this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
840 points (99.4% liked)
me_irl
7947 readers
1468 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I thought the meme was about ads on torrent tracker sites.
In theory, copyright infringement is committed by the uploader, not the downloader. As such, torrenting is more dangerous if you allow it to seed instead of just leach.
Depends on the country
I mean there's more malicious threat actors involved in pirate streaming largely because it's actually very expensive to do. People aren't as likely to do it out of spite or a desire to share like on torrent sites. They must stay profitable against all odds or likely get arrested.
The ads on pirate streaming sites are often the worst out there. It's one of the few places you're still likely to find malicious code hidden in popup or banner ads. Everything else has gotten too corporate for that.
And if getting caught is what scares you about torrenting you can actually just not seed. It is an option, it's just a bit rude. Certainly not more rude than just expecting someone else to host a free streaming site for you and not try to steal your data/money/identity though.
I'm actually pretty sure this meme was made about pirate streaming sites. Hence the direct comparison saying that streaming sites inject more ads in the same way that pirate sites do. In fact I've seen almost this exact meme on Reddit and the every comment in that thread was about streaming sites because that's what they all assumed it was about, because that's what piracy is to them. I was being quite literal and direct when I brought up Reddit's take on this.