There is, but watch you don’t fuel the “liberals have hacked my PC to hide the truth from me” conspiracy theories.
As basic as blocker goes a long way in preventing trash from showing up accidentally, though.
I'm setting up a Windows 11 laptop for my uncle. Is there a sneaky way to make it block right-wing bullshit websites?
Submitted 1 day ago by ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 1 day ago
matlag@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Technically that won’t be a baseless conspiracy theory though. Just not “the liberals”, and not hiding “the truth”.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
While blocking would me too much. It could be nice of there would exist a fact checking browser extension that would warn if lies as thrown I don’t even know how that could work though.
gramie@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I suppose you could add entries for those right-wing websites into the “hosts” file, redirecting them to Google or some other relatively innocuous place.
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 1 day ago
Altering the hosts file will just throw up HTTPS certificate errors.
chaospatterns@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
If you alter it to 0.0.0.0 then it shouldn’t pop an SSL error, it would be a connection failed error.
gramie@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
OP was not very specific about what behavior they actually wanted. Changing the host file would prevent the uncle from visiting those sites, but as you say, it would not be subtle.
ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I love this!
wetsoggybread@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Be careful about this, if he intentionally clicks on a link or tries to go to these websites and it doesn’t work, it’s going to be your problem because you set it up for him
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 9 hours ago
I would only block 4chan, patriotfront, and other stuff that most people would never know about where the cesspool is known to be malicious and full of white nationalist instigators, if anything. But then again, it would never occur to me to try to trick a family member.
If your uncle isn’t already lost, you might be able to gently talk about this stuff. There are people who discuss how to carefully offload alt-right beliefs by asking questions that reveal fallacy rather than beating someone over the head with why they’re wrong. You can find better info than I have by searching the web.
My own mother, for example, voted for Trump three times. That relationship is over, sadly. Some people can’t be reached.
Moral: don’t do underhanded shit. Be open about your disagreement, but first learn what approaches have the greatest chance of success.
Asswardbackaddict@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I think you should talk to him instead of being sneaky about it.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Sure, that works (nope).
Asswardbackaddict@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I think getting someone to change requires handling it with love. I am not placing myself above you here, so you’re aware.
serenissi@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
ubo will do the trick by blocking (political) ads that promote those bs. you can use custom filter list if you know what sites to block but at this point it somewhat feels like parental censorship. talking to him about politics and the misinformation campaigns is a much better idea to keep your uncle less susceptible to such brainwashing even outside online world. initially it might feel pointless but perseverance is the key.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 1 day ago
Subscribe him to some left leaning newsletters, facebook groups, YT channels… whatever media he uses. It’s been shown that simply exposing people to news from outside their bubble is enough to change their views.
xorollo@leminal.space 1 day ago
Can we get a community list of yt channels?
I ignore yt outside of direct links because I think the yt scroll is all roads lead to alt right.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
This is a sticky situation if you try to implement it. At best you temp hide it from the uncle, at worse you double down the ideology because of conspiracy theories and end up hurting your relationship with your uncle, plus Anything you can do locally he could find workarounds for if he wanted to, especially since his friends will know the sites still exist.
He would likely accuse you immediately though as the last person to touch the system is always the one at fault, and you are the one setting it up.
To answer the question though, you could edit the host file to block known propaganda networks(by directing them to invalid ip’s which would make it look like its down) but, that setup is not very effective and unless you can block all of them, hes just going to find ways around it or alternatives, and this system likely wouldn’t survive most current day browsers that are pushing secure DNS such as firefox since cloudflare is going to know how to access it still.
I still don’t think it’s a good idea though, too many things that could go wrong out of it, plus hard pushing an agenda has never been a good way at convincing someone their mentality isn’t right, this will just re-enforce his mentality.
ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, I intended the question to come across as kind of a joke. My uncle doesn’t really spend time online, but he needed a computer to look for jobs. He is living in my basement though, so I do have some concern about what comes over our network. But I wasn’t planning to actually do anything beyond my typical pc setup.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Your situation just got a whole lot easier. No need to block right wing sites on his PC, just block them on your network.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If it is your house and internet you could setup pihole and block sites through that. If the uncle doesn’t like it tell him it is your house your rules.
hisao@ani.social 1 day ago
If you think some of the opinions he’s getting on the internet are propaganda/untrue/manipulation, you should explain it to him. You don’t have any moral right to sneakily hide/block anything from other person just because you have different views.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 23 hours ago
Some people just reach a point in life where their brains are just incapable of learning empathy. I would just cut ties if you can. Lile what happens when they wanna watch fox news and then it doesn’t work? They’ll just bother you again saying “the computer is broken”.
Long story about my family (its gonna bore you to death)
My entire family (aside from my brother) is just sitting in the living room warching content spoonfed by WeChat, about China’s military strength, something about “using military” to “resolve” the Taiwan issue, and since we are in the United States, there are also some anti-Democrat rhetoric, something like “NYC Dems RUINS city, by inviting DANGEROUS MIGRANTS” (but written in Chinese of course). Oh did I mention my family are immigrants? None of us are born here. My dad and grandmother who lives with us are still a non-citizens. and I heard my dad several times complaining about the “illegals” “taking away resources from society”. Blocking WeChat isn’t gonna work since the main reason they use their phone is to access WeChat, its not really a phone anymore, its a WeChat Terminal. I guess the language barrier has a lot to do with this. I mean there are also Taiwanese news, but they instinctively don’t trust anything from HK, or Taiwan because they have been programmed to ignore those “evil rebel secessionists” so only what comes from Beijing is considered the truth. And what’s worse, there are some “influencer” bullshit with videos teaching people how to parents. Basically a bunch of filial piety shit and advocacy of corporal punishment if their children “misbehaves”, “video games are bad”, “work harder”, “if you spend you free time to relax enjoy yourself, you’re wasting your life”, a whole bunch of bullshit, on par with the western Youtube “influencers” acting like some sort of gurus. Which is probably why I never had much of “happy memories” growing up, life is so fucking miserable because of propaganda and these “influencers”. Why the fuck is it still okay to hit your children, wtf society? I just facepalm and don’t even bother, they’re too deep into the propaganda machine. All I said to them is: “if y’all don’t wanna get deported, y’all better hope Harris wins”. Welp, I guess we’re in the dark timeline. So… Roll the dice. Deportations? Or perhaps cecot? Gitmo? Their small bussiness and all their assets surely are gonna get confiscated ironically by accusations of being “CCP Spies” (they’re not spies lol, just idiots that watch too much WeChat, but surely that would be a convienient excuse by the tyrant in chief) Sometimes all you have to hope is for them to die, so the next generation take the mantle and can fix this. As for my brother, he’s in some conspiracy rabbit hole, instead of the tyoical propaganda, he’s inventing wacho theories about the world, so not much better: TLDR: My whole family is just so fucked up, guess that explains where my anxiety and depression came from, this shit does really run in the family.
otp@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
If he’s living with you, you could try to block it at the router/firewall level.
On the machine, I’d just make it really slow rather than block it outright. Make it as unpleasant as possible to access those sites without blocking them outright. Making them slow makes it look like the sites suck. Blocking them makes it look like you did it or some conspiracy thing.
But if he lives with you, blocking them from your network is perfectly ethical imo
CandleTiger@programming.dev 1 day ago
If you’re really going to do this (questionable imo) then you’d need to find some kind of list that gets updated automatically. Because if you just make fox and OAN suck he’s more likely to find some other, worse thing you never heard of.
But if you do do this behind his back and he notices, you can pretty much forget about him ever trusting you for anything again. Those are the stakes.