Hey there! Welcome to my weird little corner of Tumblr where I will be making various technology tutorials with visual and written instructions. Guides will mostly be for Windows and Android devices, Windows software, Android apps, 3D printers, and PC games and modding via Steam. || Header image is a joke from one of my favorite movies ever, Kung Fury (r.i.p. the sequel).
Hey guys! I'm Magnus, the man behind the blog. Currently in my late 20s, I'm a disabled trans man who's autistic, and my autism specialty is technology (as you've probably guessed)!
Tutorial Masterlist Here
Buy me a coffee
Feel free to request tutorials or guides, or ask questions about things you'd like to know.
I'm making this blog because I've seen how inaccessible technology is being made for users by developers and big corporations, especially with planned obsolescence, enshittification, and other various means, and because I myself and a lot of friends I've grown up with, had technology used against us for terrible purposes, that I'd love to share ways you can be safe, and make your personal technology suited to your various needs without being subjected to the whims of developers and corporations that never have the users' best interests in mind.
There is also a lot of hesitation and anxiety surrounding technology, but I promise it doesn't need to be this big, scary thing. I want my guide to be a sense of assurance for people to both see and understand why and how fixes and programming are done so that you can confidently make things more accessible, and possibly long-lasting, for yourself. Technology should be available to everyone, and no one should limit our accessibility or understanding of it!
My guides will include both written descriptions and visuals for ease of understanding, and explain the whys and whats of important steps in the tutorials. And while I may not have all the answers, I will do what's within my scope of knowledge to help!
Information about me below the cut.
So here's some info about me!
I began my obsession with tech at the ripe age of 2 when I watched my father use "ctrl + alt + del" on our family's Windows '98 computer! From then on, I knew for a fact that I wanted to learn all I could about computers, and half the time I knew more than even my technology teachers in grade school ever did. When my teachers or jobs had tech issues, I was the guy they called upon.
Fun fact: I almost failed computers class in 6th/7th grade because I have a deformed pinky finger that can't reach for proper touch typing. Yes, they wanted to fail me. For not typing the way they wanted me to. That's all.
I'm a metalhead, with my favorite subgenres being power metal, symphonic metal, viking metal, and folk metal! A few favorite bands of mine would be:
Wind Rose, Rhapsody of Fire, Dragonforce, Amon Amarth, Brothers of Metal, Ensiferum, Blind Guardian
I do a lot of Renaissance Faire stuff, and LARPing, always as a Dwarf because I'm not even 5ft tall, and I'm extremely crafty. I'm a great axe thrower, too. Sometimes I think I'm just a Tolkien Dwarf stuck in modern Earth somehow. /jk
I am also a published author! Currently have 2 books in print, and am working on a third. I write mostly high fantasy, sci-fi, space fantasy, and dystopian sci-fi.
My favorite videogames are Skyrim, Destiny 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Pokémon, and Minecraft. You can probably guess that I love modding. (I really do! If a game supports mods, I'm more inclined to buy it tbh.)
I have a son. His name is Patron (said like the tequila), and he is enormous! I could talk about him way more than myself because he is everything to me.
we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason
i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3
unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it
i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map
i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs
this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.
crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.
just saw a 'comments' tab on someones blog you know where the following and likes tabs would be if enabled and it was just showing all the replies theyve made on peoples posts. this is fascinating when did this feature come out
if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.
if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to
PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply
figured i'd get the word out bc i have not seen a single mention of this and i'm sure there are plenty of people who maybe comment on things they don't want on display for everyone to see on their blog lol. you can still look at your replies with it toggled off just no one else can, like locking the following and likes list
so for some reason this feature was actually announced on the tumblr engineering blog. interesting choice not to reblog it to the staff or tumblr blog, esp considering they asked for user input on how to implement it, but i suppose considering the response to the last update maybe the replies would be too overwhelming...
so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts
posts you comment on may show on your followers 'for you' page if you leave your replies publically available. they may, in the future, show in on your followers dashboard if your follower goes to their dash settings and enables this. apparently, if your likes are enabled, your followers can already see those on the dash if they've gone into preferences and selected to do so, which I was unaware of, and that seems to be disabled at default, but it's possible i disabled it previously and forgot about it ig
"This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking."
