then the addon was pretty far down in the search results.

  • Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    not seeing does not equate to not existing.

    let us not blind ourselves to their antics. awareness is key to prevent ourselves from being exploited.

    • bonobo@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Exactly, you have to see what they’re doing to know how to counter it (or even know that it exists). Living in a bubble isn’t going to help us. Maybe you should install this on your kid’s computer?

    • DeanFogg@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I get the sentiment but I more attribute it to giving a child too much attention. People keep clicking and talking about them so they stay relevant. Not only does this feed their ego it drives the hype machines ad revenue

  • Someonelol@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    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.

    • klyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Nah that’s alright. It’s not like we can do anything about them anyway. I’m just going to ignore them.

      • klyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        So disable it when you want to. Y’all are making this way too complicated for no reason.

    • salient_one@lemmy.villa-straylight.socialEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Except Musk. Musk loves any kind of publicity and he understands that people love to look at clown billionaires. It’s a great disarming tactic. The public sees him is that harmless prankster and not a threat.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Then step away from Google. They might be a big player, but they don’t own the internet…

      • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zoneEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        I think they do own it. Dont underestimate google , they are bigger and powerful than some governments.

        • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          I have a handful of devices here. Some Googled, some not. Believe me, you can definitely use the internet without Google if you want to.

          • YⓄ乙 @aussie.zoneEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            I am using Firefox but after installing Arrow OS without Gapps my banking apps won’t work, work related apps like Teams, Authy didn’t work and had issues with IM apps. So if I have to be completely isolated then sure I’ll go your route but I have to use my phone for work and other stuff hence I NEED google.

            • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              1 year ago

              I don’t even have a bank account. Have you ever read the terms of service on paper bills?

              “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private”

                • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  1 year ago

                  That sounds like a you problem, move somewhere else where they don’t do such jank.

                  We don’t have that problem here on the Gulf Coast.

                • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  1 year ago

                  Read the terms of service on the bill, then demand they honor the terms literally printed by the government and the US Treasury.

  • gila@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I get it, so I installed the extension and browsed with it today. My feedback is that I feel like blocking individual words like Elon or Bezos would be required to make this meaningful at all. I still saw a bunch of stuff about them that the filter didn’t catch because they are so ubiquitous that you don’t need to say their full name to communicate who you’re talking about.

    At the same time, while I almost always don’t care and don’t want to hear about a piece of Elon news, it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in Twitter developments, but I think the filter will block most if not all links/info about Twitter since it’s intrinsically linked to Elon’s persona.

    At the end of the day I think it’s a cool idea, but I don’t think you can effectively block these guys via this method without blocking any mention of any platform they’re associated with, which isn’t really what I want.

    • aCosmicWave@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Thank you so much for trying it out! This truly is a very early prototype I quickly threw together. Given how much interest Lemmy has for the extension I will keep actively developing it. Maybe someday I can reach a state where the extension will be actually useful to you.

  • itsnotlupus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Instead of simply blurring them, it’d be technically possible to feed their images through a stable diffusion prompt, like “humanoid lizards” or “frantic lemmings”…
    Also, I understand that a large language model could be made to rewrite articles about them with a matching prompt.

    That would be very silly, of course.

  • EnderWi99in@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    I have been looking for this but for a customized list of celebrities and politicians whose opinions carry little weight in the real world.

  • SJ0@lemmy.fbxl.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I feel like any time you’re on establishment media, it’s all just an ad for the billionaires who own and control the outlets.