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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."
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.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
not to use FB
Auto-play videos with sound were the *reason* I started using ad-blocking.
Because nothing says "better video experience" like autoplay on a web page.
That is all.
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.
Silence is a state of mime.
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.
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.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
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!
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.