It sure might be, but the one friend who got blocked is just casually posting stuff from his personal life, nothing spammy going on there. Either facebook is screwing with me, or they are playing out some friend’s posts in the ad-network stream so you are actually losing some genuine content. That would be evil (and totally something Meta would do), but I really couldn’t care less.
I do think that sounds more like they’re hiding it and blaming adblock than pretending something was missed. Wouldn’t be surprised if it starts small and ramps up over time, but that’s just speculation.
Yeah all my actual friends are messaging me elsewhere, facebook is more like a picture dump for old people. I only use it occasionally for joining various expat groups since I move countries frequently for my job, and they are rather resourceful.
It’s probably made-up garbage. If they knew my ad-blocker had actually blocked a friend, I’m sure they would have found a way not to get anything blocked.
Or alternatively they are now displaying some friend’s posts on the same channel normally reserved for ad networks so they are indistinguishable via software? But then it should be way more than one, unless this is some early A/B testing crap.
I saw sometimes ads that was claiming that one of my friends like that product too. My bet is on that.
BTW: I started using user script to remove recommendations, suggestions and other crap like that. It makes Facebook so much more bearable but interestingly also feels less addictive.
After installing it, you will see a floating icon on bottom left, where you can configure it to filter more (I think by my or only blocks clear ads, some people might like the suggestions, but imo they are there to keep you engaged, so I would block them too).
Since user posts aren’t ads, yes! But wouldn’t be surprised if on their end what appears to be normal user posts (and are) are served through the ad system, so that it actually works that way.
Yes same for me, whatsapp is pretty much the only “genuine” communication channel. I only keep a presence on facebook since I have to move countries frequently for work, and the “expats in $city” groups are quite helpful to find people, and then move the discussions off-platform :-)
Not really, I am in a third would country and if you call the landline, you still have to pay by the minute. Most businesses do not even have a landline to contact. Typically they give a viber number or messenger number.
Even when I needed to get a rabies shot, my wife found a place on facebook. They did not even have a website of their own. Sadly that is how the internet works where I live.
Someone on here linked to odysee.com which appears to be a better version of YouTube so far, even Louis Rossman is there talking about YT’s new adblock situation as one example: odysee.com/…/youtube's-adblock-war-is-backfiring-…
I don’t like that it doesn’t save video progress mid video. It also is not very reliable for me, so I use an iOS extension called vinegar and use YouTube through a browser.
Definitely. Ads are eye cancer at best, and infiltration channels for malware at worst. Compromised ad networks pumping out executable code via javascript (or back in the days, Flash) are still a major source of trojan infections.
if ads were just static PNGs with a link you went to if you clicked I wouldn't have ever bothered. but ads became a major malware and tracking risk so plugging that security hole became mandatory.
People are gonna say I’m being hyperbolic or crazy, but I swear that the internet died the day the first line of production Javascript was ever written.
Yeah, there’s no proper screening process and companies aren’t help liable for malicious advertisements. It’s the Wild west out there, and companies take money from anyone due to there being no consequences. Internet advertising has no proper screening process like network television.
It’s true. I work in a computer shop and we see literally thousands and thousands of dollars lost from people clicking on ads that look like normal buttons (things like “Download”, “Next”, etc). And not just the elderly either. Everyone has a a combination of inputs to get scared and comply. Folks that are otherwise extremely competent and savvy can get scammed too.
The best security you can have online is adblockers, only beaten by using trusted websites.
Edit, fair points with sites being slimy these days. I meant using legitimate versions of websites rather than copy/fake websites designed to steal credentials.
Yes, these exactly. There does seem to be a bias towards sites with multi-page articles (think Yahoo news, BuzzFeed type stuff), and what I’ll call “disposable income listings” like boat and sports car-listing websites.
And just to add to your important point, Ad Blockers are really Content Blockers. They allow the user to delete annoyances that have nothing to do with advertising. We should all start calling them Content Blockers.
I have said it before, snd I will repeat it as many times as it takes.
Adblocking is security, untill website owners take legal and financial responsibillity for the harm that a hacked ad spreading malware or attenpting any kind of deception, I won’t even consider removing my adblocker.
If this changes, I will consider it, but will still not do it, the risk to my data is too large.
“Your ad blocker is–” uh, uh, uh, it wasn’t doing that before you pushed a malicious commit to make it do that from your side. How about you turn off your ad CDNs?
My Facebook is hardly even friends these days. It’s basically ads, suggested posts, and posts in groups. Maybe because none of my friends really post anymore, I dunno.
I’m at the stage where I check it once a day, maybe twice, for things like birthdays and anything important that my friends post. 90% of what’s there is suggested posts, ads, or reposted shit. ‘What type of gemstone suits you best? Tap here to find out!’
I find it quite dubious their claim of it blocking posts from friends, vs. ads. Friends don’t post ads, so if it’s blocking posts, they are inserting ads colored up as “friend posts”.
I love that go-to. The boomers aren’t the ones using it, it’s their kids. I seriously think 90% of the people that use the term Boomer have no clue what generation their talking about.
Eh, I see Boomer used as a state of mind as often as a generation. It’s like Karen, calling soneone a Karen isn’t claiming their name is Karen, it’s calling out a state of mind.
That’s fine, but Karen was always meant that way, Boomer is a very specific generation, which are all geriatrics and even their kids are nothing like them.
One of my parent’s dozen+ facebook bots that steal their pictures/identity, because they are too dumb to know how to configure FB privacy settings. It’s disturbing how many of them just scour profiles, replicate, and impersonate to scam.
In Brazil, it is useful to contact people that you know in real life, family and friends…
Plus, it sorta works like a Craigslist here. People sell and buy things from Facebook everyday, and people advertise their business and services here (e.g: restaurants, plumbing services, gift stores, etc)
I’ll be that sort of person to say that the change starts when you also start. When messengers weren’t a thing here, I started moving people I talk with to a messenger of my choice. Slowly after some time all the people I know were using it without giving any thought because turns out they just use whatever works. Several months go by and I safely use nothing but that messenger of my choice. Whenever a person asks if I use Facebook/Whatsapp, I just say “I don’t have it, do you have (that messenger of my choice) or do you prefer SMS?” - and it kind of works for me.
While i like ublock and use it myself, i hope not everyone uses it! There need to be different adblockers. Same as just one browser, or one forum is vulnerable to different things, so would adblocks be.
I agree that it’s better to have multiple options. The issue with adblockers I often see is that they are adware themselves when not malware. With ublock origin, you can block contents of various types and not just ads. I prefer people having ublock origin than any bad option out there.
How did it backfire for YouTube? According to this source, YouTube has over 2 billion monthly users. Let’s assume that a significant portion of this user base is around 10%, as a substantial loss in ad revenues would be necessary for this situation to backfire. That would amount to 200,000,000 users.
Do we have data confirming that ad-blockers gained approximately 200,000,000 new installations over the past month, or is there any other evidence to support this claim?
The argument I heard is that all of the chatter about adblockers is causing normal people who don’t realize that adblockers exist to realize that they exist and try them out. I don’t know if there’s any evidence that this is actually happening, and I don’t know how much I can believe that argument at this stage
Except it doesn’t work that way. People don’t care. Cambridge Analytica didn’t get people off FB, neither will this.
Look how many here claim they use Facebook because other people do, many people only pretend to care about their privacy. All it takes is somebody else to not care about theirs, and then neither do they.
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