Facebook Is Testing Autoplaying Video With Sound (thenextweb.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook is testing a "feature" that autoplays video clips on your feed with sound. It's not a very big test, but there's a possibility the company could roll it out to a larger group of users. The Next Web reports: "The company is currently trying two methods of getting people to watch video with sound in Australia: the aforementioned autoplaying, and an unmute button on the lower right corner of videos, like Vine videos on a desktop. The latter certainly sounds more reasonable; the last thing you want is to be checking Facebook quickly during a meeting or class, and suddenly have your phone blaring out an advert because you happened to stop on a video. Thankfully, you can disable the 'feature' from your settings, but the point is there's nothing wrong with the current opt-in approach, especially considering how many companies are embracing video captioning, and that Facebook even has its own auto-caption tool for advertisers." "We're running a small test in News Feed where people can choose whether they want to watch videos with sound on from the start," a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable Australia. "For people in this test who do not want sound to play, they can switch it off in Settings or directly on the video itself. This is one of several tests we're running as we work to improve the video experience for people on Facebook."

Comments

Just no

[Calydor]

Stop telling me what I want to see and hear.

Stop loading tens of megabytes without my direct consent.

Stop taking control away from me and making me have to jump through hoops to get it back.

If I want to watch a video I will goddamned well click on the PLAY button. If I do not click on the PLAY button chances are the video was not interesting to me in the first place.

Re:Just no

[Knightman]

But but but how then are they going to be able play paid content containing ads about something totally irrelevant?

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Their business is based on wasting your time with shit you're not interested in. Why would they stop inventing new ways to do it?

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrelevant ads only waste your time. Relevant ads may waste your money too. Be more concerned about the targeted ads.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm OK with this.
Just because Facebook is considered legit it doesn't mean that other sites are.
I think the best option would be if every page flagged what videos makes sense to play automatically vs. what videos never should be played automatically.
The more important part is that the browser should have a setting for if the autoplay flag should be honored or if videos only should be played on request.
Ultimately the page is interpreted on the visitors computer and the end user should have the final say in what is shown and not.
I get to decide if a page gets to play videos, sound, show text in different fonts or change background color.
The host side should be allowed, and encouraged to make suggestions, not enforce them.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop telling me what I want to see and hear.

Stop loading megabytes without my direct consent.

Stop taking control away from me and making me have to jump through hoops to get it back.

If I want to load an image I will goddamned well click on it.

Welcome to being old. It's 2016, and the web we were promised by neckbeards has arrived.

And it turns out, it's just as consumer whorish as they were orgasming about back in the day.

Re:Just no

[jittles]

Stop telling me what I want to see and hear.

Stop loading tens of megabytes without my direct consent.

Stop taking control away from me and making me have to jump through hoops to get it back.

If I want to watch a video I will goddamned well click on the PLAY button. If I do not click on the PLAY button chances are the video was not interesting to me in the first place.

I used to use Facebook when I was waiting in doctors offices and other boring places to catch up on family while I had time to kill. I don't anymore because it has just become a non-stop stream of autoplaying video. That's exactly how I want to kill my phone battery, Facebook! How did you know? It's so stupid.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with your sentiments, your first sentence seems odd:

Stop telling me what I want to see and hear.

Isn't that the whole point of Facebook? That they tell you what you want to see? I thought it was a curated (by algorithm) feed?

Re:Just no

[rainmouse]

Because customers should never have a say in the product they use, especially when undesirable features are forced upon them.
I suppose that goes for countries too. Don't like what your government does? Don't complain. Leave!

They will both get away with whatever people let them.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you are barely a customer to Facebook. You are the product.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

> it has just become a non-stop stream of autoplaying video

You did not stop because it became that recent feature. It's probably because you have no friends.

Re:Just no

[houghi]

It will not be irrelevant. What marketing companies are doing is to analyze the data to determine who is most likely to be interested in a certain add. They do this by looking at e.g. your location, your gender, things you previously liked and your age. There are hundreds of data points they use to analyze this before they decide to send you the specified ad. This will lead to about 0.73% of the people who actually might be interested in the product.

And then to be sure, they also send it to everybody else, so nobody misses out.

Re:Just no

[Big Hairy Ian]

Just one more reason to delete my facepalm account

Re:Just no

[UnknownSoldier]

The problem is these UI / UX "experts" forgot the first rule:

Opt-In, not Opt-out.

There should be toggle for this crap, with it defaulting to OFF.

