Reddit is removing ability to opt out of ad personalization based on your activity on the platform

I'll be very surprised if our govt does anything positive when it comes to digital rights. The current shower of arseholes in government supported the previous even bigger shower of arseholes to pass diabolical legislation like data retention and assistance and access bills.

https://sopuli.xyz/post/4017115

This may or may not be illegal, depending on what the “this” is you’re agreeing to. As a simple example, if it is “you agree to functional cookies by continuing to use the site”, that’s fine. If it is “you agree to us scraping your computer and selling everything we find to China”, that is most definitely not legal, nor is refusing service if you don’t agree.

First, delete all of your comments using the automated tools

Didn't these all stop working when they shutdown the public API?

Meh. I pondered this but leaving it helps users still using the platform.

No, redact your data, get banned and still request your data every 30 days under GDPR (just submitted my 3rd).

Well, that's certainly illegal too, the GDPR requires opt-in and while there is room for interpritation (see all the shitty cookie banners) if you enable anything by default it's not going to fly!

Something that always pissed me off is that while I might not be living in the EU currently I'm still a citizen but companies get to just fuck me over anyways?

Fuuck I run 12 adblockers at once to chew up all ads and burn them.

they're used to it. my mother forbid me from setting up ad protection on her phone, because she's used to them and didn't want to learn how to switch it off when necessary (e.g. when it breaks a site she needs)

People on sites like this really need to understand that for good or bad we are a vocal minority. People by and large understand "if you aren't paying for it you're the product". Many people have come to terms with this be it reddit, or Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.

Does it make it right? Or course it doesn't.

But I seriously don't know, outside of a serious privacy breach involving hundreds of deaths, how do we effectively change the narrative in a way the masses can not only consume but understand?

I'm in my echo chamber here but at the same time I've come to terms that if it's online expect it to be sold and nothing is private.

we should be paid our fair share for every data point they collect.

And every time they sell it, every transaction it leads to.

Sting has a lot to answer for

I think they are an assault on free will. Ads aren't well reasoned arguments for the purchase of a product or service; they're whatever they need to be to get you to change your behavior. If they have to scare, shame, trick, etc. they'll do it.

My intention wasn't to equate ads with psychological trauma, but rather to emphasize the profound impact such invasive practices can have on our sense of privacy and autonomy. The terminology of 'personalized ads' can often obscure the magnitude of surveillance behind it. I understand that this might come across as hyperbolic to some, but it's essential to articulate the depth of concern many feel.

some of us ARE doing something about it

The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones. It mentioned in a blog post that users won’t see more ads but they will see better-targeted ads following this change.

So all you need to do is fill your data with LOTS of porn

So we come to Lemmy where anyone can spin up an instance, collect our data, and sell it.

I guarantee you the C-suite at reddit regularly kick themselves for giving into public backlash and keeping old.reddit. People weren't happy with the redesign, but they would have definitely gotten used to it fairly quickly. Now, removing it will be another nail in the coffin they're so desperate to build.

The only thing keeping the main community that I still visit reddit for (not nearly often enough, since I only look at it on old Reddit) on Reddit is discoverability. People search Google and the Reddit community is in the results, so I don't think they'll make it log in to view

That same community will probably leave the platform when old.reddit (with Reddit Enhancement Suite) is closed, unless Reddit actually adds comparable mod tools

I wouldnt take that bet because I 100% agree.

Old. Reddit still looks the exact same as it always has for me. I use Reddit enhancement suite so so maybe that's it. Just turn off "use subreddits style" for every subreddit. Dark mode on. Ad blocker enabled. I don't have the new tab issue. I can see that this won't last forever though and eventually Reddit won't exist to me anymore.

Line must go up, even at the risk of line going very down instead. No matter what.

Assholes generally don't stop with their assholery when they keep getting away with it.

But he actually can not. He must have promised the world to shareholders, so now he has to deliver.

This is going to be the most quoted literary work of the 21st century

Are they really still just preparing?

I wouldn't say Reddit always has been owned by a malicious entity, Aaron Swartz was a cool guy. And if you're telling me a man who freely distributed thousands of needlessly paywalled research papers is a some kind of arch capitalist, then there's no helping you.

I know of Tencent and the controversy about them... I don't know anything about Advance though. Are they also controversial?

how much does tencent actually own? I could swear they only bought company stocks and not direct controls over reddit.

I mean, I’m not denying they’re making wrong choices, and I’ve left Reddit myself, but given that they’re losing money I don’t understand how it’s considered ”greedy” to try and change that.

In German we have a great proverb: "better a terrible end than unending terror" (rhymes in German, no good equivalent in English).

It's sad that things "ended" the way they did, but it's great that we're finally in an actual open ecosystem which can't be milked and changed the way Reddit did.

Not that it's not confirmation bias but I can confirm what you're seeing.

They lost a lot of active, enthusiastic, altruistic friendly people. I don't think they've drawn in worse people, but there are less nice voices to balance out the vitriol. Under the circumstances there's also less downvoting toxicity.

I'm pretty sure it's a real thing but how much it's felt probably varies community by community.

Reddit is making Dead Internet Theory more real.

The reddit experience: Scrolling through someone just absolutely caked with human feces and going "ew, transphobic slur in the title"

Thanks for the tip!

That's the point.

Advertisers hate porn. Anything that's not safe and broad-appeal is bad for their image.

But will it be filthy?

You can also use revanced to patch your own api key into Infinity and use that instead

it says you need root to access the split apk

or locate to an apk file instead

how do I do that? do I just download an apk from apkmirror or some random website?

Apollo is the reason I left Reddit too and I was gonna go back on android for sync pro but then they said they’re leaving Reddit too, so I moved over to lemmy.ml then I lost my account then I went to lemmy.world

Sure, why not? As the user base narrows, those who are left are the ones willing to put up with the most shit, so that is what they get.

Yeah, this is no different from how every other social media platform operates. Unfortunately it's just the way these websites make money to stay "free for consumers".

The only (distant) solution I can see will be the fediverse, paid for by UBI and decreasing server costs (i.e. green energy and tech breakthroughs)

They were knowingly profiting from the rape of women, you know…

You've never been on pornhub if you think they don't swarm you with ads.

Yeah that was definitely me until I got permabaned. Not being able to use Boost was the last drop.

I would if I could, but I built it without writing code. So there's nothing to upload to GitHub/GitLab.

The page asking for your email simply serves as the delivery mechanism since I can't put it on GitHub/GitLab.

Same. My reddit consumption and engagement has dropped drastically when they fucked over their power users. I believe that has hurt them immeasurably but at the same time they're massive.

Anecdotally I was on a thread yesterday reading the comments and my god it's not disgusting but it's a weird uncanny valley. Methinks they have internally masked the impact by building out bots using LLMs.

I got 4 posts to a reply on my cake day. That to me is abnormal behaviour.

I saw a comment get a reply linking the exact same YouTube link not as a quote but in the reply with very generated language. That was then followed with very much "this is a reply my fellow good human" type replies.

I honestly think they're fucked. I think they're just hiding they're fucked.

Unless it's direct-response targeted, the point of adds isn't to make you buy shit instantly, it's to plant a seed and make you aware of a product so that one day you do spend money in it.

Thats where tools like NextDNS or TrackerControl come into play.

I use it without root the only thing I have to do is make sure to download the apk and patch that since it can't just override your currently installed one from the store.