X users report unlabeled clickbait ads that you can’t block or report
(www.theverge.com)
from mrmanager@lemmy.today to technology@lemmy.ml on 08 Oct 2023 17:10
https://lemmy.today/post/1828795
from mrmanager@lemmy.today to technology@lemmy.ml on 08 Oct 2023 17:10
https://lemmy.today/post/1828795
#technology
threaded - newest
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mashable reports that users on X, formerly known as Twitter, have seen unlabeled ads in their feeds while scrolling through the company’s mobile apps.
When users tap them, they’re taken to other websites, with no way to block or report them.
Unlike normal ads that are just posts from company X accounts and have an “Ad” label, these new ones have no account associated with them.
If you’re just scrolling, the embedded image and clickbait-style text might make you think it’s just another post.
A “profile” picture made from the embedded image completes the illusion.
Neither I nor my colleagues at The Verge have seen the new ads in our own feeds.
The original article contains 152 words, the summary contains 112 words. Saved 26%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Hahahahhahah why are there still users there?!
Because there are sadly a lot of Musk Cucks.
Mucks.
<img alt="" src="https://feddit.cl/pictrs/image/b3034e9f-3f64-4145-90ef-fb3e16797172.png">
I can’t speak for all, but: porn. I have a bunch of people I follow, it’s literally the only reason I still have an account. Waiting on a bluesky invite but not all have signaled migration to another platform so… I just want to see twinks in kink gear sigh
DM me for a Bsky invite*
Hoping the cross-platform messaging has been fixed.
The ability/button to message you is disabled in Thunder, but you can hit me up with any public contact method I have, just check my site (username + .com).
Edit: got one :)
For some people, it’s because not enough of a particular community has moved… somehow
Some academic / research / medical communities for example. For others it’s the journalists that have yet to move
Because of the network effect.
Because all the nazi Influences are still there
And still too many artists instead of pages like deviantart, artstation or pixiv.
vTubers of various agencies and indied also using it as a main communication platform. Youtube communities usually as a 2nd platform.
Can’t speak for the rest but deviantart turned into a free speech absolutist shithole that caters to racists and bigots, no different to twitter.
deviantart, artstation, pixivWhat when? I just use it for rainmeter skins to be fair.
Hadn’t used it for a couple of years, I went back there shortly after the whole Rhode v Wade debacle in the US and the place was a cesspool, the forums were horrendous. I actually went and wiped my account because I didn’t want to be tempted to go back.
Also all the old artist resources and community made stuff that I used to be part of was either inaccessible, unfindable, or just wasn’t catered to anymore.
I figure most don't know where else to shit post. I personally can't think of a Twitter alternative of the top of my head. Note I'm a hermit.
Mastodon
Or, if you must use something corporate, Threads or Bluesky.
Porn. The porn side of Twitter is still intact and really quite… okay I was gonna say “wholesome” but maybe I should say “holesome”? Ehh? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh?
…anyway.
That said, a lot of adult content creators have been creating accounts on bsky once they get invites. If bsky opens up more there could actually be an exodus.
Only three of my Twitter porn creators are on bs so far (out of ~100), but one of those is very… important (?) to me. He’s a lanky tall hung uncut sub and nudist. Whenever I check Twitter, I’d always go to his page first.
We only need a few creators like that to tip the scale heavily, imo. Good content, large audience, regular updates, just nudging their viewers a bit.
Lotta artists make their living through Twitter
Because there’s no viable replacement.
Before you or someone else mentions Mastodon (and probably compare it to the Reddit migration to Lemmy; I’ve been through this conversation before): Both Twitter and Mastodon are built on the concept of following people. If those people don’t migrate to another platform, then the people following them won’t migrate, either.
But Reddit and Lemmy are built on the concept of following ideas. It doesn’t matter if one person who, for example, enjoys anime, only stays on Reddit. Others who who enjoy anime may move to Lemmy and become part of one or more of the anime communities on Lemmy instead.
Basically, the comparison isn’t 1-to-1.
Those ads don’t even look like they’re useful to anyone, they’re like the “He figured out how to download a car. Doctors hate him!” ads from a decade ago
just why
Bots advertising to bots, like Facebook
But Elon hates bots! That’s why he bought twitter in the first place!
He hates bots*
*that don’t agree with his fascism, or don’t make him money
Maybe it’s a kind of dummy content for the test phase? Pretty sure too many people blocked ads and this is their solution
No real brand wants to advertise on his platform anymore, so he’s serving dogshit ads like this now, to the first people who pay. It’s not a conspiracy
Yep, we’re about six months away from Elon Musk personally hawking snake-oil diet supplements and survivalist gear to doomsday preppers a lá Alex Jones. Heck, once Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings are finished, Elon can just buy out his stock, cross out
Infoand sell them as “ElonWars Supplements.”Yes but the question is why would anyone pay for ads like that? How is that investment going to make any sense?
Three only people who will pay to advertise to neo-nazis.
The thing is, neo-Nazis are ignorant, so they’re exactly the people to advertise your scam to.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/dc3dbab1-86f7-4175-b314-a9adc52942a1.jpeg">
Downloading a car is relatively easy. It’s printing that’s a bitch.
I only kept the app on my phone for the rare occasion I wanted to read a full post from one linked here. Those have evaporated so it lost its last little bit of usefulness.
nitter.net has been pretty stable lately so I have been using that instead.
How can they report the unreportable?
Or block the unblockable
Row row fight the powah!
