[nonethewiser]

>To play devil's advocate, I'm guessing if you can get users to type stuff they don't understand into cmd and regedit then you can do some pretty damaging stuff

Are you just playing devils advocate or do you actually believe this?

[Am4TIfIsER0ppos]

I believe you can convince people to hit Alt+F4 for the cheat menu in a video game and they will do it. Actually I think I told people that is how to votekick someone in BF1942 when they are being a dick (me). I believe you can tell people to delete system32 and they will do it. I believe you can tell people to do more damaging things and they will. I still think people should be able to say and do those things.

[ceejayoz]

In the early 2000s a newbie to our forums got computer advice to do something nasty to their BIOS. Months later they came back incandescent with anger. It happens.

[cwillu]

And? Is your answer to “some people gave malicious advice on the internet” _really_ to outlaw giving _any_ advice on the internet?

[ceejayoz]

No?

The poster upthread asserted it doesn't happen; I'm saying it does. I didn't propose a solution, and your proposal is clearly not acceptable.

[dylan604]

I had a friend that would allow her kids to watch YT videos. One day they were watching a video in my backseat as we were driving where I could hear the audio. The person was trying to tell the kids how to get free stuff for some game or other. The instructions provided had my jaw in my lap. This was years ago so I don't remember the exact details, but it was straight up instructions for installing malware.

[cwillu]

What's your point? It's surely not that giving instructions should be banned because it's possible to give malicious instructions, is it?

[dylan604]

The point is that it wasn't just possible, they flat out were giving malicious instructions. Not sure why there's resistance when we all know there's shit like this on YT. I'm not asking anyone to remove it or ban it or report it. I'm just retelling the story of the first time I heard something so blatant that my jaw dropped on this not being some random story from the internet. It was just shocking the first time I experienced it. There's nothing to be done other than try to inform others it happens, especially when it's someone/a parent that doesn't know what it means.