5 ms·

Facebook disguised sponsored ads as regular posts, Adblock Plus fixed that

18 points by hinchlt 8y ago

ipsum2 8y ago
Reminder that Adblock plus sells ads and extorts advertisers: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/business/media/adblock-plus-created-to-protect-users-from-ads-opens-the-door.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/business/media/adblock-pl... https://medium.com/@trybravery/please-stop-using-adblock-but-not-why-you-think-13280e76c8e7 https://medium.com/@trybravery/please-stop-using-adblock-but.... (HN commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16997272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16997272) Use Ublock Origin for a real adblock. Also, I find it suspicious that the user who submitted the post only exclusively submits articles from "sociable-co".
tfitz237 8y ago
I noticed one of these recently and tried to block it with an adblocker by finding the word Sponsored. I looked at the source code and found that they separated each letter of the word 'Sponsored' into separate html tags, making it impossible to find it by text. So sleazy, Facebook.
- mirkules 8y ago
  That’s brilliant, in an evil way. At that point I would just draw the text on a canvas (not to give any ideas). It’s ironic that people who use adblockers are the exact people you don’t want to push ads onto, even if you can. They have adblockers for a reason, and they’ll just ignore them anyway!
amyjess 8y ago
Isn't this a violation of FTC rules?
- p49k 8y ago
  Considering that they seem to have blatantly violated their 2011 consent decree with the FTC and nothing happened, I doubt they care. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/former-ftc-technologist-says-facebook-violated-consent-decree https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/former-ft...
- cjhopman 8y ago
  Only if you interpret what they are saying in the way that they intended you to, despite the fact that it's not what they are explicitly saying. When they say "Facebook were disguising ‘sponsored posts’ as regular posts", all that means is that Facebook changed something in such a way that Adblock Plus was no longer detecting it as a "sponsored post". It doesn't mean that sponsored posts looked the same to users as regular posts.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

18 points by hinchlt 8y ago

Reminder that Adblock plus sells ads and extorts advertisers: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/business/media/adblock-plus-created-to-protect-users-from-ads-opens-the-door.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/business/media/adblock-pl... https://medium.com/@trybravery/please-stop-using-adblock-but-not-why-you-think-13280e76c8e7 https://medium.com/@trybravery/please-stop-using-adblock-but.... (HN commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16997272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16997272) Use Ublock Origin for a real adblock. Also, I find it suspicious that the user who submitted the post only exclusively submits articles from "sociable-co".

tfitz237 8y ago

I noticed one of these recently and tried to block it with an adblocker by finding the word Sponsored. I looked at the source code and found that they separated each letter of the word 'Sponsored' into separate html tags, making it impossible to find it by text. So sleazy, Facebook.

mirkules 8y ago
That’s brilliant, in an evil way. At that point I would just draw the text on a canvas (not to give any ideas). It’s ironic that people who use adblockers are the exact people you don’t want to push ads onto, even if you can. They have adblockers for a reason, and they’ll just ignore them anyway!

amyjess 8y ago

Isn't this a violation of FTC rules?

p49k 8y ago
Considering that they seem to have blatantly violated their 2011 consent decree with the FTC and nothing happened, I doubt they care. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/former-ftc-technologist-says-facebook-violated-consent-decree https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/former-ft...
cjhopman 8y ago
Only if you interpret what they are saying in the way that they intended you to, despite the fact that it's not what they are explicitly saying. When they say "Facebook were disguising ‘sponsored posts’ as regular posts", all that means is that Facebook changed something in such a way that Adblock Plus was no longer detecting it as a "sponsored post". It doesn't mean that sponsored posts looked the same to users as regular posts.

deleted 8y ago

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