Ping pong with Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Ping pong with Facebook

adblockplus.org

66 pointsokket59 comments

Since this is inevitably going to turn into the usual back and forth about adblocking, I'll just throw this out there: I would definitely use an adblocker that only applied to video.

Video ads are a unique brand of terrible. Lose the connection, player gets funky, have to reload? Boom, another 30 seconds of preroll ad. Ad stutters, plays a second then stops for four to buffer another second? Guess what, the ad is still at 0:29 left, because the ad doesn't end when thirty seconds pass, it ends when their shitty server plays thirty seconds of video. And the ambush ads: fifteen minutes of leaving a tab in the background and it starts autoplaying a new video.

I keep turning Adblock Plus off out of a sense of obligation and then end up turning it on again because it is such a frustrating experience to try to watch a video with it off.

Adblock Plus is doing a marketing stunt: Claiming to have "the community" on their side and making hand-wavy arguments on FTC regulations that are based on nothing at all. While their only goal still is to make Facebook pay them just like Google does, because the minute Facebook pays up they will start unblocking their ads.

So can we please just decide for once and for all that Adblock Plus is a commercial, mafia like, practice extorting publishers and quit the grassroots bullshit?

AdBlock doesn't block Microsoft, Amazon & Google ads because they get paid from them. I don't believe in this David vs Goliath narrative.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80a8ce54-a61d-11e4-9bd3-00144feab7...

AdBlock is not the only opponent of facebook. It's not even the best.

I dont have any ads from google neither microsoft, you can still block them through adblocks options.

Came here to say just that. AdBlock relies heavily on SEO to grow it's install base. If you search "ad blocking" they rank highest, because of their name alone. This story will probably win them a huge boost and am hoping uBlock or similar take the lead on this one.

At a publisher conference, I recently saw PageFair take stage and sell their solution as an anti-ad-blocking ad-serving network. Turns out they pay AdBlock to get unblocked and their entire budget seems to be spent on SEO and trade fairs. I found this on their FAQ very amusing:

> Q: I tested my installation by activating the uBlock Chrome extension and the PageFair script did not load

> A: The adblock community maintains a number of different "block lists" of domains and resources that should be blocked from loading. One particular list (Easylist) is used by the most popular extensions AdblockPlus and Adblock. This list does not block PageFair's analytics from loading. There is an additional list called EasyPrivacy which is not used by default in AdblockPlus or Adblock, but is used by default in uBlock. Our analytics (as well as most other analytics tools like Google Analytics) are blocked by the EasyPrivacy list.

> You should be able to try out a different extension to verify this.

https://support.pagefair.com/support/solutions/articles/5000...

I think you're talking about AdBlock Plus, not AdBlock, which is a different product by different people.

The argument that Facebook is somehow flouting FTC regulations is disingenuous - all of Facebook's organic ad posts are marked as 'Sponsored' in feed.

What AdBlock want is for Facebook to put a marker in the DOM so they can block the ad, but I'm guessing this is not where most people go looking to find out if a post is sponsored.

Anyway, the argument is academic as long as Facebook usage continues to shift to mobile apps. Adblocking will continue to do what it's always done - depriving revenue from small publishers while having no impact on larger players who have the mindshare to serve content through their own native apps, or simply pay to have their ads seen.

I don't think this is a problem that generalized ad blockers should be attempting to solve, as it's a completely different breed of advertisement. Maybe there could be a separate project for tackling disguised ads on big sites, but otherwise trying to solve a very nuanced problem using a broad approach is going to be an endless headache and perhaps futile.

I have no reservations about blocking disguised ads. Advertisers have abused their position for far too long, and it's pretty clear that disguised ads are only going to make the web more of a mess of infotainment or advertainment.

I ended up writing my own Chrome extension to remove Facebook's suggested posts, as it actually isn't that complicated if you simply crawl the DOM on element inserts. There's probably a performance hit, but not enough for me to really notice.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/suggest-me-not/cel...

This opinion might be unpopular here, but I don't really empathize with adblock plus's arguments with why they have to be able to block ads (journalistic integrity?). This is how facebook and others need to fund their product costs. If you can't be bothered to sell your attention to them for the ads, then put up money instead; but we all know how unlikely people are to pay for content online once it was "free".

