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.
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.
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 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…
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.
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.
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.
Elon investigated himself and said he found no evidence of wrongdoing tho!
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.
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.
Isn’t this against Apple and Google app stores terms?
no? since when were they anti ad?
I should probably close my account over there, but then I’d have to log in.
Decisions, decisions.
“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).
Can’t wait to have an AI based ads remover that rewrites the page HTML and removes all ads.
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
Well, now we know why they removed headlines from the article cards.
The FTC would like to have a word. At least they have a spine.
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.
Bold claim, that. Don’t underestimate my unwillingness to watch ads