Looks like Facebook is following youtube with anti-adblock measures.

if ads were just static PNGs with a link you went to if you clicked I wouldn't have ever bothered. but ads became a major malware and tracking risk so plugging that security hole became mandatory.

It's true. I work in a computer shop and we see literally thousands and thousands of dollars lost from people clicking on ads that look like normal buttons (things like "Download", "Next", etc). And not just the elderly either. Everyone has a a combination of inputs to get scared and comply. Folks that are otherwise extremely competent and savvy can get scammed too.

The best security you can have online is adblockers, only beaten by using trusted websites.

Edit, fair points with sites being slimy these days. I meant using legitimate versions of websites rather than copy/fake websites designed to steal credentials.

Definitely. Ads are eye cancer at best, and infiltration channels for malware at worst. Compromised ad networks pumping out executable code via javascript (or back in the days, Flash) are still a major source of trojan infections.

And just to add to your important point, Ad Blockers are really Content Blockers. They allow the user to delete annoyances that have nothing to do with advertising. We should all start calling them Content Blockers.

I have said it before, snd I will repeat it as many times as it takes.

Adblocking is security, untill website owners take legal and financial responsibillity for the harm that a hacked ad spreading malware or attenpting any kind of deception, I won't even consider removing my adblocker.

If this changes, I will consider it, but will still not do it, the risk to my data is too large.

Yeah, there's no proper screening process and companies aren't help liable for malicious advertisements. It's the Wild west out there, and companies take money from anyone due to there being no consequences. Internet advertising has no proper screening process like network television.

Oh yeah aunt Greta, I’m still friends with you, but it’s so weird how I can’t see your anti vax “facts”

I took a peek at my feed for the first time in years. It's all junk lol, no one I care about is posting anything

The only thing worth seeing is my local Buy Nothing group, but there are other services popping up which do something similar.

It sure might be, but the one friend who got blocked is just casually posting stuff from his personal life, nothing spammy going on there. Either facebook is screwing with me, or they are playing out some friend's posts in the ad-network stream so you are actually losing some genuine content. That would be evil (and totally something Meta would do), but I really couldn't care less.

My Facebook is hardly even friends these days. It's basically ads, suggested posts, and posts in groups. Maybe because none of my friends really post anymore, I dunno.

Boom boom boomers

There are a few countries where Facebook is still pretty popular. The Philippines, for example

One of my parent's dozen+ facebook bots that steal their pictures/identity, because they are too dumb to know how to configure FB privacy settings. It's disturbing how many of them just scour profiles, replicate, and impersonate to scam.

Averyone who wants to have social life in my country

My ASD brother, who prefers to be contacted through it. I want to maintain what little relationship I have with him.

In Brazil, it is useful to contact people that you know in real life, family and friends...

Plus, it sorta works like a Craigslist here. People sell and buy things from Facebook everyday, and people advertise their business and services here (e.g: restaurants, plumbing services, gift stores, etc)

Exactly and I think what we are seeing here is that the other companies are now helping build a very frustrating user experience to break down the everyday user. We will likely see Twitter and others joining in the coming weeks

And given Google has the monopoly on ads, they have nothing to lose.

They have already succeeded.

Yes same for me, whatsapp is pretty much the only "genuine" communication channel. I only keep a presence on facebook since I have to move countries frequently for work, and the "expats in $city" groups are quite helpful to find people, and then move the discussions off-platform :-)

I'm trying to encourage people to move to peertube. Not much content there, but i'll reward what intersting content I find. You should too

Someone on here linked to odysee.com which appears to be a better version of YouTube so far, even Louis Rossman is there talking about YT's new adblock situation as one example: https://odysee.com/@rossmanngroup:a/youtube's-adblock-war-is-backfiring-in:c

It's YouTube (piped when I can but the servers seem to be down) and old.reddit.com for me.

It'll end well enough. People will just stop using their shitty platforms. They'll start looking for alternatives, from which there are loads, find that there are platforms that don't require ads, and go there.

