X rolls out new ad format that can't be reported, blocked
3 years ago by TheOneWithTheHair to c/technology
Something being illegal under EU law is used as an ace in the hole for some reason. These multi-billion companies will pay the fines in the EU and continue operating. On the off chance they roll back these changes in the EU, they'll keep using them in the US, China, Russia, wherever.
Only thing that'll stop this is global laws against it, which is impossible because of bribery. Oh sorry, lobbying.
Eh, not really. Some of the EU laws have serious teeth, there's good reason why pretty much all big tech companies ensure they are GDPR compliant. It doesn't matter how big you are being fined up to 4% of annual turnover is no joke to anyone.
Yes, though it was unclear if that was a feature or a bug. Since their dev team was decimated, the site has been struggling to even do basic maintenance and security updates. It’s entirely possible that was a bug, especially since it only appeared to be happening with certain users and servers.
I remember when Circuit City fired the employees that were costing them the most money. https://www.sfgate.com/...
They eventually went bankrupt.
The author of the article determined that these ads are coming from the trashy ad networks that brought you such classic clickbait ads as "Doctors hate this one weird trick" and "[Current President] has slashed auto insurance rates in [your state], here's how" that you see at the bottom of low quality news articles. So, it's not just that X has spam ads, but they aren't even directly selling them, which the article summarizes is a sign of desperation to get any ads, no matter how shit in quality, no matter how low paying to X they are, on the platform. At least the low tier news sites have the decency to identify them as ads and label the ad networks that is putting them up.
Well on our way to All-Despising Baby Skull
I despise Twitter's leadership as much as the rest, but increasing ads is not at all a "cause a problem" situation Twitter doesn't owe you ad-free usage of their platform. So no, not a scam/scummy behaviour, just bad value.
And you don't owe Twitter your patronage. So just move on from it.
You do realize that the actual issue is that this is kind of thing is going to be normalized, so that it can spread like a plague across the corporate-touched internet, objectively making the entire thing as a whole objectively worse... right?
Because it sure doesn't seem like it with that reply.
increasing ads is not at all a “cause a problem” situation
Tech executives would disagree with you - creating a problem that users have to buy their way out of is one of the most popular business models going at the moment. The mobile gaming industry, for example, is basically $140B worth of intentionally created frustration.
There's been so much written about this obviously scummy practice. It's everywhere.
It's either naive or disingenuous to suggest they're not obviously trying to annoy cash out of people.
It's my bandwidth. If I don't want to use it to download ads, I don't have to.
They are allowed to try and monetize in various ways, but there are still ethical standards that are just consistently not followed in online advertising (like doing due-diligence to make sure the company advertising isn't some sort of transparent scam). But this change seems to be stepping away from one of the standards that is actually a legal mandate, properly labeling adverts and sponsored content as such.
It’s a simple spell, but quite unbreakable
And yet, my friends keep linking me to X.com even though I told them not to send me porn unless it's really really good!
Who's talking about Twitter?
I'm talking about porn site X.com
How much would it cost to show 2girls1cup as umskipable ad to musk fanboys? Asking for a friend...
the new ad format also doesn't disclose … that it is even an advertisement at all.
Well, that's clearly illegal in most places. Ads have to be somehow identifyable as ads, because of misinformation (ads lie, who thought?). Just wait for the court case.
Im starting to think that is their game, doing whatever is illegal until caught by a court of law, and then find ways to do it without getting caught.
You preaching to the choir buddy.
Many people will cry about Musk ruining the only place on the internet to get news and stay current
Like give me a fucking break lol, that was never the case and it sure as hell ain’t the case now. These morons are so sure he bought it just to kill it, as if that’s some great loss.
Fucking losers, it’s a shit slice of social media, walk away ffs. Twitter is not now nor has ever been special.
Where do I go for hyperlocal updates from advocates in my area in subjects I'm engaged in? How do I get the word out about the projects I'm working on in those subjects? Calling me a fucking loser for staying somewhere that's the only place to do some things is not going to accomplish anything but make me think you don't know what you're talking about.
Twitter was absolutely special when it came out. It was the first (or at the very least first successful) social media designed for mobile use. It also had large effects on how people thought about and used social media, and had big impacts on the ways various companies and people interact on social media.
I've never particularly cared about twitter personally, I used it a handful of times here and there, and I agree that currently and for a while it's been a pretty shit slice of social media. But saying it was never special is a stretch at best.
I used to use the excuse of using Twitter to get my news, but I gave up after the rebranding. Now I just go to the news organizations' websites.
Google what exactly? Specific contract details or bits from interviews which are, in many cases, posted behind paywalls (The Athletic) outside of the little bits that they put on Twitter? Literally just cannot get that information otherwise.
Sports media all around is still heavily invested in Twitter and has shown no signs of even looking at alternate platforms.
I've asked for a compelling reason to leave many times before, and so far people have failed to provide me one, but since you're so smart, lets hear it it then.
EDIT: Downvote if you can't come up with a good reason
You seem like the target demographic, actually.
How so?
The lax restrictions on nazi speech. It’s now part of the platform. The platform tacitly endorses hatred. Your attention legitimizes the platform and the nazis. It’s time to walk away, you have a moral obligation.
I get it you have an addiction to the website. We need to start talking about social media addiction without sneering. It’s a dopamine release machine and we are big stupid apes. I’m here on lemmy because it is like methadone to get me off Reddit.
I spend probably less than an hour a week on twitter compared to 2 to 3 hours a day on lemmy and 3 to 5 hours a day on youtube so addiction definitely, but not to twitter.
When it comes to the nazi, or just overall right wing content, it's only something I hear people talk about but haven't ever experienced myself. Those things don't appear on my feed. It's 99% porn and 1% cat videos.
