I'm just sad I'm too young to have ever seen that old internet, and what it was like... Makes me more determined to try and steer the current internet back in that direction though.

The cost of consuming media doesn’t match its worth. I never used ad blockers until they became invasive and disruptive.

I meant to download from the official Microsoft site. Kudos on getting your mum on Linux! I was unable to keep mine on it : / Maybe I'm missing something, but this is from the "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices" section from the official Microsoft site, but I don't see any option to buy or mention of it: Before you begin downloading an ISO Make sure you have: An internet connection (internet service provider fees may apply). Sufficient data storage available on the computer, USB, or external drive you are downloading the .iso file to. A blank DVD disc with at least 8GB (and DVD burner) to create a bootable disc. We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted during installation. If you receive a “disc image file is too large” message while attempting to burn a DVD bootable disc from an ISO file, consider using a higher capacity Dual Layer DVD.

I have like a dozen Gmail accounts, and I know plenty of others who do too. Before I owned my own domain, I used the different accounts for different things.

Sauron Denies Request for Contract Information Reading a prepared statement from the tower of Barad-dûr, the Mouth of Sauron indicated today that the Dark Lord would not be complying with the demands of lawmakers to provide information on its contracts with the Trump Administration. The Messenger of Mordor further called the demands "ridiculous" and "unnecessary government intrusion into private affairs of Sauron, who does not answer to any higher authority, save that of his fallen master Morgoth." Furthermore, the statement chastised the lawmakers for contacting Sauron through the Palantir, which he described as "an illegal privacy breach," and said he planned to seek legal action for this invasion of his personal communications.

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Because there is profit in child exploitation.

I'll gladly give you a reason. I'm actually happy to articulate my stance on this, considering how much I tend to care about digital rights. Services that host files should not be held responsible for what users upload, unless: The service explicitly caters to illegal content by definition or practice (i.e. the if the website is literally titled uploadyourcsamhere[.]com then it's safe to assume they deliberately want to host illegal content) The service has a very easy mechanism to remove illegal content, either when asked, or through simple monitoring systems, but chooses not to do so (catbox does this, and quite quickly too) Because holding services responsible creates a whole host of negative effects. Here's some examples: Someone starts a CDN and some users upload CSAM. The creator of the CDN goes to jail now. Nobody ever wants to create a CDN because of the legal risk, and thus the only providers of CDNs become shady, expensive, anonymously-run services with no compliance mechanisms. You run a site that hosts images, and someone decides they want to harm you. They upload CSAM, then report the site to law enforcement. You go to jail. Anybody in the future who wants to run an image sharing site must now self-censor to try and not upset any human being that could be willing to harm them via their site. A social media site is hosting the posts and content of users. In order to be compliant and not go to jail, they must engage in extremely strict filtering, otherwise even one mistake could land them in jail. All users of the site are prohibited from posting any NSFW or even suggestive content, (including newsworthy media, such as an image of bodies in a warzone) and any violation leads to an instant ban, because any of those things could lead to a chance of actually illegal content being attached. This isn't just my opinion either. Digital rights organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have talked at length about similar policies before. To quote them: "When social media platforms adopt heavy-handed moderation policies, the unintended consequences can be hard to predict. For example, Twitter’s policies on sexual material have resulted in posts on sexual health and condoms being taken down. YouTube’s bans on violent content have resulted in journalism on the Syrian war being pulled from the site. It can be tempting to attempt to “fix” certain attitudes and behaviors online by placing increased restrictions on users’ speech, but in practice, web platforms have had more success at silencing innocent people than at making online communities healthier." Now, to address the rest of your comment, since I don't just want to focus on the beginning: I think you have to actively moderate what is uploaded Catbox does, and as previously mentioned, often at a much higher rate than other services, and at a comparable rate to many services that have millions, if not billions of dollars in annual profits that could otherwise be spent on further moderation. there has to be swifter and stricter punishment for those that do upload things that are against TOS and/or illegal. The problem isn't necessarily the speed at which people can be reported and punished, but rather that the internet is fundamentally harder to track people on than real life. It's easy for cops to sit around at a spot they know someone will be physically distributing illegal content at in real life, but digitally, even if you can see the feed of all the information passing through the service, a VPN or Tor connection will anonymize your IP address in a manner that most police departments won't be able to track, and most three-letter agencies will simply have a relatively low success rate with. There's no good solution to this problem of identifying perpetrators, which is why platforms often focus on moderation over legal enforcement actions against users so frequently. It accomplishes the goal of preventing and removing the content without having to, for example, require every single user of the internet to scan an ID (and also magically prevent people from just stealing other people's access tokens and impersonating their ID) I do agree, however, that we should probably provide larger amounts of funding, training, and resources, to divisions who's sole goal is to go after online distribution of various illegal content, primarily that which harms children, because it's certainly still an issue of there being too many reports to go through, even if many of them will still lead to dead ends. I hope that explains why making file hosting services liable for user uploaded content probably isn't the best strategy. I hate to see people with good intentions support ideas that sound good in practice, but in the end just cause more untold harms, and I hope you can understand why I believe this to be the case.