Nothing is free online. If you aren't paying for a product, you are the product. (said someone way smarter than me years ago)

And I think the standard rebuttal is that, if ads were unobtrusive that would be one thing, but many times leaving ads unblocked leads to malware and extreme system slowdowns. I personally would not mind keeping adblocker off if ads were just minor ads in the text of documents, but from what I've seen on the rare occasions where I've been on a computer without adblock, the non-adblocked internet is pretty disgusting.

That argument doesn't apply to Facebook who don't serve ads from third-party servers or with third-party code. You're just as likely to find a security flaw in Facebook's ads as in Facebook's organic posts.

except that facebook can make ad for malware independently of flaw in facebook code

Except that facebook itself is a malware/spyware that tracks you in N ways that most of us don't know, and share with a lot of people and corporates that we would not want to have access to.

The trouble is 'unobtrusive ads' don't get the same clicks as the more intrusive ones. And if you're not getting return for your ad spend, you don't keep spending (unless you're mental). If a business is (primarily) funded by ads - and the users aren't paying for anything, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to show whatever they like (and to be fair, Facebook are fairly strict with what you can show and relatively good at policing it). If you really hate the ads, you don't have to use the service.

Because it appears that the type of ads that fall under "whatever they like" include malware and processor-intensive ads. Once I could tell that something was wrong because my fan turned on while just browsing the internet. Turned out I had a tab in incognito open and adblock was not enabled for incognito, so the ads on the page were so processor intensive they caused load on my system. That's not an okay thing to do.

So, I'll continue to use adblock AND use the services until they dial back their obtrusive ads.

This isn't the case for Facebook, though. For which this particular argument / post is about.

It is simple. Put a price on your product. If facebook is "free", so it has no right to complain about how I use it. Am I obligated to allow their systems and technologies to mess with mine?

How on earth does this make sense? It's not Facebook that messes with your system, it's your system that messes with their product. If you would actually pay for their product you might be able to make the argument that you should be allowed to use it as you'd like, but you don't. You're using something free of charge and then interfere with how they create their revenue.

Ok, me and all others that prefer to block ads on Facebook are leaving... Do Fecebook prefer this way? I already left, now I'm convincing others to leave too, and introduce them to ad block has been a good start.

I wish Facebook would offer an option to pay to remove ads / reduce tracking. I understand that they have to operate a business, and if I don't want to pay they should be able to show me ads. If I do want to pay it would be nice to be able to remove the tracking/ads. It looks like facebook only pulls in about $10 per user[1], I'd happily pay a few dollars a month for an ad free service

1. http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-average-revenue-per-...

An argument against that I have seen in other threads and I find particularly interesting is that by providing an option to pay to block ads, you'd be greatly diminishing the strength of the ad network since the people that would see ads are not the ones that are willing to pay for their stuff.

That makes a ton of sense, I was being blinded by the average revenue not thinking about that fact that their revenue probably has an 80/20 distribution. I wonder if you assumed that there was a pareto distribution of their users what you'd need to do to compute how much the top 10/20% are spending per year (I'm kind of stumped on that one).

I work in adtech. We all use adblockers, and the rise in their use is a good thing. Digital ads (especially video) are out of control and blocking is necessary to combat the terrible user experience and security risks.

However, ads also sustain all the services and content we consume for free and there are clearly common sense standards we can agree to: fast, non-intrusive, secure, static, etc. Any ad vendor that meets these guidelines should be let through (after a transparent vetting process and routine checkups).

Blocking everything just because it's an ad takes away any moral high ground from adblockers and doesn't do anything but hurt the entire ecosystem. A more nuanced approach would let good vendors through which would in turn start to encourage those behaviors by publishers and advertisers, creating progress all through the industry while letting companies stay in business.

It's not advertising we hate, it's the ad experience. Improving that experience is the ultimate goal, not engaging in endless war.

I don't think we can agree to this.

Ads do not sustain the free services I use; I object to advertising, full stop.

You are welcome to think your free services are essential, I will disagree with you in most of the cases that are ad supported.

> Ads do not sustain the free services I use;

So you don't need an ad blocker then?