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise t
I WONDER WHY HEALTHCARE DATA IS SO LIMITED. HEY HAS ANYONE EVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHY WE DON'T HAVE COMPLETELY OPEN PLATFORMS FOR HEALTH DATA. AND WHY IT'S A BAD IDEA TO HAVE WRITE PRIVILEGES VIA SOME WEB INTERFACE TO MEDICAL RECORDS. HAS ANYONE EVER WONDERED.
You know, I'm glad Epic put so much time into making mychart extremely secure, even with all the health systems who configure them like a drunk monkey. it would be a shame if
hmm hey what do we think 'read local passwords' does
feed healthcare data to openclaw openclaw safe for 2FA codes and passwords in plaintext nothing bad will happen to your passwords and 2FA ccodes if you feed them to openclaww
What many users may not know about MyChart providedby EpicSystems is that MyChart providedby EpicSystems is actually kind of like a local instance that your healthcare org runs, not a "Sign in once and see everything" type of deal (unless you have Care Everywhere, and then it maybe can be. But it Depends.)
Why is that you might ask. Well you see. There are many Rules and Laws and Regulations about the use and exchange of personal healthcare data.
Which is why of course this guy, seeing a well-thought-out and tested technical position, decided "what if i get all of them at once and also the 2FA codes and stored them ALL in the same place with no encryption whatsoever"
GIVE OPENCLAW ACCESS TO YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING EMAIL AND MEDICAL RECORDS NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN IF YOU FEED YOUR ENTIRE BROWSER CACHE NAD PASSWORD KEY STORE INTO OPE NCLAW
Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.
AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.
Authors have until March 30th, 2026 (That is just 9 days as of this reblog, which I am posting on March 21st, 2026) to file their claim against Anthropic to be reimbursed up to $3,000 per work found in the list.
Updated February 18, 2026 IMPORTANT: The Claims Deadline Is March 30 Background Bartz v. Anthropic is one of the major copyright lawsuits b
Please click the above link for all of the exact details of how to file a claim and to check for your works, and share this post as far and wide as you can before March 30th, 2026!
My blog is a place to learn about technology. ETHICAL technology. Generative AI has never been about ethics, and in fact, has defied practically every good moral standard one can possibly imagine. I sincerely hope to see this settlement go through the fullest extent, especially considering I am a published author, and professional artist of various mediums. Generative AI was always about satisfaction regardless of the cost in multiple ways. Now shit hits the fan, and rightly so.
TEMPORARY TAMPERMONKEY ROLLBACK PATCH FOR TUMBLR NOTES (BETA)
Its definitely not perfect because the note aggregates are still proving to be a real son of a bitch to fix (if anyone wants to help patch that youre more than welcome) but it should at least preserve the original note count and get rid of the extra note bars. All i could do with page-context injection plus DOM/network monkey-patching
firefox: Install tampermonkey, save this code as Tumblr Unfucker-0.2.0.user.js and import it into that extension. Refresh tumblr and it should work correctly
unironically i think we need to bring back computer labs because APPARENTLY some people WERENT taught basic computer literacy and internet safety in school
things about computers/the internet i think kids should be formally taught in schools because theyre important to know and the amount of soon to be grown adults i know who know NOTHING about any of these is quite frankly almost all of them (and resources to learn if you dont know these things, because its never to late to get better with computers)
how to troubleshoot by yourself when you have a technical problem
what common file types are
some very basics on how to use ""developer tools"" on your computer (because i cant think of a better way to refer to them) like task manager and command prompt (and their mac equivalents, terminal and activity monitor ofc)
how to read and understand a privacy policy and what your personal data is, as well as what it being collected actually means and steps you can take to keep it private
how to understand terms of service
(hey. if you have trouble with reading legalese and worry about being able to understand these policies anyways, here's a site that gives basic summaries of privacy policies and ToS)
what a cookie actually is
internet privacy and your digital footprint!! seriously i dont know why we stopped teaching people that they shouldnt be putting their entire real identity online in a world where your online actions can ruin you irl
basic safety measures like antivirus software (and why you should use it or if the built in one on windows or mac is enough for you) and backing up your computer (also a mac guide)
common keyboard shortcuts (and on mac)
as an additional note: things i think everyone should know on computers and the internet but schools may bit hesitant to teach about for whatever moral/legal standards schools pretend to operate on
