#in my old gaia days one subforum had an unnofficial motto that was “we dont click links” lmao

[pancakeke]

in the era of internet where forums reigned supreme in terms of socializing, it was not uncommon for trolls to do rickroll-style misleading links that actually directed to explicit porn or shock images. there were even sites that masked obviously undesirable urls with generated urls containing domains/text that looked totally innocuous. this way the troll's targets couldn't hover their cursors over a link and know what type of page they would actually walk into.

I think this scared a lot of young people into not clicking links and instead immediately distrusting any users trying to direct them offsite. also people made sure links actually contained what was claimed before sharing them.

I'm saying this because I think those trolls inadvertantly did the internet huge service by making people question the intent of anyone supposedly providing information (though not exactly question the legitimacy of info when a link actually directed to info, that's a whole other can of worms). since no one wanted to see a guy's entire open asshole all the time, they checked account creation dates, inspected urls, went out and looked for the same info on their own, etc. before believing someone's intent was genuine.

while the trolls' behavior was obviously super inappropriate, anecdotally it seemed to improve the critical thought in online idiots who only learn and change their behavior when an issue affects them personally lol