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Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

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Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#111
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this waste of time / pointless ? They do bring value for fb, they reduce the loss of ad money.

Because they are fighting the people that absolutely do not want to see advertisements whatsoever (most normal people I know do not have ad-blockers), which already makes them the least likely to be attracted by advertisements. If anything, those brands are souring their reputation anytime they are seen by those kind of people in a medium that those consumers find obnoxious. You can make a similar argument that the R…

"Delivering value to customers"? It's a website-cum-message board. There is no further value to deliver via software features; all of that work is going towards meeting the needs of advertisers.

And advertisers are asking them to show what they are doing to combat adblocking. FB isn't doing this to target customers least likely to convert, they're doing it to check a box for their ad sales team.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#112
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this waste of time / pointless ? They do bring value for fb, they reduce the loss of ad money.

Because they are fighting the people that absolutely do not want to see advertisements whatsoever (most normal people I know do not have ad-blockers), which already makes them the least likely to be attracted by advertisements. If anything, those brands are souring their reputation anytime they are seen by those kind of people in a medium that those consumers find obnoxious. You can make a similar argument that the R…

> which already makes them the least likely to be attracted by advertisements. If anything, those brands are souring their reputation anytime they are seen by those kind of people in a medium that those consumers find obnoxious.

Facebook thinks otherwise. Between you and them, I suspect they are more likely to have some evidence or trials to support their position.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#113
post #106
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fun challenge. It's just ads. If we're talking about some ad for a coffee maker, whatever. Now their whole selling data to unscrupulous folks, taking money from parents via their kids, selling fake news that makes people hate other people (now that gets into the ad space...) .... That's where I'd want to nope out.

Do you think creating something that goes counter to your users desire is not unscrupulous? The only difference between the first stage of the pipeline and the rest is a matter of degree.

>counter to your users desire is not unscrupulous?

I mean no... they don't have to my (or my employer's) site.

I love doing things users like, and I do my best to do that often, but straight up it's not their site. If someone wants ads on their site ... I don't see a problem with that on the most basic level.

Fake news, other content, we're talking about something else.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#114
post #104
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fun challenge. It's just ads. If we're talking about some ad for a coffee maker, whatever. Now their whole selling data to unscrupulous folks, taking money from parents via their kids, selling fake news that makes people hate other people (now that gets into the ad space...) .... That's where I'd want to nope out.

Those two scenarios aren't mutually exclusive. One hand washes the other, the distinction is only between who gives the order and who carries it out.

I think you can have "legitimate ads".

I think plenty of people are happy to do illegitimate things with them too, and Facebook is as dirty as it gets, but that doesn't mean ads can't be fairly mutually exclusive from scams, fake news, and etc if someone wanted them to be.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#115
post #82
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea of course it's not for everyone, everyone have different concern, but I could see myself work on this if it paid well.

Perhaps reconsider. "If it paid well" externalizes the ills it inflicts on other people. And they matter, too .

sure, thats why I said what everyone consider 'matter' are different, for me this doesn't matter that much.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#116
post #101
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fun challenge. It's just ads. If we're talking about some ad for a coffee maker, whatever. Now their whole selling data to unscrupulous folks, taking money from parents via their kids, selling fake news that makes people hate other people (now that gets into the ad space...) .... That's where I'd want to nope out.

Much harder when you're working on a product you also happen to love and use. And it creeps up, more and more, one ad there, and one more, and an inerstitial, and then inside the emails too, let's hide the hide amongst the real stuff and ... At some point you feel like you're desecrating a body.

No doubt about it man, that happens. I don't disagree.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#117
post #106
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fun challenge. It's just ads. If we're talking about some ad for a coffee maker, whatever. Now their whole selling data to unscrupulous folks, taking money from parents via their kids, selling fake news that makes people hate other people (now that gets into the ad space...) .... That's where I'd want to nope out.

Do you think creating something that goes counter to your users desire is not unscrupulous? The only difference between the first stage of the pipeline and the rest is a matter of degree.

Disagree. How do you suggest they operate their business? Does this extend to print magazines and newspapers--do you suggest they stop running ads and just give away their product? Do you think Facebook should start charging a subscription?

What users want, naturally, is everything awesome free forever. It's naive, though, to things that everyone should always get what they want.

As other have said, I agree there are hard limits and Facebook has violated them, in terms of selling data and collecting it without user's permission. That's different.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#119
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works for a single iteration, but if there are multiple implementations that are randomly chosen when rendered it's a lot harder. Pretty easy to build a randomizing span algo that you can't hardcode.

Not really. We have scraped many sites successfully that try this randomisation logic. There is always a pattern, which often can be determined via heuristics. It does make things trickier, but not impossible or especially difficult.

It feels like the point is just to raise the difficulty for script kiddies.

After all, there’s always headless browsers and OCR

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#120
post #57
post #18

If you don't mind getting rid of every post in the timeline, there's News Feed Eradicator for Facebook: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

At this point, maybe just delete your Facebook account?

Look, I don't like Facebook, but it provides me tangible value sans the news feed which I feel is bad for my health.

* Messenger is the hands down the best messaging experience that exists. It's super bloated which I'm sure annoys this crowd but it doesn't skip a beat.

* FB Events is the only thing I've ever been able to get people to use -- email chains and group messages aren't half as productive.

* Their real name policy, social graph, and blocking tools are essential for dealing with creepy people and stalkers.

* Local buy/sell/trade yardsale type things operate nigh exclusively on Facebook.

* Local professional networking and enthusiast groups also organize on Facebook.

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