vpns and adblockers! (btw for most of these where you can pay for things im purposefully not recommending any specific software but seriously just use ublock origin for an adblocker)
how to not get a virus while pirating something
what a temporary email is and when to use one
red flags that you shouldn't trust a website (and how to quickly check the security of a site)
what javascript on a website does and how to disable it to get around paywalls
ok one last addition! if you want to take it one level higher, i think learning the very basics of at least one programming language is good for people. it makes computers less scary and it makes you feel very cool, and a lot of people get discouraged about it because it seems overly complicated and hard to learn outside a formal classroom setting, so heres some resources for learning the very basics of python (because i consider it the easiest language to learn and knowing one language will make it easier to learn others)
an online compiler so you dont need to download anything or worry about running code directly on your computer if that makes you nervous
a basic video guide to introduce you to python and walk you through beginner steps
a guide to some syntax and commands you should know (this was literally my lifeline in my first CS class)
some performance tasks to give you things to code to practice and assess yourself
How to customize Windows 10/11 and remove annoying features
Have you grown tired of Windows 10/11 showing internet search results instead of the files on your computer when you're using the search function? Are you annoyed with Copilot, Cortana, and other AI features being shoved down your throat, and want them gone? Would you like to stop seeing ads in the file explorer, and stop being asked to back up data to OneDrive?
Let's look into Winaero Tweaker!
Winaero Tweaker is a 3rd-party program (meaning it wasn't developed by Microsoft or Windows, but rather by Windows users), and it allows you to customize your personal computer in endless ways. Most features are self-explanatory, but I'll be discussing the ones I think will be most helpful to users.
First off, download Winaero Tweaker from their official website, and you'll see it's in a .zip file. Extract the contents, or just run the setup.exe file. The setup wizard will display two installation options, but the one you'll want is probably the "Normal mode" since it'll be easiest to manage accessing and uninstalling. Finish setting up the program, and then run it.
When you first run Winaero Tweaker, you'll see this. It will show you a layout with all the customizable options on the lefthand scroll panel, and on the righthand side will be the information about each option, and what all it will do.
As you'll notice, there are dozens of different features to choose from, but you don't need to understand what all of them do. Instead, I will go into a multitude of options that I think most users could make use of. When you select any features, you don't need to save the settings or anything. The changes will automatically take effect, save for a few that may display a notification as seen below, where it will notify you that you'll have to either log out and back in, or restart, for the change to take effect. Your best bet is probably to select "I'll do it myself later" until you've edited all features you desire, and then you can log out/restart.
First off is disabling ads in Windows 10/11, disabling unwanted apps/programs from being installed, and disabling the backups to OneDrive. Windows likes to put a bunch of random games or other bloatware onto your computer with each update, and it really REALLY wants people to use their OneDrive feature for absolutely everything possible, which is unfortunate because data clouds are easy to hack, and you're putting your files at risk when using them. Your computer's built-in storage works perfectly fine, and is much more secure than leaving your files out in the open for anyone to access.
Under the section labeled "Behavior", you will see the choices for "Ads and Unwanted Apps", and "Disable User Folder Backup to OneDrive".
Using the ads customization as an example, here's what you'll see, and what is available to you. Winaero Tweaker allows you to select what features you want to enable or disable, and if you check the overall heading box like I do here, then it'll select all features beneath it.
Has your Windows computer ever asked you to finish setting it up even though you've had that thing for gods know how long and there's nothing left to set up? You can stop it from asking that as well! This feature is listed under "Boot and Logon", but there are some other features you may find helpful as well such as requiring CTRL + ALT + DEL to log into your PC, or allowing the use of the NumLock to use your numpad instead when logging in.
Now, one of the other best features available is that you can get rid of Copilot! Yes, that means no AI-assistant crap in your Windows experience!
You can also force Windows to only search files on your computer when you type things into the Windows search bar, instead of pulling results from the internet with keywords you type.
