Show HN: Hide promoted tweets and sponsored content | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Hide promoted tweets and sponsored content

blockzilla.app

35 pointspromotino41 comments

If I understand this correctly, this just blocks Ads from the service itself, not #ad posts by users. uBlock Origin already does this, and pretty much any other ad blocker using [EasyList](https://easylist.to/)

This is.... a paid for, less functional version of uBlock Origin?

Yeah, you can just block ##div[aria-label*="Trending"] in uBlock. I believe sponsored tweets are already blocked by default.

Credit to https://twitter.com/anaisbetts/status/1494340895495184392

Is it possible to block posts on twitter and LinkedIn that my contacts “liked”? I have no interest in seeing these — I just want to see what my contacts posted or reposted.

It’s cool to see this tool, but I have to agree with agentdrtran that it’s surprising to see a paid blocker. Optics aside, I would be hesitant to charge people up front for a tool that will undoubtedly turn into a cat and mouse game if successful. What happens if someone pays for a year and then LinkedIn changes their algorithm in a way that breaks your tool? Or if you are sued? The latter would be less likely IMO if the tool were free or donationware.

On twitter, switching to the chronological feed hides things your people liked.

Interesting, I haven't found this to be the case, but checking right now it seems to be acting this way. I think LinkedIn is the much bigger issue for me. I simply do not care if someone liked someone else's post about how they're leaving $company...

Where is that setting?

It's the sparkly icon in the upper right. Toggles between algorithm and reverse chron: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/switch-chronological-twitter-t...

Great idea! I think products in improving the twitter feed can be really good.

I thought there is some TOS from Twitter about that products are not allowed to change the actual twitter behaviour or the original twitter UI, do you know something about that?

Also removing suggestions from topics, lists, retweets, etc. can clean up your Tweeter feed so much!

“Although some platforms offer an ad-free experience for their premium users, most of them aren’t.”

Aren’t what?

Anyway, you don’t have to install an extension to avoid “ads, promoted tweets, and sponsored posts” on Twitter. You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

... most of them aren't [offering an ad-free experience.]

This is an English language phenomenon called conversational deletion. Examples of it at the beginning of sentences are here: https://learnenglishwithdemi.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/conver...

No, it’s not, and the examples on the page you link to are examples of something else entirely. The subject here is “some platforms” and is not deleted.

Although some platforms offer an ad-free experience for their premium users, most don’t.

“Are not” was also a bit awkward at the end. It was still intelligible, though.

I'm not sure how you can't extrapolate from what I posted and see how conversational deletion can apply to the end of sentences?

It has nothing to do with where in the sentence the deletion is. It has to do with what is deleted.

“I like spicy food but my girlfriend doesn’t [like spicy food].”

This is correct deletion, at the end.

“I like spicy food but my girlfriend isn’t.”

This is what the illiterates who made the website are doing. It’s not conversational deletion, it’s just wrong.

EDIT: Also, and more to the point, “conversational deletion”, as defined in the link you provided, is the deletion of the subject of the sentence. This is not what is happening here, as I pointed out. Again, nothing to do with whether the deletion is at the beginning or the end.

The problem is that the deleted verb (offering) isn’t parallelly conjugated to “offer” so it seems awkward.

I would change it to “most of them don’t.”

> You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

Great resource, thanks for linking!

You’re welcome; hope you find it useful.

> You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

The same thing could just be achieved by using Tweetbot or another third party client, you can just follow the people as usual and it'll be a regular sorted timeline with no ads and suggestions or promoted tweets.

This is great! By chance, I came across this post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SzArJNSbbSikJeLD4/how-to-bes... yesterday, which also gives very similar advice; lists seem to be the core of using Twitter sensibly. And he suggests Tweetdeck as the interface to Twitter too.

Thanks for the link. I added it to my page.

> There is no way you can hide ads and sponsored posts on Facebook

Why is that? How come it's possible to block tweets but not FB posts? Is FB using some vastly different technology than Twitter/Reddit/etc that makes it impossible? If so then what's stopping Twitter/Reddit from doing the same?

Anybody who knows about adblocking care to explain this?

I'm guessing it's because Facebook goes to hilarious lengths to obfuscate their ads: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/3367

Would rather see them than pay a subscription fee

Charging for an app that blocks monetization is pretty rich.

As long as it only distracts me once, I'd say it's a win.

but you got to realise the problem when monetizing off the products of other companies. when it isn't at the detriment of other companies usually everything goes well, but in this case expect to be distracted once more when this service suddenly terminates. use ublock rules, there is a better chance those will never be taken away from you.

It's the same as buying pest control: you have no guarantee that it works, but it's still highly useful in most cases.

if you don't see the ethical problem with monetizing off the demonetisation or another party, then I don't know what else to say. I agree that the method and lack of efficacy guarantee through time is very similar to buying pesticides. I guess most of us also thought that way since they appeared and see where we are.

It's not like advertising companies have very high ethical standards ...

