Ad hominem isn’t when you insult people AND make an argument its when you insult people INSTEAD of making an argument.

User initially believes that this is only a Linux issue because its almost entirely discussed on forums frequented by technical people who often use Linux whereas forums full of Windows gamers are equally effected but ignorant of the topic.

It’s a much higher risk than average because games are often abandoned within one year of release and still run as long as 10-15 years later and connects to the internet and other randos on the internet. See the Call of Duty games that allow you to take over the computer of anyone who connects to your online match. It greatly degrades the security of its users.

Technically lots of things people call “malware” don’t actually do any of those things. For instance they may hijack your default search engine, pop up ads, or otherwise monetize your computer at your expense. The category that was invented by ass coverers is “possibly unwanted program” but outside of those who worry about being sued by scumbags people colloquially refer to both what you call malware AND PUPs as "malware the root of which is “bad” after all. Language being descriptive not prescriptive I think this broader definition of malware is fine.

Do you remember when Sony released cds that when inserted into Windows computer auto ran an installer that installed a rootkit that made it impossible for Windows to see any processes or files that started with a certain sequence of characters instantly turning any malware that named its files or processes similarly powerful rootkit. Oh and it installed a cd driver that made it impossible to copy their music.

Suggested removal was a full reinstall of windows.

If they change the deal they should have to offer refunds. This makes it an expensive choice after the fact.

No its common for anti-cheat on Windows to have full root permission to your entire system Windows users are just on average less intelligent, less concerned about privacy, and, more ignorant about technology. This doesn’t mean using Windows makes you stupid its just the OS of choice for the stupid and ignorant.

Cats are obligate carnivores. It’s trivial to stroll into any store and get food that will make your cat healthy but its not clear how easy it is to get vegan food that will do the same. Seems like if you don’t believe in eating meat you should just not have a little carnivore in your home. For instance rabbits can be trained to live inside, cuddle with you, and poop in a box.

Already compressed files like video don’t meaningfully compress more. Compression isn’t magic.

Once you start hosting an instance that has open registration, it’s not just “their house” anymore. They are providing a service to people. They do so willingly. Arbitrairly blocking instances because you don’t know how something works and don’t bother to check it isn’t the way to host a free and open instance.

You seem to be uniquely bad at reading so this is comment is the start of this subthread you originally replied to. Nobody ever suggested they COULDN’T implement any rule they please. It was never a point anyone brought up for you to be refuting. It is literally you dishonestly trying to steer the discussion away from the actual point of discussing SHOULD they.

The discussion is not whether they can set those rules its should they and should we keep participating

So is discussion on the topic of piracy that doesn’t include actual links to content.

The law in the US is that you aren’t responsible for what your users post unless you are specifically legally notified and furthermore the communities at issue don’t host links to infringing content they host discussions on the topic

Feel free to leave if this is how you talk to people

They CAN do all of those things but people would be right to critique them for it. Freedom isn’t freedom from criticism or complaint. Furthermore they want this to be a functional community as much as their users do which is why this discussion even exists.

It would be preferable if you would lie less. Evil pirate uploads potentially_infringing.mp3 to to filehost. Filehost actually serves potentially_infringing.mp3, a community on db0 hosts a link to potentially_infringing.mp3, lemmy.world caches locally a copy of data from db0. Of those the one guy directly uploading the information is at risk of an extremely unlikely single digit thousands of dollars.

Nobody not even evil pirate himself is at risk of decades in prison or millions in debt. Companies responsibility basically ends at taking stuff down when specifically notified of infringing content.

Your argument is that user hosts infringing_song.mp3 on file_host, a community on lemmy.ml has a link to filehost and lemmy.world has a cached copy of the text containing the link to lemmy.ml which has a link to filehost and you think lemmy.world has legal exposure?

Those communities aren’t even on lemmy.world.

First of all so far as I know lemmy doesn’t actually host anything. A post which links to the actual host probably isn’t illegal most places.

Our cat of 19 years who just passed spent near every from too young to eat food to the equivalent of cat 92 either sleeping like a person often with his head on the edge of the pillow beside my wife or cuddled up to my legs. Even when I used to work nights and fall asleep on the couch he’d come and lay with me even though I moved around a LOT we’d constantly rotate with him at some weird angle.

That doesn’t imply it would be a good rule which is what we are disagreeing about. Pointing out they CAN have a rule is irrelevant.

Why is it necessary to count votes cast an unlimited time after posting. The best policy is to register votes in the UI for the user but silently ignore votes after max duration. So they can feel like they stuck it to you while not having an unreasonable effect. You could even detect and silently discard downvotes that matched that pattern or rate limit the downvotes against one party silently.