To do this, scroll to the "Desktop and Taskbar" section. There you'll want to check on the features especially labeled "Disable Copilot", and "Disable Web Search". Select the applicable components on the righthand side, and you'll get the desired effects.
You can also, on Windows 10 at least (I don't have Windows 11 so I'm not sure if you can there), uninstall Copilot and OneDrive entirely from your computer. To do this, go to "Settings", and select "Apps". Then you'll see a section that shows what installed programs you have. I don't want to give away what I have on my computer, but in the list, which is alphabetical, you'll find Copilot and OneDrive. Click on the three dots that appear when you hover over each one, and click to uninstall them.
If you use Microsoft Edge, there's a lot of annoying features that this program lets you circumvent and disable as well.
If you want your file explorer to stop searching the internet as well, and only search for the files on your computer, you can easily fix that by scrolling down to the section labeled "File Explorer". The feature you'll want is the one labeled "Enable Classic Search", and then tick the box on the righthand side.
If you've ever used a removable drive such as a USB or SD card, you've probably been a victim of Windows deleting the data on there permanently. If you select "Enable Recycle Bin for removable drives", then instead of deleting the removable drive's files permanently, they will be moved to your computer's recycling bin instead so that, if needed, you can restore them easily. You don't need to worry about accidentally permanently deleting your removable drive's files anymore.
If you're tired of Cortana and all its features, feel free to disable that as well under "Windows Apps".
Again, Winaero Tweaker will tell you to restart after you select to disable Cortana, but you can wait until later if you so choose.
Do you miss the classic Windows Paint? You can restore that! Under the final section labeled "Get Classic Apps", you can select "Enable Classic Paint" and you'll be able to relive those cozy days of using MS Paint to your heart's content!
So go through the list of features, and see what you personally prefer to customize. If you're very tech-savvy, then a lot of cool features in the "Behaviors" and "Boot and Logon" section will appeal to you so that you can get things like explanations for BSOD, and always run CMD Prompt as administrator.
When you've customized Winaero Tweaker to your liking, simply close out of it, and log out/restart your computer accordingly if needed, then be on your way! Keep your Windows personal, and don't let annoying bloatware and other unwanted features ruin the experience for you!
If you like what I do, please consider buying me a coffee
How to customize Windows 10/11 and remove annoying features
Have you grown tired of Windows 10/11 showing internet search results instead of the files on your computer when you're using the search function? Are you annoyed with Copilot, Cortana, and other AI features being shoved down your throat, and want them gone? Would you like to stop seeing ads in the file explorer, and stop being asked to back up data to OneDrive?
Let's look into Winaero Tweaker!
Winaero Tweaker is a 3rd-party program (meaning it wasn't developed by Microsoft or Windows, but rather by Windows users), and it allows you to customize your personal computer in endless ways. Most features are self-explanatory, but I'll be discussing the ones I think will be most helpful to users.
First off, download Winaero Tweaker from their official website, and you'll see it's in a .zip file. Extract the contents, or just run the setup.exe file. The setup wizard will display two installation options, but the one you'll want is probably the "Normal mode" since it'll be easiest to manage accessing and uninstalling. Finish setting up the program, and then run it.
When you first run Winaero Tweaker, you'll see this. It will show you a layout with all the customizable options on the lefthand scroll panel, and on the righthand side will be the information about each option, and what all it will do.
As you'll notice, there are dozens of different features to choose from, but you don't need to understand what all of them do. Instead, I will go into a multitude of options that I think most users could make use of. When you select any features, you don't need to save the settings or anything. The changes will automatically take effect, save for a few that may display a notification as seen below, where it will notify you that you'll have to either log out and back in, or restart, for the change to take effect. Your best bet is probably to select "I'll do it myself later" until you've edited all features you desire, and then you can log out/restart.
First off is disabling ads in Windows 10/11, disabling unwanted apps/programs from being installed, and disabling the backups to OneDrive. Windows likes to put a bunch of random games or other bloatware onto your computer with each update, and it really REALLY wants people to use their OneDrive feature for absolutely everything possible, which is unfortunate because data clouds are easy to hack, and you're putting your files at risk when using them. Your computer's built-in storage works perfectly fine, and is much more secure than leaving your files out in the open for anyone to access.