Those that stay deserve the shit they get

Eventually they will just use server side authentication that the ads were displayed properly and the best an adblocker can do is draw a grey rectangle over it and mute your tabs sound.

The thing is, if they get really stupid with it I could just go ahead and install pi hole. I haven't already because it's a bit of a fiddle on and I don't apparently don't need it yet. There's no way for the government to mandate against that, unless they actually want to ban me from owning a computer, Which obviously won't really work.

Holy shit that's devious.

They also use all those uglified class names so you can't easily target a class to block. They're total bastards. The Facebook Purity plugin is hip to all these tricks though. There are some very dedicated and talented developers who have put in a lot of time and creativity to circumvent these assholes.

The algo doesn't determine what YOU want to see, it's to determine what the ADVERTISERS want to market themselves to.

Yep. Who is still using FB? Not me.

It's probably made-up garbage. If they knew my ad-blocker had actually blocked a friend, I'm sure they would have found a way not to get anything blocked.

Or alternatively they are now displaying some friend's posts on the same channel normally reserved for ad networks so they are indistinguishable via software? But then it should be way more than one, unless this is some early A/B testing crap.

They probably are detecting your ad blocker, and choosing to block random posts as a strange kind of disciplinary behavior.

I saw sometimes ads that was claiming that one of my friends like that product too. My bet is on that.

BTW: I started using user script to remove recommendations, suggestions and other crap like that. It makes Facebook so much more bearable but interestingly also feels less addictive.

That's why they're blocking the friend posts! So they can give you more ads!

If they can tell you when and how many of your friend's posts were blocked, they could just as easily not block them.

This is such an insidious way to stop people from using Facebook.

Sir, this is Lemmy

Better late than never

As soon as one has the audacity to deploy anti-consumer bullshit and the others see there's no measurable fallback, they all rush to roll out the same shit.

Between that and stuff I looked up on Amazon not that long prior.

Even though I dont want to and hate it, I have to cause pretty much everyone elae uses it, cause everyone they know use it etc etc

Facebook marketplace is more popular than Craigslist, offerup, etc. at this point. And there is an enormous knowledge base for various hobbies/activities via groups like gardening, mountaineering, etc. People use Facebook for the community. I hate Meta as much as anybody, but it is good for many things.

I've never had an issue with any of the changes Facebook has made over the past 5 years.

That's because I haven't used facebook at all.

Sorry, you don't appreciate getting the highlight reel of everyone else's life to make yourself feel inferior?

That's what I'm using the ghostery browser addon for. They are pretty effective with external tracker removals.

why would this lead to more adblocker installs? it's a message about already having one

While i like ublock and use it myself, i hope not everyone uses it! There need to be different adblockers. Same as just one browser, or one forum is vulnerable to different things, so would adblocks be.

I stopped in 2015. For all I care, load it to the rim with ads. Hopefully, more people will come off it because of it.

I use it for marketplace though it's not my favourite. More tire-kickers and scammers on FB than craigslist.

I think my friends who use social media still use messenger for group chats.

Only when searching for cars on Marketplace, as there isn't any other site or platforms with the amount of listings that fb has

I have a fake profile with my real name on there just to troll around my extended family as they use it. Even that is insufferable for me.

I log in once a week since I'm in a few useful groups, but haven't posted in a solid decade.

it's more like I have it and sometimes visit to see if something happened

Anything that blocks wordle posts would be welcome

This worked: Fluff Busting Purity

Although not certain how safe it actually is. Seems like the extension exists since 2009 and is still regularly updated. But it can not be found on Firefox native Addon database.

Yes, but you'll have to remove the stock Facebook app from your phone, which may require root access.

Anti adblockers have always been a thing. Every month or so in the past five or six years I've come across a site that demands that I deactivate my adblocker, to which I've said "lol no" and moved on.

I have started seeing anti adblockers banners since last year or two way before YouTube started blocking adblockers.

To be fair, what is roscomnadzor and why do I care if it blocked Facebook?