In fact, does ethics even exist as a concept in business, other than when it's used to sell more products?

whataboutism is a great way to make any questioning of certain behaviors justifyable.

I agree advertising companies tend to be on the low ethical side of the spectrum, and often surf on the borderline of legal practices.

it doesn't in any way make those practice acceptable. but it doesn't grant another actor to step in and act in turn unethically.

I was thinking at first that any product that helps minimise ads and their diversion of attention is a win, but it's rather obvious that not any necessary evil is OK to exist so long as it fights another evil.

I find ublock origin doing its part without falling for the evil temptation. It's free and open source. I see little to no appeal to use a paid for ad blocker made by a developer with questionable ethics. even if that product happens to be superior. let's just make ublock better. and let's donate if we get value from it.

Still, I have no problem with the demonetization of things that annoy me AND allow me to pay only in one way: with my personal data. If your service is opt-out rather than opt-in, I have no ethical problem that your service is demonetized in one way or another. If the opt-out costs me money and effort, that reduces my sympathy even more.

> if you don't see the ethical problem with monetizing off the demonetisation or another party, then I don't know what else to say.

It is not generally considered unethical to set up in business, even though that will often 'demonetize' (reduce the income of) other actors in the same (or a related) line of business.

If you consider all monetization of web services to be unethical, then it is moot whether or not it demonetizes others.

As you are advocating the use of Ublock, it seems that you do not think the demonetization is ipso facto unethical.

Furthermore, the newcomer is offering an alternative form of monetization, and will presumably only succeed if that is regarded as preferable by some group of consumers.

While this seems mildly ironic, I'm not really seeing any argument, for this monetization of demonetization being unethical, that can be threaded through all these points.

People here tend to justify ad blocking with security concerns. It‘ll be interesting what new rationalization they come up with for this.

Security concerns are just one of many minor justifications for ad blocking.

The major one is simple: I never consented to see the ad. Therefore, I should not see the ad.

I use an adblocker for the same reason I boycott broadcast TV, broadcast radio, and paper magazines. Like my body and my property, my attention is not something that people should feel free to steal just because it is convenient for them.

I bet you’re among the people that will object to the use of the word „steal“ when it’s used for copyright infringement.

Anyway… consent can happen implicitly. Eat at the hotel buffet an they’ll charge you for breakfast.

Besides, it should be obvious by now that you are hurting yourself just as much when you make it impossible for high quality news sources to remain freely readable. Not only do you have to pay for a far smaller selection of sources, your fellow citizens will be less well informed, which turns democracies into a mere lottery.

No, I think that piracy is theft. You're taking something with value for free.

Consent absolutely cannot happen implicitly - would you make a claim like that to a judge? Hotel buffets advertise their prices, and you can always get breakfast somewhere else.

EULAs are not enforceable contracts, as they are offered under conditions of durress with no real alternative. No court will enforce an "I agree" checkbox, and most websites actively hide their usage/privacy/etc policies.

I pay subscriptions to high-quality news sources. But I read them online, and I still block their ads. If the sites want to charge more, they can, but "ad-free" has always been included in the charges where I subscribe.

EULAs absolutely are enforceable contracts at least insofar as “click-wrap” software licenses are concerned; the law here is well settled.

I‘m using an adblocker too, but I disagree with this reasoning. You don’t need to consent when it’s implied that serving the ads is how the service is generating revenue.

I just find ads annoying, that’s why I use an adblocker. But it‘s not stealing when i’m getting served ads while consuming free content.

it's stealing because you aren't explicitly told how the provider is and will be using tactics to take (not ask for) your attention from you, nor an estimated mental cost associated with it. it's like paying for a service with a credit card, without being told how much will be charged. except that this is attention, not money at their disposal.

I recall when YouTube had no ads at all. then placed ad clip somewhere in the video with a very clear yellow bar showing when the ad was coming along with a visual countdown a few seconds before the ad would kick in. then all content would have ad placement and less clear became the yellow indicator.

now? Two ads in row, no indicator, no countdown, and ads randomly kick at the begging at the video and/or randomly throughout. see what's happening there, an incremental increase of even more so difficult to anticipate attention grabs.

we have wagons of top engineers and psychology graduate paid great money to manipulate billions of people into watching ads.

you could say nobody is forcing people to watch YouTube, but given how it subtly increasingly used dark patterns to show up more ads and doing so at each step of the fact they gained more market share all the way to quasi monopoly, it is shocking we still have to explain on HN threads that ads are nepharious, not just a mere way to generate revenue free of charge for everyone.

Sure, I'll be straight up honest: (for me personally) security plays only a small role, I just don't want to see ads.

Is muting the radio/TV unethical? Should I be forced to look at billboards on the highway? What about skipping the page of ads in a newspaper/magazine?

Nowhere else do people try to make the argument I am obligated to view ads, even if the ads subsidize a cheap/free product.

Why is the web special? Why is it suddenly unethical to avoid ads while browsing the web?

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