MarkKordusic ·
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CFmfygHQ4r4&si=_qU6vZhH1wmx8qA5
Why cant people have emulators, roms and functioning software arcade games on twitter facebook , even grok, other social media sites. Is it imposible to activate emulators roms in social media posts, what would have to exist in the social media platform itself to some how make this work im taking modest roms from mame or aristocrat slot machine roms old ones
Thought for 25s
It's not fundamentally impossible to run emulators + ROMs directly inside social media posts (like on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), but it's deliberately blocked for a mix of legal, security, performance, and business reasons. Platforms choose not to support it, and even a brief experiment with this on Twitter got shut down fast. Your specific examples (modest/old MAME arcade ROMs or Aristocrat slot machine ROMs) hit extra hard barriers because most of those files are copyrighted commercial software.
Why it doesn't (and basically can't) work today
Legal / Copyright problems (the biggest blocker)
Almost all MAME ROMs and every Aristocrat slot ROM are copyrighted material owned by companies (Atari, Taito, Konami, Aristocrat, etc.). Uploading or sharing them—even old “modest” ones—is copyright infringement in most countries (including Australia, where you are).
Social media platforms are legally liable if they host or enable distribution of pirated ROMs (under laws like the US DMCA or equivalent). One takedown notice = they have to remove it, and repeated issues can get the whole platform sued.
Aristocrat slot ROMs are gambling software. Sharing them can also run into separate gambling/gaming regulations.
Result: No platform will ever green-light arbitrary ROM uploads or execution. (You can legally dump and use ROMs from hardware you personally own, but you still can’t share them publicly.)
Technical and security limits
Social media posts are heavily sandboxed HTML. They do not let you run arbitrary JavaScript or WebAssembly (the tech that browser-based emulators like jsMAME or Emularity use).
Emulators need to load binary ROM files, emulate CPU/graphics/sound, and run in real-time. That’s CPU-heavy even for old arcade/slot games.
If platforms allowed it, one viral post could lag or crash people’s feeds, or worse—malicious ROMs/emulators could be used for malware.
Platforms only allow very limited embeds (YouTube videos, images, basic polls, or their own official widgets). They strip scripts and custom code on purpose.
Platform policy and history
Twitter/X actually tried this once in 2015: you could link to Internet Archive DOS games and they would play inside tweets via player cards. It was awesome for about four days—then Twitter killed the feature because it violated their own rules against “end-to-end interactive experiences” in posts. Their developer guidelines explicitly prohibit building full games inside the player.Facebook/Instagram never supported anything like it in regular feed posts (they had separate “Instant Games” years ago, but those were pre-approved HTML5 games, not user-uploaded ROMs).
Grok (on X) and other platforms follow the same rules—no interactive code execution in posts.Theverge
What would actually have to exist in the platform itself for this to work?
For functioning emulators + ROMs to run inside posts (playable directly in your feed without leaving the app), the platform would need to build and maintain all of this:
A secure, isolated runtime/sandbox specifically for emulators (WebAssembly + limited JS) so one post can’t affect the rest of the app or your device.
ROM file upload support (or base64/data URLs) with strict size limits and scanning.
A built-in or whitelisted emulator engine (e.g., a hosted jsMAME/WebMAME fork) that the platform controls and updates.
UI controls inside the post (start/pause, coin insert, buttons, save states) that work on mobile and desktop feeds.
Performance throttling so hundreds of emulated games don’t melt phones or kill battery life in the scrollable feed.
Legal & moderation system that either:
Only allows public-domain/homebrew ROMs (almost none of the classic arcade or Aristocrat ones qualify), or
Has licensing deals with every copyright owner (completely unrealistic).
Explicit policy change allowing interactive games instead of banning them.
Even if a platform did all that, they’d still face constant DMCA complaints, legal bills, and bad PR for enabling piracy/gambling software. No major platform wants to become “the place you play illegal arcade ROMs.”
Realistic alternatives (what people actually do)
Link to external sites that do run browser emulators (Internet Archive has thousands of legal-ish arcade games you can play in-browser).
Post screenshots, short video clips of gameplay, or just talk about the games.
Use dedicated emulator apps or sites outside social media.
Bottom line: It’s not a technical impossibility—it’s a deliberate “we don’t want the legal headaches or security risks” decision. The p…