Post #4472960
2026-08-09 23:44 UTC
I would not be surprised to learn there’s already a term for this, and would be even less surprised to learn that it is a bad idea, or that it is ineffective at preventing bad behavior.
Hell, I can even think of some new harms that filling the internet with such meat-shields might cause.
But if there’s one thing I know about the fediverse, it’s that if I say something stupid out loud, a thousand of you will promptly correct me, and I might learn something interesting. :)
Replies (1)
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@Haste@mastodon.social 2026-08-09 23:46
All that is to say, if it is possible to block crawlers at all, it seems the primary reason we have not all done so is because we are all holding ourselves hostage to the idea of future, human traffic. And unfortunately, that arrangement is called an advertisement. (I find that as distasteful as you do, I promise). And the more I think about it, the more absurd it seems that, say, a classic banner ad circa 1995 would contain all of a websites content, too. What if one were to separate them?