Shitty UI is what happens when you let the bean counters run things. I guess pissing off your user base is part of their corporate strategy now due to their myopic vision.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the part you can't get through your head then isnt it.

You are the cow, not the patron eating the double cheese burger.
They herd you together, gather info about you, and sell that info to advertisers.
You are the corn, facebook is the farmer, and the ad agencies are the customer.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Because customers should never have a say in the product they use ...

Umm, you are NOT Facebook's customer.

You are the PRODUCT.

Strip-mined of every bit of privacy.

Re:Just no

[fluffernutter]

Ads are a SERVICE. Shut up and take it.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

> it has just become a non-stop stream of autoplaying video

You did not stop because it became that recent feature. It's probably because you have no friends.

My friends are friendless, you insensitive clod!!

Re:Just no

[kheldan]

"Stop" (insert annoying thing here)

Stop using Facebook.

Here's the hard, cold, uncomfortable truth: You're getting all entitled because it's been free to access all this time, and now they're leveraging the fact that you're all entrenched in Facebook, and they're making you PAY more and more by putting more and more ads in your face, and collecting and selling more and more of your information. If you were PAYING to use Facebook then it would be a different story, but you're not; you're a FREELOADER, and now the bill is coming due -- and you're getting all upset over it.

STOP USING FACEBOOK. Just say goodbye to your fake online friends, close the account, and WALK AWAY. This is literally the ONLY course of action you have. Seriously: How long do you think it'll be now before they change the terms of service to make it against site policy for you to use ANY adblocker or do ANYTHING to avoid ads or data collection? STOP USING FACEBOOK.

Re:Just no

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Isn't that the biggest scam of all? The advertisers are getting billed for these impressions even though the only thing I'm doing when they come on and trying to understand how to make the crapflood stop. If I do even notice the logo/brand involved, my impressions is extremely negative.

Exactly the opposite of the impression a good advertisement should create.

Re:Just no

[silas_moeckel]

No website should be able to force auto playing video. At the end of the day my web browser is mine and the builders should understand that. Sites being able ot auto play anything without my ability to turn it off or preferably be off by default is broken design.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the Cow you have a choice. You can stop using the damn thing and then you are no longer available for them to sell. There are multiple options for contacting people Facebook is only one.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the "YOU ARE ALL COWS MOO MOO" guy when you need him?

Re:Just no

[Cro Magnon]

This is too much bull to put up with.

Re:Just no

[squiggleslash]

Everything you've just said is why it'll blow up in their faces, and Facebook will start the uncomfortable process of announcing year on year losses of users.

They're essentially duplicating Twitter's mistakes, and not recognizing they were mistakes. Some years ago, Twitter decided to keep tweaking their service. @ replies were hidden. Trending Topics was no longer annotated. Then oodles of JS was added to their service, making it clumsy and unreliable.

Then came the real killers, images and previews. We went, overnight, from a service where everyone saw 15-20 tweets on their screens, enough to follow a conversation, to a situation where most can only see 3-5. Remember, we're talking about 140 characters of actual content per tweet here. The 3-5 was because lots of tweets would now include the headline of the article they're linking to (which would typically ALSO be in the tweet message itself), and because tweets would now frequently have images attached and have a honking great big preview there.

The people who liked Twitter suddenly found that the giant conversation part of it no longer existed. They started to bleed off. The people who used Twitter to follow celebrities continued to use it, but had no great incentive to stay.

More recently, we've seen bizarre attempts to implement message threading that were worse than the clumsy hacks we'd seen before, and even randomizing - sorry, algorithmically reorganizing the timelines.

And so Twitter started to suffer serious churn. Because it added features that nobody had asked for, nobody wants, and that harm the service for end users.

Who is asking for autoplaying videos? Who is asking for autoplaying SOUND attached to those videos? Who is asking for messages to be sorted into a semi-random order? Who asked for videos in the first place?

Nobody. People will leave Facebook. Not immediately. But give it two years, and you'll start to see the first signs their membership is over the peak, and beginning the descent to has-been website status.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

let's stop this at the browser level - no video or audio without activation

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

not to mention the generational motivation for change - a new set of teenagers - who keep fb for talking to their grandparents - but for the majority of use with their friends have moved on to a different service.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

>But but but how then are they going to be able play paid content containing ads about something totally irrelevant? ... how are they going to be able to play paid content containing ads about something? Shortened it and FTFY.
Irrelevant, relevant, targeted... all bad.

Re:Just no

[Anne Thwacks]

STOP USING FACEBOOK.

before the terms of service make it illegal to stop. You have been warned.