- it's a failing platform run by one of the most chaotic people in existence; everything you make there will literally or figuratively go up in smoke, from the posts to the connections
- everything you make there is currently lining the pockets of a racist, lying nationalist
- it's losing money at an alarming rate while being beholden to the debt caused by the leveraged buyout that sold out to the aforementioned chaotic bro, meaning that they're increasingly desperate to make money and will take more and more morally dubious deals in order to stay afloat
- the racism is a feature, not a bug, tacitly and overtly endorsed by the current owner
- the misinformation is a feature, not a bug, tacitly and overtly endorsed by the current owner
- the nationalism is a feature, not a bug, tacitly and overtly endorsed by the current owner
- they're systematically stripping user control and transparency out of the platform, from ads and targeting to user blocking to outgoing links
- they're absolutely going to keep putting every useful feature behind Twitter Blue or whatever they're calling it these days
- uptime might be stable for now, but as soon as more bills become due it's going to tank again
- a venerable and respected platform has been reduced to this in a matter of months because of one man's ego and hubris
- the longer you delay in building a new platform and new habits only makes it harder for you to do so when all this finally does become too much for you
These are only eleven reasons. I have many more, some personal and some universal. If at all possible, get off of Twitter.
Well I can grant you that me continuing to use twitter likely somewhat profits people I don't have much respect for, but then again I'm posting gay porn so there's slight irony there too.
The other reasons you listed are mostly stuff other people are experiencing, but not me. There's no politics in my twitter feed. No nazies, no racism, no nationalists, no Elon Musk, no ads.. just porn and the occasional cat video.
I must also point out that it's quite apparent from your message, that you have a strong personal bias involved here. I don't have that same emotional reaction to this. Social media is shit by definition and I don't see twitter as any different from the rest.
I don't see it so it doesn't affect me
Cool bro. Have fun supporting fascism.
I'll let you know when I start seeing ads
Lets just take a moment to appreciate the fact, that you were already calling me dumb, and now you're telling me to fuck off, and another user is calling me retarded yet somehow it's me acting in bad faith.
Easy enough, just add '*.twitter.com' to your blocklist.
Also it sounds like a great way for malware distributors to be unidentifiable and Musks little shitshow to take the full criminal responsibility instead.
Can't see ads if you don't use Twitter
Don' start nothin' Won't be nothin'
I'm not gonna risk my computer by turning off my ad blocker, but I wonder if that article comes with exactly the kind of chumbox ads that they're rightfully criticizing.
There's 9 ads between the chapters of that article and one that follows you on the side of the screen as you scroll
I disabled my adblocker to take that screenshot.
The Twitter brand was one of the only things of actual value at that company. If Elon wants to shoot himself in the dick, I’m not going to stop that moron. X it is. I will GLADLY not call this product Twitter.
The aerospace industry has a term: "Controlled flight into terrain."
Lithobreaking
Unplanned rapid disassembly. I know Muskrat got all training in Kerbal Space Program.
That would mean he's somewhat of a plan for the crash, this is uncontrolled
Have you met @AcidBurn yet?
Shit, now I'm mad I didn't get @CerealKiller
Isn't this against Apple and Google app stores terms?
I've blocked all Twitter ads since it got taken over by hate groups and will continue to successfully block them forever.
How?
By deleting the app and never looking at the website.
The FTC would like to have a word. At least they have a spine.
When they say "can't be blocked" I presume they mean "can't be blocked with the block function in X/Twitter". They also say it can't be liked or retweeted.
So far ads have been treated as sort-of regular posts that are just shown according to the ad rules rather than because they belong in the timeline under normal criteria, and you could like, retweet and block them just like any other post.
So this is basically them treating ads as a fully separate thing rather than just a different post type.
Though the article suggests they'll still try to make them look mostly like posts, except without showing a handle etc. though, which is extra scummy
Ads have gotten way worse in quality. I keep seeing stuff that makes Temu look like top tier. Recently community notes jhave added context noting these adverts are for dropshipping services and there is no guarantee you will get the advertised product.
That and so many funking places wanting my email to send me top tips on life, money, crypto or w.e.
I'm genuinely glad when I see a normal funking advert for pizza or a charity or a film, there's something happening with that dicaprio guy and scorsee director.
Seems like Elon is trying to accelerate the collapse of his $44B boat anchor
I'm only really there for porn nowadays. Deleted my regular account.
I can follow specific people instead, so that's a plus for me, as opposed to I assume having to pay for this function in most other websites. (Although if X starts asking for money with a subscription I will certainly drop it)
Existence on Twitter just feels like hell on earth at this point, like beyond the Facebook critical mass/"they won't try anything else out"-esque line of reasoning staying there just comes across like some admission of masochism or something.
Anyway
Ah, I see what you mean now. I have all the shorts turned off on the app. I'm sure it's pretty annoying seeing all those. I'm sure there's some good content in that part but I always found it to be too ad-like as well.
Same here. As is the case with every other type of ad aswell. I'm not even seeing the extremist right-wing content it's supposedly trying to push me aswell. In reality what it is pushing to me is cat videos and no matter how many accounts I block there's infinite supply of those accounts.
It doesn’t bother me, it’s a free product and I expect ads. I only use it for sports news.
Why are you here?
Why's Lemmy so hostile to people? If you're going to openly discriminate "normies" then this platform will never grow enough
People are allowed to like different things. I haven’t posted anything on twitter, just use it like a RSS feed to consolidate my sports news.
I tried Mastadon but nobody is on there.
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So on one hand they're cluttering user feeds with the spammiest, scammiest ads they can and on the other hand they're rolling out paid subscriptions to remove ads.
Cause a problem; sell the solution. Transparent scumbags.
save