You’re thinking of the gyroscope, but no. Some phones have a dedicated proximity sensor for things like detecting if you’re in a call and have the phone up to your ear, but more and more phones (especially the budget ones) these days use a “virtual” proximity sensor which utilizes the front camera to perform the same function.
I’m pretty sure 1990 was ten years ago.
Blink twice if the raccoon on your head is controlling you.
Of course they’re claiming responsibility for the John Oliver thing. Considering their history, I doubt it. But even if they were involved, it’s the community at large that was responsible for the John Oliverification of Reddit.
Not sure if Firefox for iOS allows for extensions, but if it does, you can install Tampermokey on it and add the userscript. I’m using Hermit on Android to have kbin installed as a PWA, and it supports userscripts in the premium version (a one-time payment). Works well so far.
https://fedia.io is the other big kbin instance. There are probably others, but they’re either not as well-known yet or are personal instances.
~~Not always. More and more phones in the budget range utilize a “virtual” proximity sensor which actually uses the camera for the same function.~~