Re:Just no

[kheldan]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you an opportunity to clarify: Are you mocking Facebook, or are you mocking me?

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean in the same way that a farmer might hire a bull to "service" his cows?

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

You are on Facebook because you want to be told what to see and hear, whether you admit it or not.
If Facebook implements this, my bet is that most users won't leave and won't block it, they'll just bend over.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you were PAYING to use Facebook then it would be a different "

No, the cable companies have already proven this to be false. So I walked away from them too.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how *.facebook.com ends up with a 127 address in all of my dns servers, along with all of the other websites that have made it clear they don’t want visitors

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

he's mocking facebook AND you

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you deserve to be mocked, freeloader.

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

all good, but you have realised that you are using a free service... and someone has to foot the bill...

I do, for instance, happily pay for google apps for business, so that I do not get adds. Assuming Facebook would offer the same, would you be prepared to pay?

Re:Just no

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, faggot. When we want your opinion we'll beat it out of you.

Re: Just no

[Coren22]

You know, there are very few people alive today who have EVER owned slaves? Blaming each successive generation for what was done hundreds of years ago prevents you from ever moving forward.

Also, were you aware that there were slaves of other races than Black? There were Irish slaves, Chinese slaves, and many other races. Why is it you don't make the same arguments for the plight of the Chinese man in America today being cause by the slavery they were put under to build the transcontinental railroad?

Re:Just no

[Coren22]

If you use the Facebook app, it has a feature to turn off the autoplaying videos as you are expected to be on mobile data networks, and they don't want you to incur a huge bill as it would reflect negatively on them.

I wish they would understand that NO ONE likes autoplaying videos, but many companies don't seem to get that (CNN is horrible about it, to the point of working around autoplay blockers).

Re:Just no

[jittles]

If you use the Facebook app, it has a feature to turn off the autoplaying videos as you are expected to be on mobile data networks, and they don't want you to incur a huge bill as it would reflect negatively on them.

I wish they would understand that NO ONE likes autoplaying videos, but many companies don't seem to get that (CNN is horrible about it, to the point of working around autoplay blockers).

Why would you make "Autoplay Videos on Cellular Networks" the default setting? And then their own CTO or some other exec was just saying a month or two ago that they expect all the content on there to be video in the next 5 years. No thanks. But I agree, CNN is especially bad. If I wanted to see the news instead of reading it, I would turn on CNN instead of go to their website.

Re:Just no

[Coren22]

I don't remember which way the app's default is, I don't use Facebook much, but remember seeing a (/.?) story about the tickbox being available.

Re:Just no

[peawormsworth]

Yes! I can see this being a defining feature for which browser I choose to use in the future.

Forget about ad-ons. This should be a native feature and it should be set to mute by default. In fact, I would go for 'click to play' on all video sources.

I do not want my browser to be a TV. And if it is a TV, then I should have to do something to make it operate that way. Please Firefox: let me tell you when I want media to play.

For me: This is bothering me more and more, where I bring up multiple news tabs on a subject that interests me and about 1 minute later, one of them starts blasting audio/video and I don't know which one. And sometimes it is advertising. And often it consumes resources and slows down my operation of other windows. It makes me consider going back to pure text based browsing.

"Facebook is testing committing corporate suicide"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone left not using some form of adblocking?

Anoyher good reason

[rossdee]

not to use FB

Re:Anoyher good reason

[Big Hairy Ian]

I'm really looking forward to when i can call something old hat by saying "That's so Facebook!"

Re:Anoyher good reason

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm really looking forward to when i can call something old hat by saying "That's so Facebook!"

Just start saying, "Go back to Facebook, grampa!" Say it anywhere everywhere at the slightest provocation, even if it doesn't apply. Especially if it doesn't apply. Post "Go back to Facebook, grampa!" memes on Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. We'll start a trend and slowly sway the masses into abandoning Facebook.

Re:Anoyher good reason

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you want me, baby!

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep hoping Facebook will die, this is a good step towards that goal.

Close call.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like some fierce competition here for the coveted "Most Asinine Idea of 2016" award between Facebook for this bullshit and Apple for ditching headphone jacks.

Re:Close call.

[Z80a]

This race is not over yet.
Microsoft still can do something so horrible with windows 10 that may dwarf those two.

Re:Close call.

[Anne Thwacks]

Is corporate stupidity now an Olympic event?

Re:Close call.

[Z80a]

Given how many are running on this track yes.

