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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

#201

Post by JacobJans »

andrepd wrote: post #164
asdkhadsj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

To me ads are fundamentally about misleading you, manipulating you, or in short: making you do something that you wouldn't do otherwise. This to me is morally wrong on a base level. Advertisement is an attempt to attack/manipulate your vulnerable mammal brain to make you do something against your interest (be it buying a product, voting on someone, etc). In other words, to do something that you wouldn't do rationally…

This is a very immature view of advertising, that, unfortunately many advertisers share -- and it leads to scummy ads, with no eye on the long term relationship with the person viewing the ad.

However, many ads are not deceptive in any way, and instead simply offer something of value to people who may be interested, without any deceit, psychological trick, or ulterior motive.

Just because there are bad ads does not mean that all advertising is bad.

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

#202

Post by llukas »

duderific wrote: post #171
duxup wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is very possible, even with ads. So ads are often a place where dark patterns happen and such. But take Apple for instance. Apple seems to respect user privacy to a fairly far extent compared to say, Facebook, Google. If apple wasn't around ... we would probably say something about "you can't have these fancy smartphones without someone stealing all your data". But clearly Apple can do it (for a lot of rea…

Apple makes massive profits on the hardware they sell you, that's how they can do it. The software companies that give it away "for free" (Facebook, Google) don't have any way other than advertising or selling/using data to make money.

Where do I sign up for a free android phone?

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

#203

Post by chillacy »

minikites wrote: post #172
reaperducer wrote: post #163

At first I thought that this might be another good indication that having "Facebook" on your resume isn't the golden egg it once was. Then I realize it's even better than before because it demonstrates for a potential employer that you'll push whatever buttons you're asked to in exchange for money, regardless of whether it's good for the user, the internet, or society as a whole.

This is why I genuinely believe STEM majors should be required to take more liberal arts (e.g. ethics) classes as a requirement to graduate.

A semester of philosophy or a few weeks on HN should teach you that you can weasel out of anything by playing epistemological games or arguing semantics.

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

#204

Post by manigandham »

reaperducer wrote: post #163

At first I thought that this might be another good indication that having "Facebook" on your resume isn't the golden egg it once was. Then I realize it's even better than before because it demonstrates for a potential employer that you'll push whatever buttons you're asked to in exchange for money, regardless of whether it's good for the user, the internet, or society as a whole.

It's a giant company with many roles. I'd be more worried about people hiring based on such strange judgements of character.

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

#205

Post by JacobJans »

taurath wrote: post #174
Mirioron wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then pay money for those services.

Gladly. Its not an option.

Many local news sites now have online subscriptions available. Combined with an ad blocker, it seems as though you can generally get a pleasant local news experience, while still supporting the publisher.

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

#206

Post by oasisbob »

grawprog wrote: post #148
asdkhadsj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

>They change the shape of the bottle to reduce volume and hope I don't notice that the price effectively went up. One of the memories that really sticks out for me from working in a grocery store was the time the Breyer's ice cream increased in price that way. They came in a 5 case of 500g containers. They sold regularly for around $5 or something like that. They went on sale for 2 for $5 for about 2 weeks. After the…

And just imagine all the fun manufacturers can have when ice cream is sold by volume instead of weight...

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

#207

Post by robryan »

singron wrote: post #150
jordan801 wrote: post #12

Anyone who has written a few scrappers knows how brutally ineffective this is. Yelp tried to pull the same thing and it took me about 3 minutes to rectify my "for fun" scraper. It's also really not that difficult to write a smart scraper that you say, "Look for these things in this post. However you find them, replicate it for the others". Which is ultimately what I made my Yelp scraper do. If there's a pattern, I wi…

It actually seems pretty effective in this case. This uBlock Origin issue has been open for half a year and none of the default lists block the ads: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/3367

Extensions like ublock having public block lists makes it even easier for Facebook to write something that breaks the filter.

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

#208

Post by JacobJans »

Marsymars wrote: post #154
asdkhadsj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

> Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; they swap out quality ingredients with cheaper ingredients. They change the shape of the bottle to reduce volume and hope I don't notice that the price effectively went up. Etc. If you stick to fresh produce and bulk dry goods, you're pretty much immune to those problems. Incidentally, those happen to be products…

That is not necessarily true, as industrial food companies increasingly push for larger yield per acre, they do not account for the objective quality of the product. They're looking to maximize their profit; and quality is just one metric among many others that have an impact on this.

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

#209

Post by ethbro »

majewsky wrote: post #149
ethbro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my father's quips, "There are only two kinds of jobs: those where everyone is happy to see you, and those where everyone is mad to see you. Be the UPS delivery person, not the process server."

That was from a different time, right? By now, package delivery people also has a pretty bad reputation due to the profit pressures exerted on them by capitalists. I don't really feel happy seeing a delivery guy. If anything, I feel sorry for them.

It was a quip, not a 20 page treatise on absolute accuracy. ;)

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

#210

Post by foobiekr »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #107
duxup wrote: 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.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

Ads in their current manifestation are inseparably connected to both the surveillance practices and the security-busting delivery of potential malware to user devices. Google and others could put a stop to both of these, but there is zero possibility they will do so.

Ads themselves are .. not innocent, but not in-and-of-themselves evil. I rather like turn of the century advertising because it's mostly statements about products and their advantages. It wasn't until the Bernays/Freud era that ads switched from trying to persuade you as to the product's merits to trying to manipulate the consumer by essentially selling an identity. That practice is comparably dark.

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