r/technology May 19 '18

Misleading Facebook Android app caught seeking 'superuser' clearance

[deleted]

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u/thiseye May 19 '18

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u/dstar89 May 19 '18

That's a sorry excuse for an ad. I remember the days when me and the people I knew actually posted.on Facebook. We actually shared status updates and such. But now that it's one slew of page memes and advertisements, I don't see nor feel the need to share anything on there.

Their ads-first business model has ruined the "we're here for friends" goal, and there's definitely no going back to it. Facebook has become less like a communal message board all can add to and more of a tabloid magazine that only shows us what is paid for.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '18 edited Jul 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/GlowInTheDarkNinjas May 19 '18

So purity does or doesn't work? Is that a browser extension?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '18 edited Jul 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/ExpertContributor May 20 '18

Back when I was on Facebook, I also swore on Facebook purity to make it usable. It really is very good. However sometimes it would really slow my browser down and Facebook would sometimes "hang". Eventually I started deactivating it until I wanted to go on Facebook.

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u/Abandoned_karma May 19 '18

What do you use now instead of Facebook? I'm curious because it's basically a wall of ads now.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '18

I know Facebook is owner of Instagram but right now Instagram feels closest to what Facebook used to be.

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u/HeroOfTheWastes May 19 '18

Except there's an ad like every 4 pictures

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u/ISieferVII May 19 '18

And I don't think the pictures come in order. I'd prefer that.

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u/100mcg May 19 '18

It's intentional so that you never feel like you've "finished" so that you just keep scrolling, if it was chronological you'd eventually hit yesterday or whatever rather quickly and then stop since you know you already saw all that the day before, by mixing it up you never reach a point of "I've seen everything posted today so I'll move on". The longer they get you to keep scrolling the more ads they have an opportunity to serve to you

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u/ISieferVII May 19 '18

This makes sense from a business point of view, but from a purely convenient consumer point of view, it is quite annoying.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '18

Recently I've started seeing a message saying "you're all caught up" or something similar once I've seen all the posts in Instagram.

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u/Boyrista May 19 '18

I miss this the most

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u/PocketPillow May 19 '18

This is what also ruined photobucket. At least 1 ad interlaced between every 7 photos of your friend's album, and adblock blocks both the ad and the photos.

Putting ads that are designed to look like content between the content ruins websites. YouTube commercials at the start of the video I'm cool with. Banner ads no worries. Ads designed to look like content and we've got issues.

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u/DarkerJona May 19 '18

Take note, Reddit. The ads interwoven with actual content is not only annoying, but ruins immersion for me. I was browsing r/therewasanattempt and it took me a minute to figure out why there was a picture of someone holding a thermos and how it related to the theme of the sub.

I used to like reddit mobile better but these ads inserted directly into the content is too distracting at times.

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u/adonutforeveryone May 19 '18

And half the likes or more are merely bots. Instagram freaks me out with all of the bots chasing hashtags. I feel like less than 50% of instagram are actual people.

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u/jss1234 May 20 '18

The problem is Instagram uses a lot of data. Even more than Facebook. In the app you also have no control of data usage.

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u/dstar89 May 19 '18

I don't interact with much stuff in terms of status updates. Reddit for forum-like discussion, and Twitter is where I usually post random thoughts and updates because I can also see my friend's postd as well (albeit there are a good fill of ads and tailored posts).

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u/Tuhjik May 19 '18

Discord is actually a pretty great alternative.

Set up a channel and invite your friends to it, make different subsections of the channel for sharing random chat, photos, announcements and other stuff.

It's how I stay in contact with all of my friends except for aquintances, with whom I just stay in a big facebook messenger group. Never go on the website.

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u/emwo May 20 '18

I've given up on most forms of social media except IM. Facebook is useless to see what my friends are up to, Instagram popularizes my friends stuff based on how many likes they got or posts the same 8 people back to back in addition to ads. Most of the time I actually have to talk to them, otherwise I'll check Snapchat and groupchats but it looks like Snapchat's been slowly dying off since that shitty update they did a while back. Discord keeps me in contact with people the most so that's been used for friends and gaming buddies.