Mandatory xkcd

[LichtSpektren]

Mandatory: https://xkcd.com/134/

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Kierthos]

The people who make the decisions to have auto-playing videos on their sites should be beaten with sticks.

Not the IT/web guys implementing it. The execs/marketing guys who go "Yeah, that's what we need. Autoplaying videos with minimal sound controls." Beaten. With sticks.

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

In minimal sound controls do you include the ones that allow you to adjust the sound but they always default themselves to full volume and then when you click on them to turn the volume down it counts that as clicking on the video and leaves the page you were on to show the video full screen (CNN I'm looking at you). Because if so, please hand me a stick, I'd like to join you. Seriously, who thought that was a reasonable thing to do?

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, who thought that was a reasonable thing to do?

A subversive developer who is trying very carefully to look like he is doing what he is told by management while also making the sites as painful as possible to actual users. Whether he is hoping that an annoyed public will convince the managers that it was a bad idea or he just really hates everyone is unknown, and possibly unknowable.

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Kierthos]

I've seen ones where the sound controls are hidden, and others where the choices are "full volume" and "mute" (because for an auto-playing video, those are clearly the only logical choices), and non-standard volume controls.

And for god's sake, you'd think that a lot of these sites (especially the ones that have "user controls") would have options for default volume and/or autoplay.

But noooooooo

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

Beaten. With sticks.

Agreed. They should be hung like the huge dicks they are.

Re:Mandatory xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see a more poetic punishment. Lock a pair of headphones to their ears that send audio signals at random intervals, random amplitudes, and for a random duration. Keep it up until they asphyxiate themselves with the audio cable.

Facebook = Total shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook really is a steaming pile of shit.

So auto playing adverts now eh ? Hopefully they'll start using lots of blink tags too.

If you use faecesbook you're a moron.

Re:Facebook = Total shit

[OneSmartFellow]

Either that you too many of your friends are morons, in which case, you're probably a moron too.

Re:Facebook = Total shit

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to re read that gibberish you wrote.

speaker off button

[Anonymous Coward]

Well as long as it is still possible to turn the volume off in whatever OS you are using, this should be kind of a non-issue, no?

Re:speaker off button

[Calydor]

What if you're currently listening to music, or on a VoIP call, or any other list of things that requires you to NOT mute the sound because Facebook is being stupid?

Re:speaker off button

[Anonymous Coward]

Just turn off the sound for that browser tab

Re:speaker off button

[Opportunist]

I am probably not the only person that replaced radio with youtube or webstream. The very LAST thing I could possibly stand in such an environment is an invasive, interrupting ad that reminds me why I replaced radio with Youtube and webstream in the first place.

Re:speaker off button

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the frigging blurb said it would be optional. Why can't Slashdorks read the whole four sentence blurb before they prove how much a bunch of fools they are by opening their ill-informed mouths? There's nothing informative here. Just another knee jerk post modded up that has no merit whatsoever.

Re:speaker off button

[Calydor]

And Facebook would NEVER go and 'accidentally' reset your settings for 'improved experience', right?

Re:speaker off button

[TeknoHog]

I use FB under a separate user account that has no access to the audio device (not to mention the files of my primary account).

Re:"Facebook is testing committing corporate suici

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the reason I stopped adding exceptions to my adblocker...

Re:"Facebook is testing committing corporate suici

[Anonymous Coward]

Auto-play videos with sound were the *reason* I started using ad-blocking.

Another failing company

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to stay relevant

Re:Another failing company

[Opportunist]

If memory serves me right, every company that tried to shove blaring autoplay videos down its user's throats only managed to contribute to its demise.

Nothing like a "better" video experience.

[frank_adrian314159]

Because nothing says "better video experience" like autoplay on a web page.

Testing

[stealth_finger]

This is one of several tests we're running as we work to improve the video experience for people on Facebook."

As long as one of the tests is getting rid of them all together. What was wrong with just putting a sideways triangle over the still that says hey this is a video, click me to play it.

These are supposed to be internet people, they should know that autoplay is the devil's code and it has no place in any self respecting web space.

Re:Testing

[110010001000]

What was wrong with it is you aren't likely going to click on a video for an advertisement. I'm not sure why people aren't grasping this concept. Everyone should be using adblock at this point, and flashcontrol or whatever extension stops videos from autoplaying.

Re:Testing

[PingSpike]

I just use the FlashControl add on for firefox to make the entire internet do this. One extra click when I want to see something is way easier IMO than trying to filter out what I wouldn't want.

