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Exactly. I remember a website from the late 90s that let anonymous users control an LED sign in some shopping mall in Japan. More often than not there were things like swastikas and penises on the board. This type of behavior is nothing new, unfortunately.

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Did these LED controls actually control lights or did they just switch out images?

It controlled lights. IIRC there was a grid of squares on the website that you could click on to turn specific lights on or off. There was a webcam pointed at the sign that refreshed every few seconds so you could see the changes. I remember the sign being right above an escalator.

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