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.
Didn’t they also remove some of the things that indicated a post was “sponsored” or whatever?
Pretty sure that’s illegal under EU law
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/business/article/Lessons-in-how-Circuit-City-s-job-cuts-backfired-3298517.php
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.
Reddit is already following in footsteps of twitter. unsurprising but worrying because they could influence other companies to do the same
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.
Even if X wasn’t trying to make a profit. They still have cost to cover.
I don’t use it. Never have. Never saw any value in it.
I still have yet to understand Elon’s strategy with it but it’s his billions to waste.
It’s actually not his billions. He borrowed billions to finance the purchase. There are talks of the banks stepping in to protect their investment.
The easiest way to block these ads is to stop using X.
It’s a simple spell, but quite unbreakable
How much would it cost to show 2girls1cup as umskipable ad to musk fanboys? Asking for a friend…
That would be…
… priceles.
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.
Or the fine is so small it’s just a “cost of doing business”
Well they clearly aren’t normal posts, so I guess they’re obviously ads?
Also Twitter is one man who hates laws now, so most places might need to see about enforcing that.
Easy enough, just add ‘*.twitter.com’ to your blocklist.
I’ve already filtered them out from searches. Might as well do this as well.
It blows my mind that there are people dumb enough to remain on that shit platform. There’s no excuses. If you remain, you’re in support of that trash.
You preaching to the choir buddy.
that’s lemmys specialty
the linux bros have to talk to the choir nobody else wants to talk to them
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.
Literally cannot get hockey updates from any other platform. Those journalists just simply have not moved to another platform.
Sports media all around is still heavily invested in Twitter and has shown no signs of even looking at alternate platforms.
I think I saw one guy on Threads, but he had to stop posting there because simply nobody saw his posts there and there was no engagement from his colleagues.
Google it.
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.
Yes.
Again, information I cannot get otherwise. Its only on Twitter, nowhere else. Like if a tweet just said “Everyone from yesterday cleared waivers”, how would I even go about finding that information in such a simple format otherwise? Its just not possible and you assuming like it is just makes you look like you don’t know how the situation is. These journalists just simply have not moved away from Twitter.
So your need to have real-time hockey updates is so important that you will support a piece of shit bigoted racist instead of waiting a for sports news sites to catch up and post in on their sites?
You mean I am going to keep on using the only platform these journalists are on to keep up with hockey, the only sport I keep up with? Yeah and that has nothing to do with its owner. If these journalists moved elsewhere, of course I’d switch.
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?
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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.
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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 removed yet somehow it’s me acting in bad faith.
It confuses me that you are using lemmy, so let me ask, do you still use Reddit?
Why does it confuse you? And no, not really. I go there to watch war videos but I no longer interact with the content or other users.
It confused me because I thought maybe he does use lemmy because he does not want support that cunt spez on reddit, but then why is he using that degenerated platform twitter then…
I don’t know, keep using them, but I will never understand how people can support those corporate bullshit at this degree, when there are great alternatives out there…but I also don’t know why you need twitter for porn or reddit for war videos, so what do I know…
I didn’t have anything invested into my reddit accounts so it was quite easy to just leave, especially when Lemmy pretty much scratches that same itch for me. On twitter I however have somewhat significant following, so my bar for leaving is quite a bit higher especially when these new changes aren’t directly affecting me, except for the fact that the mobile app no longer works.
I do recognize the hypocrisy though, since I left reddit but didn’t apply the same principles to twitter. I must say though, that of all the social media I use, my twitter feed is the most carefully curated and by far the least toxic/negative.
You continue to support a platform like twitter, yeah- you deserve it- and your response just proved it as well. Where there may have been a high road for you to take here, you chose not to. Now, the only difference between you and I, is I’m not patronizing a platform owned and poorly operated by a bigoted, racist Nazi sympathizer.
You’re not a victim here kiddo.
And now you’re calling me a kiddo.
It’s quite hilarious how ignorant you’re to your own toxic behaviour. Feel free to go thru my comment history, and try find an example of me talking to others that way. You’re the kind of person who makes social media worse for everyone.
K.
Ads can either be identified and blocked, or they are so hidden that the FTC gets involved.
This is a no-win situation for Twitter.
Also it sounds like a great way for malware distributors to be unidentifiable and Musks little shitshow to take the full criminal responsibility instead.
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
If it has a link it can be blocked. Just block by content instead of by node path.
I disabled my adblocker to take that screenshot.
Why do people keep calling it “X” so cringe.
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.
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Yeah every day is a little too often for me to want to hear about Elon and Twitter, honestly. Even the schadenfreude isn’t that important to me.
Have you met @AcidBurn yet?
I should probably close my account over there, but then I’d have to log in.
Decisions, decisions.
Well, now we know why they removed headlines from the article cards.
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.
Based
Lol nice one
“can’t [yet] be blocked” This is the claim of every new advertiser platform. Looking forward to it being blocked (and not because I’m on X, just because I’m excited to see them burn).
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
Can’t wait to have an AI based ads remover that rewrites the page HTML and removes all ads.
The FTC would like to have a word. At least they have a spine.