Re:Testing

[Opportunist]

No, I'm not likely going to click an ad so it can blare at me and show me shit I ain't interested in. That's exactly the problem with ads.

If you think the music industry is stuck in the buggy whip times, you haven't seen nothing yet before taking a look at the advertising industry. They are really stuck in the "push" technologies that newspapers and (more even) TV offered them: We put it there and they have to consume it 'cause they have no choice. We interrupt your program for our messages and they have to sit there and watch them.

And they STILL try the same shit on the internet, a medium that by its very definition is anything but "push". Not only is it bidirectional, offering the great opportunity of interactivity in advertising, it is also trivial for the ad target to ignore, circumvent or outright deny the ad. Of course the old "you get it whether you like it or not" approach is doomed to fail in such an environment.

They have to "earn" those eyeballs. I know, an outlandish concept to an industry used to having an audience they can abuse as they please since they cannot avoid it, but this audience found a way to avoid you, and they hate you like the plague. Ads are about as popular as athlete's foot or a hernia. Hell, we have people who can't be assed to clean their computer of trojans that make them close 20 windows at start up, who don't get bothered by their computer running like molasses 'cause a dozen viruses hook into every keystroke and they don't care that their browser window has the size of a postal stamp due to a hundred browser bars competing for the screen real estate, but you, advertisers, managed to get them to install an ad blocker!

Can you imagine just how much ads have to piss someone like THIS off to act on it?

Your ads, if you want to stay relevant, have to offer people something they WANT. Include a flash game, it needn't be anything sophisticated or new, just make it funny and entertaining. Make your product the powerup in a Mario clone or let people shoot aliens trying to steal it and collect it when they drop it. Hell, if you feel like it, add some stupid prize like a monthly drawing of a month's supply of whatever you're hawking, so people actually play your game and give you their mail address.

For fuck's sake, make your ads entertaining! Nobody wants to hear how clean your sheets get with Tide and how much we should Gain. We've heard that. To the point where we'd rather go back to our childhood to sit through a church sermon because even THAT is less repetitive!

Figures....

[wbr1]

I only use FB for communication with some hard headed family members that can't be bothered to understand email and a bit of business related stuff. The 3rd time an update set auto-play videos back to on on my mobile devices (wasting my data for their shit), I uninstalled. I check once every week or so from a desktop. FB can go fuck itself.

Re:Figures....

[Anonymous Coward]

Couple that with my Verizon phones that spontaneously forget my home network, and this costs me a fortune in data overage charges.

Hmm.....

Let's put it this way ...

[MacTO]

I prefer to start videos manually on sites dedicated to streaming video. Those are sites where I expect to watch videos, and the video is going to be visible on the screen when the page loads. It gives me a chance to ensure that I'm on the right page, a chance to read the description, and a chance to prepare to watch the video (because sometimes I'm just looking for stuff that I want to watch).

As for autoplaying video on a site that serves a different purpose altogether, after clicking a link that I may not even know links to a video, that's a definite turn-off.

What comes around

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they do this a few years back and everyone turned it off?

Improved experience

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to improve your experience is to stop using FB.

No Javascript

[Anonymous Coward]

I do't touch Facebook with a ten-foot pole (less so with a browser I don't know whose tool it is: mine or "the industry's").

That said, I'm happy all those shenanigans stop working once I castrate my browser to not execute Javascript. You can't imagine what a peace of mind that brings.

Better go up my bandwidth limit again

[pinheadcelt]

I easily blow through my 5G data plan on my iPad just READING ARTICLES! Gonna have to start checking to see who's serving up 50M+ pages with all the ads and videos and remove them from my feeds. Except it's everyone now, isn't it. Blew through 150M yesterday in 30 minutes of reading articles. How do we fix this?

Re:Better go up my bandwidth limit again

[Opportunist]

Adblockers

Auto playing ads and fake news just like the flash

[Joe_Dragon]

Auto playing ads and fake news just like the sites that used to have so many flash ad's your system will just slow down and suck down a lot of bandwidth.

Oh Hell No

[Anonymous Coward]

Just, Oh Hell No. This is a horrible idea. I don't even want the damned things autoplaying at all, let alone with sound. If I want to waste my bandwidth on a video, that is fine but I don't want someones damn cat playing with a laser pointer to be using up bandwidth. Very seldom do I even watch the videos that people put on to begin with.