What free services are you using that aren't ad supported? You don't use Facebook or visit any major site (without a subscription)?

And value isn't determined by whether you think it's essential or not but your actions in using it. If you're consuming content/services, then you're getting value.

I loathe facebook with a flaming passion. That it has captured identity on the internet, and chained it to advertising, is a disgrace. I feel similarly about Google, fortunately there are alternative search engines.

Which alternative search engine do you use that doesn't have ads and/or pull results from Google?

> What free services are you using that aren't ad supported?

Personally I use Flightradar24, Weather Underground, Shipfinder and some other lesser-known networks for free without ads because I feed data to them. They even give me ad-free phone apps.

For me it is the advertising I hate. I really don't want/need adverts in my life. If I want to find about new products or see reviews, I can search them out or read about them in publications I like or ask my friends.

I really doubt it, it's easy to say that and not notice just how much advertising there is and how you're influenced.

If it's about wanting a choice, then payment options are slowly starting to become easier and more available, although they're not as good as they should be yet.

I understand how much I'm influenced which is why I dislike adverts so much.

This sentiment will lead to further eradication of the line between ads and editorial. Your articles will soon mostly be ads, ala the Buzzfeed model.

Businesses are free to lower the value of their content, as long as they meet FTC requirements about disclosure. I doubt that this is a profitable long term strategy, but they can drive away their readers if they want to.

Adapting to the changing market with a new business model might be a better idea.

Unfortunately, the FTC requirements don't extend to other countries, so unless you're using a geo-filter for the publishers you follow, that might not be something to rely on. Further, many other sites fly under the radar and frankly don't care about the FTC. You might ignore these, but many won't.

> It's not advertising we hate, it's the ad experience. Improving that experience is the ultimate goal, not engaging in endless war.

I object to advertising in principle. It causes people to become more consumerist. It exists to generate a desire to purchase stuff, usually by promoting feelings that one is missing out otherwise.

It messes with buyer's rationale, the greatest aspect of markets, so that you cannot be sure that a product winning in the marketplace is doing so out of quality or out of better advertising.

The possibility to make up for deficiencies in quality with proper advertisement encourages a company to spend money into selling product instead of improving product.

And if one person is impervious to advertising and getting some content "for free", that still means that some other poor sap who is less educated, more vulnerable to advertising, is buying enough extra to make up for the content you got for free. An exploitative arrangement to be sure.

I can be persuaded that it is difficult/impossible to regulate because of how intertwined it is with free speech, but as far as really-existing-ads go, I despise advertising.

This is a common sentiment but advertising (and the greater superset of marketing) is critical to the success of pretty much every business on the planet today. It's important to look at it from every angle.

Also this assumes that individuals have very little agency and are easily influenced by advertising. They can be, but it's not actually that easy.

Just to counterbalance all the posts trying to make equivalences or complain about ad-blockers, some of them even portraying it as "poor little guy":

I am fully in support of any and all ad-blocking initiatives. Thank you very much to everyone working against Facebook on this!

When you sign up to use Facebook and click 'I agree' you are making a promise not to block their ads. It seems to me that to break that promise because the ads are annoying is morally wrong, but many people don't see it that way.

I sell software as a service. If a customer doesn't like some aspect of my software I expect him to cancel his subscription. If he continues to use my software without paying for it he is breaking his promise to me, and most people would see it as wrong.

What's the difference?

Do we hate the ad's or the ad experience?

The other day I was walking down the street.

Few people approached me offering stuff, magazines, religion leaflets, food coupons and whatever. While I appreciate that those people are trying to feed themselves, I find it way too intrusive for them trying to approach me and me having to say no to every single thing.

On the other hand I saw a small free magazine stand. I checked it myself and I liked it so I took it.

The kind of advertising we have on the web is the first one I mentioned, the one that they are trying to force the ad on you.

Why can't we have ad's that are like those small corner free magazine stands that you'll pick the item when you really want to.

My point is while I don't use adblockplus, facebook should stop playing around and find a way to serve better ad's.

Also noone mentioned the fact that a lot of facebook ad's are not filtered e.g fake products all over the place.

