Harkening back to a not-so-distant past where duels settled arguments, [Joris Wegner] put a twist on the idea of quarrels with a gun that damages your online persona rather than your physical one. The controversy of social media is nothing new, but most people today have a large percentage of their lives online. A gun that can destroy your social media by deleting your account feels far more potent than most would like to admit.
At the heart of this build, each gun contains a battery-powered ESP8266 that connects to another ESP8266 in the gun case, which in turn is connected to a computer. When a trigger is pulled, the computer deletes the Facebook account with the credentials stored on the gun. It offers a new look at the importance of one’s social media presence. While the concept of being attacked on social media is nothing new, the idea of digitally dying on social media is perhaps something new. This particular project was put on hold when [Joris] realized that Facebook accounts can be reactivated after 30 days, which renders the gesture less potent.
Playful and interesting twists on the idea of a gun are nothing new here on Hackaday. We’ve seen also [Joris’] work before with a MIDI-controlled video distortion box.
Re: the 30 day recovery, as well as the delete, the code could change the account password to something random and change the email address to prevent recovery.
just what i was thinking
An analogous Science Fiction story is “The Dueling Machine”, by Ben Bova and Myron R. Lewis. Gugenberg.org #30796.
When I read “A gun that damages your online persona rather than your physical one” my first thought was that it tweets something that gets you canceled. 🤣
Hmm. Deleting your facenook account… I see this more as a medicine than a curse. I’ve deleted my facebook account more than 4 years ago. What a relief!
That was my first thought as well!
Would like to see a version 2 where it uses a slide switch positioned where the hammer would be for realism.
I second that
Now I really want a sniper version of this where I can delete random peoples accounts from a distance, without them ever knowing what happened. Sounds grumpy? Maybe so, but I am pretty much fed up with people checking into their social media accounts instead of just climbing the frikken stairs they are actually supposed to be climbing that very moment. Also idiots on electric scooters Tik-Toking instead of watching the traffic. So yeah, someone please make a better version of this SMG SocialMedia Gun.
Now I’m imagining an episode of Black Mirror about a gun which wipes out a person’s ‘social credit score’ and ruins their life. 😬
lol, I can even imagine the fictional explanation of how it works… Like it uses facial recognition to identify the person ‘shot’ and tasks a botnet to fabricating evidence and making false claims against them in the social credit system. This shit writes itself! 😂
> Everyone wears a smartwatch / implant / etc. all the time, it’s either a legal requirement or a strong social norm
> They track social credit, etc. so they’re designed not to be jailbreakable
> The “gun” uses RF and a directional antenna to trigger anti-tamper mechanisms, causing it to self-destruct
> Everyone can now see the gap in your location history, which usually indicates a crime or something else socially undesirable, and nobody’s having the “it just shut off!” excuse