Testing?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF do you mean "just testing"? It's been in full fucking production on my FB Android app for a month now. Every fucking day, every 4-5 postings are some sort of fucking autoplay video. And I have the autoplay disabled in the FB settings but it happens anyway. Looks almost like animated GIF, like it's embedded or something. Not the usual video with click here to start.

Re:Testing?

[lxs]

Congratulations! You're one of the lucky lab rats.

Re:Testing?

[Cederic]

..and you still use it? Guess they know their idiots better than you think.

Sorry, I mean their users.

Solution

[asylumx]

I learned long ago to keep my media sound turned off on all my devices. Facebook is certainly not the first site or app to want to play sounds without your explicit permission, but you control the hardware so if you must browse Facebook, you can at least turn off your sound and simply turn it back up when there's something you really want to hear.

I know it's not an ideal solution but sometimes you have to live with the solution that you can actually control. Bitching about the ideology doesn't help as much as most of us wish it would.

Re:Solution

[Tvingo]

Yeah, I've resorted to leaving all my devices in mute until I actually want to hear something. It's a must at work, if you leave your volume on you never know when something might just blare out.

This just in!

[Opportunist]

Facebook testing how long it takes to reach 100% usage of adblocking software in its user base.

This would suck

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no positives to automatically playing videos on a user's stream.

Not Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do companies think auto-play is a good idea? The only good reason I can think of is the video will play an ad before you get around to watching the video so you end up not seeing it (but ad blocking is far better). A sketchy reason is that the site will get more ad hits since videos people wouldn't have clicked on will play anyway. But don't auto-play videos put off more people than that? I really hate YouTube without browser plugins, because if I see some interesting videos in the side bar I open them up in multiple tabs. Then I have to pause the current video, change tabs, pause all the new videos, then rewind them when I get around to watching them ('rewinding' doesn't always work well online). If I'm not on my own browser profile, I won't visit a video site.

Chrome Extension

[PixelPusher1532]

I don't really use facebook. However, I would love a chrome extension that would allow me to have the sound turned off in the browser and selectively enable on a tab by tab basis.

Re:Chrome Extension

[Anonymous Coward]

It's built-in in Firefox. Maybe it's time to abandon Google's spyware.

Re:Chrome Extension

[PixelPusher1532]

I think I found one that does this. Named 'mute tab'. Just installed it, seems to work ok for the first five minutes. Oddly enough, when looking at the settings, the one site in the whitelist was facebook.com

Midi and Blinking Text

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up: autoplay midis and blinking text! Because half the people using Facebook either weren't alive or aren't old enough to remember the true horrors of bad late 90s web design. And you think those full-screen ads are bad!

This is a great idea

[Cajun Hell]

One of the problems we face today, is that some people are, believe it or not, still using Facebook. I think this will help.

Re:This is a great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use teh Fazebookz but I just wuv to cry and complain on articles about tehm!!!!11111!!!!!

-Cajun Dullard

Is that all you really bring to the table? Seriously?

Re:This is a great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Who complains more, the complainer, or the complainer who follows?

Re:This is a great idea

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I use Facebook to follow all my favorite bands in one place, and to keep tabs on which friends are going to which concerts.

That's about it, everything else on FB can go screw itself.

The TV-ization of the web

[Anonymous Coward]

Even back in the 90s, I always knew that the web eventually must transform into television.

Every passing year confirms this.

This TV-ization of the web is obvious enough when Facebook starts encouraging its users to use auto-play video.

But it also manifests itself in a lot of other ways. Remember pop-up windows? Well, browsers got rid of those. But they immediately came back in the form of Javascript/CSS pop-ups within the page -- which are even more insidious because they now forcibly obscure the content beneath them. This shows how crucially important it is for websites to steal your attention. Nothing does that better than something big, animated, and unexpected -- like an auto-play video, or a content-obscuring pop-up.

This is the future direction of the web. No other future is possible.

Re:"Facebook is testing committing corporate suici

[laie_techie]

Anyone left not using some form of adblocking?

What adblockers are available for smart phones? I am especially asking about ones that work for the Facebook App for either Android or iOS.

Re:"Facebook is testing committing corporate suici

[Doke]

I use Adguard on android, "https://adguard.com/en/adguard-android/overview.html". It functions as a VPN, so it can block ads even on mobile data. Some of the premium features require buying a license. The biggest problems I have are it sometimes interferes with sending and receiving texts, and I have to temporarily disable it to use my work vpn. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S6 connected to AT&T.

There can be no bigger Cunts...

[sycodon]

...than organizations/developers who turn on my muted speakers to play their fucking content.

