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
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.
Twitter by J.P Morgan
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.
The easiest way to block these ads is to stop using X.
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!
How much would it cost to show 2girls1cup as umskipable ad to musk fanboys? Asking for a friend…
That would be…
… priceles.
Easy enough, just add ‘*.twitter.com’ to your blocklist.
Can’t see ads if you don’t use Twitter
Can’t see ads on twitter :/
Don’ start nothin’ Won’t be nothin’
Elon investigated himself and said he found no evidence of wrongdoing tho!
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
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
- 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.
You seem like the target demographic, actually.
How so?
Removed by mod
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.
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.
Isn’t this against Apple and Google app stores terms?
no? since when were they anti ad?
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
Lol every day I’m hearing some new way Elon’s managed to made Twitter worse. I’m glad I switched to Mastodon the day Elon walked into Twitter HQ with that stupid fucking sink.
Between Ice Cubes for iOS and the Halcyon desktop UI (which is a near perfect replication of Twitter) Mastodon has been great.
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
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?
Shit, now I’m mad I didn’t get @CerealKiller
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
The FTC would like to have a word. At least they have a spine.
“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.
Why do people keep calling it “X” so cringe.