Under the section labeled "Behavior", you will see the choices for "Ads and Unwanted Apps", and "Disable User Folder Backup to OneDrive".
Using the ads customization as an example, here's what you'll see, and what is available to you. Winaero Tweaker allows you to select what features you want to enable or disable, and if you check the overall heading box like I do here, then it'll select all features beneath it.
Has your Windows computer ever asked you to finish setting it up even though you've had that thing for gods know how long and there's nothing left to set up? You can stop it from asking that as well! This feature is listed under "Boot and Logon", but there are some other features you may find helpful as well such as requiring CTRL + ALT + DEL to log into your PC, or allowing the use of the NumLock to use your numpad instead when logging in.
Now, one of the other best features available is that you can get rid of Copilot! Yes, that means no AI-assistant crap in your Windows experience!
You can also force Windows to only search files on your computer when you type things into the Windows search bar, instead of pulling results from the internet with keywords you type.
To do this, scroll to the "Desktop and Taskbar" section. There you'll want to check on the features especially labeled "Disable Copilot", and "Disable Web Search". Select the applicable components on the righthand side, and you'll get the desired effects.
You can also, on Windows 10 at least (I don't have Windows 11 so I'm not sure if you can there), uninstall Copilot and OneDrive entirely from your computer. To do this, go to "Settings", and select "Apps". Then you'll see a section that shows what installed programs you have. I don't want to give away what I have on my computer, but in the list, which is alphabetical, you'll find Copilot and OneDrive. Click on the three dots that appear when you hover over each one, and click to uninstall them.
If you use Microsoft Edge, there's a lot of annoying features that this program lets you circumvent and disable as well.
If you want your file explorer to stop searching the internet as well, and only search for the files on your computer, you can easily fix that by scrolling down to the section labeled "File Explorer". The feature you'll want is the one labeled "Enable Classic Search", and then tick the box on the righthand side.
If you've ever used a removable drive such as a USB or SD card, you've probably been a victim of Windows deleting the data on there permanently. If you select "Enable Recycle Bin for removable drives", then instead of deleting the removable drive's files permanently, they will be moved to your computer's recycling bin instead so that, if needed, you can restore them easily. You don't need to worry about accidentally permanently deleting your removable drive's files anymore.
If you're tired of Cortana and all its features, feel free to disable that as well under "Windows Apps".
Again, Winaero Tweaker will tell you to restart after you select to disable Cortana, but you can wait until later if you so choose.
Do you miss the classic Windows Paint? You can restore that! Under the final section labeled "Get Classic Apps", you can select "Enable Classic Paint" and you'll be able to relive those cozy days of using MS Paint to your heart's content!
So go through the list of features, and see what you personally prefer to customize. If you're very tech-savvy, then a lot of cool features in the "Behaviors" and "Boot and Logon" section will appeal to you so that you can get things like explanations for BSOD, and always run CMD Prompt as administrator.
When you've customized Winaero Tweaker to your liking, simply close out of it, and log out/restart your computer accordingly if needed, then be on your way! Keep your Windows personal, and don't let annoying bloatware and other unwanted features ruin the experience for you!
If you like what I do, please consider buying me a coffee
Tech companies have discovered a new anti-pattern recently and its called violating your muscle memory by putting links to shitty features nobody likes where the most commonly used button used to be
An ad popping up a few seconds after everything else has loaded, pushing everything downwards and moving itself precisely into the spot you were just in the process of clicking.
I got another spam comment today on AO3, and I want to share it as a PSA. But before I do, I want you to understand that you SHOULD NOT DO what this comment is asking. Ok? Ok.
See that bit at the bottom? Don't do that. Insert ParamedicGuy.gif going "Don't."
Other malicious spam comments I've gotten seemed designed to make an author question their writing, or outright encourage them to delete their stories from AO3. This one is different, in that it tries to get you to destroy the work on your own computer.
If you ran that command, it basically locates your Documents folder, then deletes everything in it, including all subfolders. It also does it without any prompt, so you have no chance to second guess your actions.