And don't fucking start with turn off this or turn off that. I turned off the speakers and that should be enough. If you turn them on, you are a cock sucking asshole who should die in a car fire.

Re: There can be no bigger Cunts...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a female blue whale?

Re: There can be no bigger Cunts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh Oh...some idiot Moderator was Triggered.

Re:There can be no bigger Cunts...

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, you can script the browser to unmute audio?

FB is becoming MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

FB is becoming MySpace. And the auto-play feature of MySpace is the very reason I stopped using it. Not a good plan FB.

Adblock!

[_KiTA_]

And with one decision Facebook ruins any goodwill they had and guilt I had about blocking their ads.

Popups. Talking ads. Redirects. Full page bullshit. PDF malware. Any of these make me feel completely justified in blocking ads.

Re:Adblock!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh-huh. And previously you were looking at their ads, were you?

If not, then there's no change in your behavior, is there?

Awesome

[LordWabbit2]

Next they will be experimenting with and maybe !!!

The future is here and it looks a LOT like 1990.
Another reason to avoid Facebook like the plague, as if I needed another.

Autoplay video commercials?

[QuietLagoon]

Well folks, it has happened. facebook has taken to total abuse of its product (the product being facebook "members" whose info is sold to advertisers).

what exactly

[notrandom]

just what exactly is the test testing ?

Re:"Facebook is testing committing corporate suici

[Opportunist]

No, this is just another social study done by Facebook. They're one damn clever bunch!

Of course they know that everyone and their dog hates blaring ads. They're not stupid. But they want to know just how much bullshit their users will put up with. And it's easy to determine simply by looking at the amount of ad blocking going on in their user base. They can slowly crank the annoyance meter up and watch the ad blocking rise. That's marketing research you can take right to the bank!

Forthcoming Update!

[zarmanto]

And in next month's hypothetical news...

UPDATE: Facebook Cancels Autoplay For Videos

A report out today states that Facebook's usage statistics dropped precipitously over the past month, as users apparently simply stopped casually opening Facebook on their mobile phones almost entirely. One incensed user reports that his Facebook feed just suddenly started blaring an advertisement for Trojan condoms, right in the middle of his Sunday morning church service. Says the user, who prefers to remain anonymous, "I was totally shocked and embarrassed! I mean, I have never -- never, I tell ya -- shopped for condoms online! I mean, don't tell my girlfriend, but sure... I've surfed a little porn now and then -- but how the heck could Facebook know about that??"

Facebook executives cast the entire blame for this dip in usage on a software technician who had developed and deployed the new "Autoplay" feature for videos showing up in end-users news feeds, which was silently rolled out to all users and which naturally defaults to "on." The feature has now been rolled back in a panicked effort to minimize any further damage, but analysts are skeptical that the once overwhelmingly popular service will be able to reclaim its former glory. One executive was quoted as saying, "Hey, don't look at me! It's all that developer's fault -- and trust me, we've sacked him but good!" This reporter has asked Facebook for more details on what happened to the executive who authorized the new feature, but Facebook has not yet responded to queries as of press time.

Re:Forthcoming Update!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please lawd, let zarmanto's words be understood by those narcissist policy makers at fb and let common sense rule. Praise be to jebus & any other sky friends with a modest ability to affect the Clouds.

You asked for it and got it

[Pitawg]

You choose to run a web browser. An application platform that allows anyone to send unseen unproven code to your machine and execute it. You attempt to complain about something you instigated, and were even warned would happen.

If you really cared about what they execute on your machine, you would look it over prior to executing it in your browser. You did not, so you do not. Pipe down, others are paying attention.

Pretty sure that's why I dumped MySpace

[nucrash]

Not because everyone's pages were complete clusters of vomit flung on to pages, but the damn execution of music for ever page I jumped on and then when I would open eight tabs, I would have to listen to eight songs loading at once.

Facebook on the other hand was this clean cut, very professional looking website that didn't need any of these advertising dollars at the time.
Monetization wasn't a big deal at the time and the platform was solid. Fast forward a decade and we see this cluster that I left a decade earlier.

Why? Why should we deal with this bull?

Re:Pretty sure that's why I dumped MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic comparison, very well described. Your writing is succinct, understandable, reveals a historical precedent, and a truthful ultimatum.
10/10 would read comment again!

Flashbacks of MySpace

[jxander]

It would seem that on a long enough timeline, all social media devolves into the same overwrought mess of flashing lights and blaring noise.

And then dies

I fully support this

[HungryMonkey]

Perhaps you shouldn't be on Facebook in class and meetings? Also helps that I don't use Facebook.