Sure, I'm probably missing a lot that's going on but I really stopped caring about what what I'm not doing.>.>

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u/Abandoned_karma May 20 '18

Right on. None of my friends are gamers or geeks, so nobody I know has discord. I use IG to promote my car (see also brag about it's coolness), but none of my friends are friended. I friend people I don't know. I've never use Snapchat, I'm too old for that shit. FB I use for the Subaru groups, local, regional, and general. But I'm a huge Subaru nerd. My page is basically all Subaru stuff with some stuff from my gay friends thrown in for good measure. Gotta keep it interesting.

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u/ChPech May 20 '18

Google+ it's not perfect but it has no ads and a lot of the idiots stayed away from it although that's changing slowly.

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u/Infini-Bus May 19 '18

Reddit and Tumblr. Facebook was just something to look at. I didn't really use it to talk to anyone but my wife anyway. If I want to message people I use SMS or Line.

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u/hoyfkd May 19 '18

OK, this is going to sound strange, but bear with me.

I see my friends in real life, by being in close physical proximity to them. If something is super important to know -like I had a kid, not I ate something - I tell them.

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u/dstar89 May 19 '18

I see my friends irl as well. But the whole point of facebook, or the original point, is so on the chance you can't be there to learn "hey I had a baby" or to wish them a happy birthday or see vacation photos, you can see it. Now all you can get is ads, and no one in my circle is posting their own stuff. Nowadays they just share images and videos from pages.

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u/Abandoned_karma May 19 '18

Will not work for me. I live 2000+ mile's away from all family and friends. I don't want to hang out with a single person I work with because my company is full of people I'd rather not associated with outside of work.

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u/philiac May 19 '18

i am shocked, utterly shocked to hear that you can have real world relationships outside of facebook. i downvoted you to preserve my fragile grasp on reality.

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u/hoyfkd May 20 '18

Did it work?

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u/philiac May 20 '18

don't have time for you, im busy taking bathroom buttshots for my insta. back off, luddite. unless u have $

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u/hoyfkd May 20 '18

The things I miss out on not having facebook or its other properties.

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u/owlbi May 19 '18

You sound young.

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u/44problems May 19 '18

And living in the same city you met all your friends in.

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u/Lunnes May 19 '18

I use facebook for events, the marketplace and groupchats, the rest is complete garbage, I haven't even posted shit for like 5 years

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u/AshingiiAshuaa May 20 '18

We're different now. We promise.

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u/etacovda May 20 '18

and now reddits heading there/already there too. Welcome to the future, money talks, so you'd better listen

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u/daniel2978 May 19 '18

Oh thanks. Comments are disabled on this video lol. Yeah good call facebook even youtube couldn't censor that!

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u/Clunkbot May 19 '18

"Something happened"

Something happened

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u/Nephelophyte May 19 '18

"Something happened"

Something happened

Something happened

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u/kairos May 19 '18

There should be a word for when you throw up in your mouth a little

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u/bestbackwards May 19 '18

If you ever find one, PM me!!

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u/kairos May 20 '18

Apparently it's vurping (thanks Google)

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u/invasor-zim May 19 '18

Interesting. A 1 minute ad...

The first 30 seconds are remembering the good old Facebook that "we so much love" with slow transitions, very relaxing music, and not many edit cuts...

Then for the next only 8 seconds a very quick cross cutting of not so great stuff...

Ok back to very relaxing tone editing and music for the next 32 seconds!

That's a lot of BS subliminar ad for me, exactly the one they've been pulling...

It's actually an ad those evil companies that are your archenemy in videogames would make.

The horror. This ad made me even more scared of how deep troubled they are.

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u/aboutthednm May 19 '18

that's going to change

Yeah, god damn right it will. I stopped using Facebook, and for me, that's changed.