This is just fucking trolling.
Coincidentally, we just did training on a cyberattack similar to this, called a ClickFix attack. You can read about how that works here.
As a general rule, if ANYONE or ANY WEBSITE tells you unsolicited* to do anything in Powershell, CMD RUN, command prompt, shell command, or something similar, DON'T.
*There are legit reasons for running commands in PowerShell or the command prompt, but in those cases you are likely seeking out a solution to a problem you are already experiencing. Don't just run random commands on your computer as recommended by some unlogged-in guest on a fan fiction site.
Always think and consider before taking action, and get a second opinion from a trusted source. When I got this comment I was pretty sure what the command would do, and it took me about three seconds of googling to confirm it.
as an IT guy I can confirm that this command WILL delete all your shit. DO NOT DO IT.
Here's a bit of a further breakdown for the ones curious about what the hell this command does.
What you're basically telling your PC if you ran this is "go into this folder (Documents) and then Recursively (for all sub-folders) Remove (delete) all files therein Forcefully (without any user input and also if a file was locked)."
The little "Exclude *.archiveofourown" they tack in there is just honestly absolutely diabolical if you don't know what you're looking at.
As an inexperienced user, you'll think "oh of course, exclude ao3, that's what I want!"
*.archiveofourown is a file ending, including any file title.
There are not archiveofourown files.
This is telling your PC to ignore files that don't exist.
Honestly, the gall of these trolls is astounding.
DO NOT DO THIS.
And as a further alarm bell, even if a well-meaning anon came to your comments to warn you:
why has ao3 not put out this warning officially?
this command is for Windows users. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO USE MAC OR LINUX?
Hope my humble knowledge was informative to someone. Stay safe, everyone.
The "Block AI Enhancements" toggle was originally introduced in Firefox 148 Nightly in January following significant community backlash afte
The Firefox "AI kill switch" is here.
Go to Settings > AI controls. There, you can toggle the "master kill switch" on to fully block all the features, which means two things:
you won't see them,
you can't even be asked about them.
The default state is, like before, "available". This means the features are NOT on by default (they never were), but Firefox will let you know about them where they exist (e.g. when you create your first tab group) so that you can choose to opt in.
Please note that Firefox for Android or iOS have never included AI features, so you won't see these settings on your smartphones or tablets.
Please also note that, unlike popular belief here on Tumblr, besides "chatbot in sidebar" (which is simply embedding the same page you'd have normally browsed to), none of these features have ever interacted with anything outside your PC, because they download a small model to your computer, to do everything locally. These small models have never been and are not downloaded until you explicitly agree to turn on one of the features.
For those who are unaware, there's been ads for a/i chat/bots going around on Tumblr. Specifically for "shapes.inc".
Obviously this is immediately worrying as chat/bots prey on low mental wellbeing, loneliness and someone's desire to interact, to then make them dependant and use their services more.
However, the ads themselves have stopped being quiet about that aspect. Here's one of the most worrying ads (aside the one that legitimately encourages users to make chat/bots of their friends' OCs without their consent, while also trying to claim that its "ethically sourced" - not telling us WHAT'S even sourced here - and therefore "guilt free".)
This is disgusting, plain and simple.
Not only is it directly preying on loneliness outright - it's encouraging a user to make a bot out of someone real without their consent. Not even a friend, no - a MUTUAL. It's encouraging parasocial dependency - just LOOK at what the "OP" is saying here: "RESPOND" "DID YOU DIE?" "PLEASE" "I MISS YOU".
It's not just encouraging parasocial behaviours nor just dependency overall, but encouraging users to breach the others' privacy just so they can pretend they're speaking to them.
Ads like this should not be allowed anywhere. Tumblr needs to get rid of it outright before someone gets hurt.
Also, the censoring is to avoid search exploit spambots. Thank you.
ublock orgin removes sponsored tumblr posts, this works on desktop and on mobile
If you have an android phone, you can install firefox with ublock orgin and access tumblr through the browser. Reblogging things isn't as easy, but you can use tumblr without any ads. I believe if you use a DNS level ad-block you may also be able to use the app without ads but I haven't been able to test that myself as I don't use the app.
