Piracy Is Morally Correct

P.S.A.: it's always morally correct to pirate media and block advertisements because even if you obey, they still act like assholes to you by taking away your freedoms, abusing and not securing your personal information, restricting you from using better third party clients, forcing you to be always connected, still giving you ads even if you pay, not letting you own anything, legally scaring developers with C&D's, preventing you from sharing, using dark patterns to make you spend more money or time, suspending your account for bullshit reasons, suddenly paywalling basic features, limiting how many devices you can use, randomly deleting your stuff, raising prices after killing the competition and the list goes on and on... Stand up for yourself and own your digital property! Unless your target is a small indie, piracy does no real damage, it only gives you better stuff and more control. Support only who deserves it. Copying and pasting is easy and free! Sharing is caring! Turn on those torrent seed boxes! Log into Soulseek! Do piracy, kids! Arrgghhh! It doesn't matter if I don't look like a real pirate.

A PSA-style meme argues that pirating media and blocking advertisements are morally justified because large digital platforms restrict users, exploit their data, use dark patterns, and take away ownership and control. A cute cartoon cat-like pirate reinforces the message with “Do piracy, kids!” while joking that it does not look like a real pirate. It is used as an anti-DRM, anti-advertising, pro-privacy reaction, especially when platforms worsen services or lock basic features behind paywalls.

• @gentoomemes / 4911 2023-06-11