Recommendation to change default Diversion blocklists

[HairyA00]

I noticed that the default blocklist is StevenBlack's, which is great. But I suggest removing the "fakenews" variant. "fakenews" is a very political, biased category of domains to block, and no one will ever agree on which domains should and shouldn't be blocked. I noticed some websites on there that do not belong under the category of "fakenews", but I also don't feel like arguing with anyone. So I removed the Standard list in favor of the ones I mention below.

The standard should remove ads, malware, etc objectively, not censor the Internet subjectively.

The "standard" blocklists should be something like this:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts
https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt
https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/domains.hosts

None of those are 'subjective' lists, the likelihood of whitelisting is almost zero, and it stays out of politics.

Just my two cents; I have been running sinkholes for quite some time now, and I hardly ever whitelist or blacklist anything using those aforementioned lists. Worth noting though is that I do use a hosted whitelist:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anudeepND/whitelist/master/domains/whitelist.txt

In Diversion:
b > 1 > 1 > 2

 

[Beherit]

Thanks for informing me about this. Being one with zero interest in reading about politics and doing everything to avoid people pretending they are news reporters on social media, I made sure to have any and all fakenews blacklists included in Diversion.

 

[HairyA00]

Thanks for informing me about this. Being one with zero interest in reading about politics and doing everything to avoid people pretending they are news reporters on social media, I made sure to have any and all fakenews blacklists included in Diversion.

Heh, glad to inadvertently help. I mean, there is more you can block if you take a look at his repo: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Was just voicing my subjectivity feedback; ads/trackers/malware/etc are one thing. But blocking material that is subjective is another.

 

[Beherit]

Thanks @HairyA00. I took a look on the hosts files for fakenews.

I don't see any actual news sites in them, the overwhelming majority of the websites listed are polish (.pl) scam sites promising "alternative" cancer cures. I'm guessing its made by someone in Poland and they should have no impact at all for users living outside Poland.

 

[HairyA00]

Thanks @HairyA00. I took a look on the hosts files for fakenews.

I don't see any actual news sites in them, the overwhelming majority of the websites listed are polish (.pl) scam sites promising "alternative" cancer cures. I'm guessing its made by someone in Poland and they should have no impact at all for users living outside Poland.

I'm not going to call out any names of websites, but there are at least two non-Polish websites that are not spam-related that were blocked. I'm sure there are more; my suggestion was simply to remove those alternative flags.

 

[ScottW]

I looked through the "fakenews" extension list. I find it highly beneficial despite being (mis-)labeled with what has become a politically-charged term in the last 2.5 years.

The vast majority of sites on the list are simply scam sites. I wouldn't label them as "fake news" or overtly political -- but rather as simple scams, like the phony cancer cure sites @Beherit mentioned. Sites that are selling a phony product, and which are often used to serve up advertising for said product. And there are indeed some listed that are "fake" versions of well known news organizations, using domain names crafted to fool people (i.e., one extra letter or different domain suffix).

There are a small number of exceptions where I see the point @HairyA00 makes. Sites that, while heavily opinion based and selective/slanted in their coverage, I wouldn't label as "scams" but rather as "political opinion" or "political agenda" sites. Those really are a different category than the bulk of the list. Like @HairyA00, I don't want anyone making those choices for me -- BUT these are exceptions and are not reflected in the list's content as a whole.

The bulk of the fakenews extension targets scam sites. It is poorly named, as the present day connotation of "fake news" has a political slant -- but I don't see any sign that the list is deliberately curated around any particular political viewpoint. I think the benefit of having all the scam sites blocked outweighs the possibility of a couple false positives.

Any list will occasionally block some content that particular users find desirable. Such exceptions are why whitelists were invented.

 

[HairyA00]

I looked through the "fakenews" extension list. I find it highly beneficial despite being (mis-)labeled with what has become a politically-charged term in the last 2.5 years.

The vast majority of sites on the list are simply scam sites. I wouldn't label them as "fake news" or overtly political -- but rather as simple scams, like the phony cancer cure sites @Beherit mentioned. Sites that are selling a phony product, and which are often used to serve up advertising for said product. And there are indeed some listed that are "fake" versions of well known news organizations, using domain names crafted to fool people (i.e., one extra letter or different domain suffix).

There are a small number of exceptions where I see the point @HairyA00 makes. Sites that, while heavily opinion based and selective/slanted in their coverage, I wouldn't label as "scams" but rather as "political opinion" or "political agenda" sites. Those really are a different category than the bulk of the list. Like @HairyA00, I don't want anyone making those choices for me -- BUT these are exceptions and are not reflected in the list's content as a whole.

The bulk of the list targets scam sites. It is poorly named, as the present day connotation of "fake news" has a political slant -- but I don't see any sign that the list is deliberately curated around any particular political viewpoint. I think the benefit of having all the scam sites blocked outweighs the possibility of a couple false positives.

Any list will occasionally block some content that particular users find desirable. Such exceptions are why whitelists were invented.

Yep, agreed. That's why I listed my suggested 'out of the box' experience above. I've never white/blacklisted anything using those lists, but I do use a hosted whitelist.