I know you’re trying to reach
But can’t touch the untouchable
Put a hold on this, I DON’T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES
You talk like a book 😘
I wasn’t sure if we were quoting Evil Activities’ Invincible!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Invincible
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Please do the needful and revert
Why would anyone still be using that Nazi’s hate platform?
Downvote Musk spam.
The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the headlines every day. Don’t be a useful idiot.
I almost feel sorry for the mindless twits still using that platform.
Why? They’ve seen what we’ve seen and deemed it acceptable. Let them suffer the consequences. They’ve earned it.
People go where the people are. The people are still on twitter.
In record numbers, they aren’t.
And yet they still are. And yet you still complain that they still are. And yet you whinge that they aren’t elsewhere.
If twitter is dead then why are you still talking about it?
I think you mean to ask your question to the original poster, not me. Since I didn’t bring it up, only comment on it. But I get it, you miss your friends.
Good. Now stop using the platform. Simple as.
The article linked also has ads I can’t block or report. This is just more “rocket man bad” crap.
Rocket man is bad. Are you implying he isn’t? Two things can be bad at once.
Bad at what. I’m not quick to be so black and white in a gray world, and at the same time I don’t really care one way or the other. But it’s annoying to constantly hear complaints about things related to him when everyone else does the same shit.
He’s a billionaire, he’s a conservative, and he’s spouted falsehoods about covid.
I disliked him when he was less rich and more liberal after he called that dude a pedo because he didn’t like Musk’s idea for saving those trapped kids. He’s a child.
Yeah the pedo comment was nasty. He was just spouting off because he got his feelings hurt, I can relate to that. He is human and followed up with an apology.
I have no clue the story with spreading covid lies. So much covid info was and still is very unknown. I’ve seen unintentional lies spread from big names on both sides on that.
I’m not saying the man is a saint, but hot damn I’d personally go after any politician for being a shitty human before I went after Elon.
These are unlabeled ads presented as legit tweets. Are the ads on the article disguised as news content?
Yes. Scroll to the bottom of the article. The ads all look like related stories (“sponsored content” section on verge). That’s how most sites do it too, and actually most are way worse and look more like related news without any sponsored content indication.
It’s nothing new. It’s as normal as google putting sponsored ads as the first page of results, which look like search results and also can’t be blocked or reported.
These were blocked successfully by blokada (didn’t even need pihole for them). Unfortunately it’s a subscription on iOS, but it’s still free on android!
These look to be the culprit: z.moatads.com, cdn.concert.io, api.parsely.com, ak.sail-horizon.com, static.narrativ.com, syndication.twitter.com, www.googletagmanager.com
Those were blocked by my current lists, and no weird ads appeared on that page; I hope this helps!
Any idea how to block ads in the Twitter Android app? Or, rather, which sites to block? I’m using AdGuard to block ads on all apps, but it doesn’t seem to affect the Twitter app. Either the Twitter app runs ads differently or the ads aren’t part of any of the blocklists.
The twitter ones are really hard, because I think they’re interstitial with the actual twitter content. I haven’t used the platform in ages, either, but I think they come form the same domain as the rest of the content.
To see if that’s the case, you could close everything, use the app and wait until you get an ad, then check the logs of your ad blocker to see what domains sre being hit. Pick a suspicious one, block it, and try to load the content. You’ll break something almost guaranteed, but it’s easy to just unblock the domain afterwards
I’m not too sure how adguard works, I’ve never tried it, but I think it worked on the same concept as pihole etc, by blocking domains. As long as there’s a log file, you should be able to fiddle and see if you can block just that ad domain.
Someone with more direct experience will likely have more to say on the matter, of course. This is just the technique I used to block ads on my city’s parking app - which I have to put up with AFTER I pay for parking! Heh
Looks like you may be right. Most requests came from api.twitter.com (and variations of that, such as api-33-0-0.twitter.com). The only different one was from global.albtls.t.co, and it was already blocked thanks to Peter Lowe’s Blocklist.
X, formerly known as Twitter, is one of the largest social media platforms. To not report on a change like this that injects ads that you’d see on “news” websites with clickbaity articles would be silly.
Instead of renaming it to “X,” Elon magically renamed his platform to “X, formerly known as Twitter.”
Reminds me of the artist formally known as Prince
The difference being that Prince did that change to screw his record label intentionally.
Other differences include the facts that Prince had talent, and that some people liked him.
I did not know that (the label part)
*formerly
But since he’s known as Prince again, what you wrote is technically correct.
Feels just like reddit
It annoys me more than it should every time I read that. Like one person gets to sit down every day and make some proclamation, and now everyone else has to go along with it.
I’m not sure what is better, but even something like “X/Twitter” might be easier than repeatedly saying “X, formerly known as Twitter”
for short, how about
?
I love the /-style of writing it, precisely because of the way it would be pronounced.
To be honest, the only reasonable question is: what are these people still doing on this crappy thing?
My solution works fine on Android
Now you have a launcher icon for Twitter that opens in Firefox and has all the ads stripped out. I believe there is even a “Twitter Control Panel” add on that will remove a lot of the remaining clickbait from the page too - what’s trending etc.
But then I’d have that terrible X logo on my phone instead of the much-less-terrible bird logo.
I have yet to update to any version of the app that uses that logo.
Orrr, another solution is… what, class?
Use Mastadon or some other social media platform. Not always a choice and if you’re stuck with Twitter you might as well ensure you’re not enriching the platform.
…if they’re reporting the unreportable, how is it unreportable?
Reported.
Report reported, reporter.
i guess they report outside of twitter that there is no “report” function on Twitter itself.