AdBlock and Signal are for terrorists, according to French govt (2023) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q1hjmwLqe4

by pabs3 • 8 months ago

139 37 8 months ago

youtube.com

codetiger• 8 months ago

Ah, just when I thought I was saving the world with these tools.

necheffa• 8 months ago

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

aitchnyu• 8 months ago

If we cannot decide, we call them guerrillas - Ellie (fictional)/Carl Sagan

theoldgreybeard• 8 months ago

Guess I’m a terrorist.

senectus1• 8 months ago

we all are, anyone not in goverment is a terrorist.

BLKNSLVR3• 8 months ago

I'm a 3x terrorist because I also use GrapheneOS.

Seems a modern problem is the significant watering down of what "terrorist" means. If blocking ads has become three measure of a terrorist:

If everyone's a terrorist... No one is.

The word no longer has any meaning. Eventually there will be two labels to apply to everyone: "corporate sheep" and "terrorist".

In which case I will always strive towards terrorist.

WTF is going on with France?

marcus_holmes• 8 months ago

Not only France. As was always predicted to happen, governments are finding the allure of classifying undesirable organisations as terrorists too hard to resist. The UK with Palestine Action, the USA with the Muslim Brotherhood [0].

We need to repeal the War Against Terror acts that allow this to happen.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/desi...

thatguy0900• 8 months ago

The US has even moved on to "narcoterrorists", you can just blow those ones up whenever

broodbucket2• 8 months ago

GrapheneOS is moving their servers out of France if you weren't aware

ptek• 8 months ago

Was contracted to a New Zealand government department and all the Edge browsers had AdBlock installed by default. I guess the New Zealand government that I worked for is a terrorist organisation. The department that I worked for did take other peoples money though. (Won't give any more information than that).

broodbucket2• 8 months ago

They're terrorists for not having uBlock Origin instead

ghssds2• 8 months ago

Skip the video and read the source: https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembr...

PunchyHamster• 8 months ago

that would make DRMed games qualify under their definition of terrorism, because it's also using encryption and obfuscation

godelski• 8 months ago

I wonder what the "s" stands for in https...

yorwba2• 8 months ago

English version https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-o...

anigbrowl2• 8 months ago

I don't find any of this persuasive because nowhere does it articulate who or how the defendants came to be accused of anything in the first place. I can not make my mind about how to feel when the context is removed, even if I think the state's argument is entirely specious.

anonym29• 8 months ago

Increasingly seems like the French government are the real terrorists.

petre• 8 months ago

Which French government? Borne, Attal, Barnier, Bayrou, Lecornu I, II? Because they seem to all get a vote of no confidence lately. They're all on their way out.

Fnoord• 8 months ago

FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022) (ic3.gov) posted Sept 8, 2024, 230 comments [1]

Another fun one: Signal is the No. 1 downloaded app in the Netherlands. But why? | TechCrunch, from March 2 2025

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41483581

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/1j38sgw/signal_is_t...

rascul• 8 months ago

FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022) (ic3.gov) posted Sept 8, 2024, 230 comments [1]

Apparently not anymore. Unless there's a different, working URL.

BLKNSLVR3• 8 months ago

I wonder what danger there is in over-classifying terrorism.

If someone, as a purely theoretical example, feels as if they fall under various 'modern' classifications of terrorist, then it could break down certain walls of reasoning preventing them from participating in activities that would fall under the 'historic' classification of terrorist.

What I'm saying is: Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.

And that is a dead-fucking-wrong approach; 180 degrees away from the correct heading. Gross negligence.

Ylpertnodi• 8 months ago

Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.

That'll be almost all ruling parties, in almost all governments, in almost all countries. Especially since 2001.

BLKNSLVR3• 8 months ago

Yep. It bodes poorly!

Telaneo• 8 months ago

Statements like this are always funny to me. So I'm a terrorist/extremist for not wanting ads to be pushed in my face. I guess I am then. I'd rather adopt a label like that than give up what uBlock and the like have given me.

But what are then the people making the ads? In my head they are litterers, as they fill the public space with unwanted rubbish. But if I'm a terrorist, then these guys have to be on a whole other level. I sometimes think maybe 'rapists' is a suitable word, since they sure as fuck don't care about my consent when they push their rubbish on me. But in the worldview of the people who think I'm a terrorist for using uBlock, things are probably just all back to front.

Up is down, left is right.

derelicta• 8 months ago

You see, you are an economic terrorist in a way. By not watching ads, you do not want to consume more, and thus you are hurting economic growth!! Think of the shareholders!!!

nottorp3• 8 months ago

Incidentally, Youtube does not work for me any more with uBlock Origin and whatever the strict privacy settings do in Firefox. It loads the UI but doesn't play the video or run searches, at least.

647182836612• 8 months ago

Refresh the page a couple times to fix

nottorp3• 8 months ago

Doesn't seem to work for me. At least until I got tired of refreshing.

A few times i did see a still from the video for a fraction of a second, but then it got overwritten by nothingness.

Well, I wasn't much of a fan of watching videos when the same info can be conveyed in writing in 1/20 of the time. Now I just have more incentive not to bother.

GuB-42• 8 months ago

This is the kind of stories where I would like another angle.

First, to make things straight, neither Signal nor AdBlock are illegal in France, they are used by many without any problem. As in some other countries E2E encryption is sometimes attacked, and usually, it makes the news, but for now there is no problem using any privacy-focused app in France.

But, and I think it is what happened here, there is nothing stopping a prosecutor mentioning the use of such apps when making an argument in combination with other facts. It is like the use of cash. It is not illegal to use cash and possess large amounts of it (there are limits for large transactions though), but a prosecutor will certainly mention it if they can and it makes you more suspicious to justify an arrest. Not a conviction though, for a conviction, you need actual proof.

And of course, the defense attorney will point out the many legitimate uses of Signal as a way to discredit the accusation, this is the side we have here. A judge will hear both sides and settle the case in the end.

Not to say that there are not deeper political motivations, or that justice can't be corrupted, but I prefer not to make an opinion without hearing both sides.

AdBlock and Signal are for terrorists, according to French govt (2023) [video]

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