I’m in recovery and these alcohol ads are literally painful. Like one 30 second ad will make me spiral and I’ll need my antianxiety meds and my ESA. How do I stop the fucking algorithm?

For context I watch everything on my Xbox one because my laptop is broke

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    If you think it thinks you “want” (are susceptible to being propaganized into buying thing) these ads, look in the privacy settings to see if you can turn off personalized ads or reset your advertising ID

    Unlimited destruction on “advertisers” (slop psyop terrorists)

  • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    If you have a subscription to AdGuard (either the VPN or just the adblocker service), they’ll give you DNS and proxy servers that you can add to your router’s configuration that block all ads for all devices on your network. It’s awesome. It even works on mobile game ads. Worth every penny, in my opinion. There might be some free services out there that do the same thing.

  • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    Do you have access to any working computers? Even one without a functioning screen will do. If so, you can install Pi-hole on one and futz with your router, and that’ll block ads on everything on your network.

    Also apparently NextDNS will do it for you for $2/month, but that’s really just someone else’s Pi-hole (hehe).

  • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

    I think other people have already covered your options well.

    I just want to rant about how predatory marketing is under late capitalism. If we had a government that halfway cared about us - and not even in the “cared about our general wellbeing” sense but just the “cared about our cost to the government and potential negative impacts on the community” sense - then they would mandate that all advertising has blanket opt-outs for things that may trigger an addiction spiral such as alcohol or gambling ads.

    Would tons of people “exploit” this system to be free of gambling and alcohol ads? Yes. Good. But also wtf is your government doing where you can’t even say “Please don’t trigger me to spiral into addiction by shoving this shit in my face constantly”?

    Sorry that you’re going through this. I will there was something I could offer you besides righteous indignation and rants.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Also do something to occupy your mind.

      Not thinking about things doesn’t really work.

      It might be because I’m not particularly bright but I’d be doing complicated maths sums in my head to occupy all of my mental focus on something completely different so that I don’t get drawn into thinking about the thing and I don’t get caught in the Pink Elephant Paradox.

      Plus I might actually improve my mental calculation skills, which would be nice.