As a human on this planet with fundamental rights I get to control what goes into my brain. I'm #sorrynotsorry if that is inconvenient for your business model.

Couldn't the argument be made that if you don't want their ads to go into your brain that you shouldn't visit their site? It's sort of a case of "their house their rules" right? I tend to agree that it'd be nice to be able to avoid the ads, but they have to earn operating revenue somehow.

I don't think so - again if we're agreed I have full sovereignty of my body and therefore have the right to control which photons reach my brain. This ought to apply - like all fundamental rights - in all circumstances and contexts.

If we follow that argument out wouldn't that mean that you would have the right to control what anyone said or wore in public? If I'm wearing a purple shirt in the park and you go to the park you don't have the right to stop me from wearing my purple shirt just because it annoys you.

Btw, since comment sections make it hard for the reader to discern tone I'm simply trying to explore this argument, please don't take offense to the continued questioning.

Right - these rights don't let me stop you from wearing a particular shirt, but I think they reasonably let me control what I am able to see or hear(given a mechanism available to do that). For example I think a reasonable interpretation is that I ought to be entitled to wear headphones that filter out words I might find offensive.

I haven't gone recently but how does uBlock Origin fair in all of this?

It uses EasyList as well, the shared block list.

I wait for when Facebook will make the "sponsored content" indication a canvas, present in every content but only filled-in on those sponsored content. Facebook control the DOM, they can use every technique to make the detection harder to the end where we will need AI classifier.

Their problem is they'd have to contradict their own UI despite doing things like that. Let's say that they removed the "Suggested Post" indicator from their ads entirely, and the ads essentially appear identical to something you are already following; unless you had followed the page before, it should display a Like button like any other post and it would not say something like "You liked/followed this page" at the top of the post in the feed, so it would be a safe assumption to clear out anything that wasn't specifically liked by you or a friend. But, if they were to not display a Like button or elements telling you whether or not you have followed the post before, that's yet another indication that it's not a genuine post. I wouldn't mind never seeing anything that's "suggested" and would rather find content through friends(you know, that whole social networking thing). I don't see how they can ever get around ad blocking in the long term without making their site unpleasant to use.

Personally, I hate ads in general, but I can't help noticing the double standard with folks who use Adblock. Most of the same folks watch TV, listen to the radio, buy newspapers/magazines, or walk/drive in public. Ads are even more pervasive in all these avenues. Where is the outcry on user choice there? In many of those cases, you're paying to use those services (unlike FB for example), and yet you still see/hear ads. Why the Internet and not there too?

I think one major difference on the Internet is ad tracking. I firmly believe you should have the right to not be tracked. I think the blocking apps should focus on preventing you from being tracked, not from the ad displaying. If the site uses intrusive ads that consume the page, do as I do and not go back! There's almost always another source for that information!

If I could block ads outside virtual world, I would definitely do it. I'd even pay for it. It is not my fault that a behemoth like facebook can't make money off 1.5 billion people without screwing the internet.

"Most" is kind of a meaningless word. Most people I know use Netflix / HBO Go, Spotify / Youtube / Soundcloud, do not buy newspapers / magazines (they still make these?) and are on their phones the whole time they're walking / driving in public.

If a company wants to force people to see ads, they can do what Forbes does. It's inconsistent to allow people to see content and complain that they don't see the ads. It's like a Halloween candy bowl with a "please take one" sign. If you don't enforce your ideals you cannot represent yourself as holding them strongly. Facebook allows people to use adblockers, and they don't have to. They choose to because they know that not seeing ads is more valuable to users than the service Facebook provides.

since when adblock plus is open source ?

As far as I'm aware, it always has been. They link to their source code from the footer of their homepage, licensed as GPLv3: https://adblockplus.org/en/source

I was confused with their acceptable ad policy. You looks right, adblock plus seemps open source since ever

They're also open about what they allow. Follow this link to find the filters etc: https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads#list

Except that their paid whitelisting is anything but open... it's all backdoor deals that are just a profiteering scheme, not about consumer rights or encouraging change.

Plenty of good adtech vendors meet their "standards" but are only allowed through if they pay up. It's all about the money.

They explain when advertisers must pay here: https://adblockplus.org/about#monetization

Is that inaccurate?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com