Smartphones are a disease

[Anonymous Coward]

TFS:

the last thing you want is to be checking Facebook quickly during a meeting or class and suddenly have your phone blaring out [...]

Why are you checking Facebook during a meeting or class?

Technical progress at light speed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily we still have companies that invest in innovation like Facebook. Who did even imagine such a technical master piece like autoplaying video's with sound?! We would still be stuck in the 20th century with people having to click on a play button. The world slowly becomes a better place, thank you new tech companies!

Facebook is for old people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really looking forward to when i can call something old hat by saying "That's so Facebook!"

Just start saying, "Go back to Facebook, grampa!" Say it anywhere everywhere at the slightest provocation, even if it doesn't apply. Especially if it doesn't apply. Post "Go back to Facebook, grampa!" memes on Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. We'll start a trend and slowly sway the masses into abandoning Facebook.

I want FLASH back!

[kiviQr]

All this HTML5 is a way to send us more ads that are harder to block. No thanks!

Re:I want FLASH back!

[TeknoHog]

Me too. The crystallized leftovers of LSD in my spinal fluid are starting to wear off.

Can anyone?

[cyberzephyr]

Tell me how to turn it off before it starts? :-)

Re:Can anyone?

[knorthern knight]

In Pale Moon, and possibly Firefox, change 2 settings in "about:config" as follows...

media.autoplay.allowscripted; false
media.autoplay.enabled; false

But it's what people are asking for!

[Jadecristal]

It's real simple: this is apparently what "people" want, based on their behavior.

Alternatives (paid, and cheap) have attempted to make your "social media" something where you're the customer, not the product (see http://app.net/ - "people" have mostly rejected it, whether on philosophical grounds (I'm not paying for this!), or for critical mass problems (But everyone I want to talk to used Facebook!). Primarily, it just seems that they want it free and don't value being a customer - they're fine being the product.

THAT, in turn, leads to this: Facebook will keep testing where the black, thick boundary line is that causes too much pain until it they overstep and do too much damage, then they'll back up just a little. And wait. And then test it again, maybe in a slightly different way. They're only slightly less insidious than the government here-the government just keeps attempting to ram the same thing through/down your throat until total rage fatigue sets in, and not enough people still want to fight it.

You Have 158,932 Annoying Video Notifications

[BrendaEM]

You have 158,932 annoying video notifications of people who know scratching themselves, burping, and brushing their teeth.

Goddamn these advertisers just don't learn!

[Chas]

They know, well, that people don't want auto-play video with sound.

History has shown that users will block such things with a vengeance or walk away from a service that won't stop this sort of nasty behavior.

Yet FACEBOOK is going to try it again. Like it wasn't fucking obnoxious and undesirably the first umpty-fuckin-bajillion times it was tried.

But hey. Go ahead! Make your platform ever more irrelevant! All in the name of chasing ad dollars!

You fucking twits...

Next up...

[pla]

Coming next: Facebook tests out modal popup windows as a means of delivering the content - aka ads - people really want to see, rather than wasting their time taking them directly to things like profiles, pictures, or their wall.

And as a bonus, pop-under porn ads, so you can enjoy one last bit of joy from Facebook while desperately trying to close out of your browser as the boss approaches.

New technologies

[malditaenvidia]

In other news, facebook is also testing a new web platform that will launch emergent windows that "pop up" on your screen, urging you to "hit the monkey" and win fabulous prizes.

Welcome to computational foix gras

[John Allsup]

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a foix gras goose, to become the epitome of the best pate? Well now you can, in the form of force fed videos paid for by our sponsors. Enjoy!

If you must ...

[nosfucious]

1 - Don't use the stupid shit. However, if you think you must use it:
2 - Use a good ad blocker. Of course, this will be a cat and mouse game between the ad company (Facebook) and the ad-blockers (various).
3 - Use firefox and a little "about:config" followed by search for "autoplay". Until you land on "media.autoplay.enabled" and set the boolean value to false. Good for all sorts of crap websites that want to autoplay videos on you.

You're welcome.

Please do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything to hasten the demise

What the hell is it 2001 again?

[Rainwulf]

Autoplaying audio on websites? Why are the hell are we regressing!

Sound violates my privacy

[peawormsworth]

I can choose where I look, but I cannot choose what enters my ears. No matter how I twist and turn, audio invades my personal space.

Nice Features

[Anonymous Coward]

very nice features goo.gl/duMSZt