Twitter Users Complain of Timelines Being Overrun With 'Promoted Tweets'; Twitter Says It's Intentional (techcrunch.com) 91
Twitter's timeline is currently overrun with ads for some users, in what at first appeared to be a glitch involving the distribution of Promoted Tweets. From a report: Typically, a Promoted Tweet -- which is just a regular tweet an advertiser has paid to promote more broadly -- will appear just once at the top of a user's timeline, then scroll through the timeline like any other tweet. Now, however, Promoted Tweets are popping up with increased frequency. Some users report seeing them as often as every four to six tweets, in fact. Others are reporting seeing the same Promoted Tweet more than once. This seemed to have indicated some sort of issue with Twitter's ad system, as the company generally intends for Promoted Tweets to be targeted and relevant to the end user, without being an overly frequent part of users' timelines. As Twitter's Business website explains, "we're thoughtful in how we display Promoted Tweets, and are conservative about the number of Promoted Tweets that people see in a single day." That's obviously not the case when it seems like nearly every other tweet is now an ad -- and often, a repeated ad. Twitter says the change is not a glitch, however -- it's intentional.
Twitter seeing the end of the line (Score:5, Interesting)
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So, people complain that their opinion or links to news that is disagreeable are being blocked or removed. Then supporters of this activity tell them that if they don't like it, they can just go build their own social media. Then when all the deplorable people leave your platform, you call the other site "ideologically pure (right wing)".
This leaving your site ideologically pure (left wing).
got it.
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Or, Twitter becomes the haven for left wing, moderate centrists, international conservatives (ie non Republican loonies), and the remaining non-cultist Republicans/Never-Trumpers/Former GOP.
No one wants to follow the parler "1930s era German fans" into their echo chamber. Good riddance. Maybe they can work each other up.
I don't know what a lameness filter is, but I suspect it has something to do with word choice. Slashdot is a silly place.
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Truth be told, go to a site like Free Republic - they'll ban you for asking questions. My friend knows, he asked questions about Trump's suitability in 2
Re:Twitter seeing the end of the line (Score:5, Funny)
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And if I was a Cunter user?
Then you'd simply be yourself!
Re:Twitter seeing the end of the line (Score:5, Insightful)
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Trump aside, it's just the nature of markets, anything good is exploited until it's not so good any more.
That doesn't explain Twitter though. It was never good.
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I'm seeing something similar on Facebook and to a lesser degree on Youtube. While social media ads have never been 100% accurate in their targeting, I and many people like me whom I know are getting deluged with ads targeted to Trump supporters: MAGA merchandise, promoted content alleging election fraud, FOMO-driven ads for gold investment schemes and cryptocurrency apps.
I came to more or less the same conclusion as you: platforms are milking these advertisers before they go away.
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While social media ads have never been 1% accurate in their targeting
Fix that for you.
Re:Twitter seeing the end of the line (Score:5, Interesting)
I dunno. A couple years ago I started to get inundated with ads for unicycles on social media. If I went on Youtube there'd be multiple how-to videos in my recommendations, and unicycle reviews.
When I complained about this, my son said, "But Dad, that is totally something *you* would do."
"I know," I replied. "That's what makes it creepy." I have never owned a unicycle, nor sought out information about unicycles, but unicycling absolutely is something I would consider taking up.
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This.
Because, it seemed all the ads I get are for things I just bought online.
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Re: Twitter seeing the end of the line (Score:2)
90% of Twitter posters has always been PR accounts.
Like anything deeper than a marketing tak like or meme could be communicated in 160 or what characters...
Twitter is a big case of Flappy Bird syndrome, as I call it. Being known for being known or being used for being used, and that's it. Like the Kardashians.
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Like anything deeper than a marketing tak like or meme could be communicated in 160 or what characters...
I've said before, if you have something to say that can be said in 140 characters, you have nothing to say.
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Until the fourth time! (Score:3, Funny)
The fourth time I saw the ad my will broke and I had no choice but to click and purchase. They sure know how my mind works.
Uninstall (Score:2, Interesting)
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Since the passing of Leonard Nimoy no good content has been on Twitter.
Even 4chan has more interesting content among all the noise. ( off to /x/ and hides )
Re: Uninstall (Score:2)
4chan honestly always had good content. Even more so in the past
It's just completely unfiltered.
Which, looking at other sites' forced-smile-or-die "community guidlines", is honestly still a good thing.
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you assume _most_ people re 'in their right mind', which probably isn't the case. ( especially if you actually knew what that meant ).
Re: Uninstall (Score:2)
It provably is not the case. How many people believe in things that have literally zero measurable effect on reality, aka fulfil the definition of not existing and being pointless to concern oneself with.
How many people have triggers aka -isms and aren't even freaking aware of it.
How many people have an anxiety disorder or other harmful insecurities. Frankly, nowadays, that's most people. It's the only reason Apple jewelry still exists or SUVs are bougt l.
Most people are mental cripples. I'm no exception, b
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You actually get to choose who you follow. Personally, it's only people I know and I only log in once or twice a year. But I never seem to see a lot of toxicity that way.
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Yeah right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Saw William Gibson complaining about it (Score:5, Informative)
Suggested ublock origin, which solves it.
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Unfortunately not available on some mobile platforms. However, simply blocking the accounts sending the promoted tweets is quite effective.
Unfortunately you have to do it manually now because Twitter disabled the import/export feature that let people share massive lists of corporate accounts to block.
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Me too, but then you get stuck with the mobile site version of Twitter.
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Or is this cross platform stuff they keep touting just bullshit.
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They realized that if the mobile site is too good people won't use their app, and they like the app better because it doesn't support ad blocking and has more analytics.
Reddit is the worst offender for that but there are many others.
Re: Saw William Gibson complaining about it (Score:2)
Uum, have you ever used a mobile browser? They all let you switch to the desktop site, as do most sites in their header.
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Have you tried using the desktop version of Twitter? On mobile?
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Theoretically, but some sites refuse to honor that.
You're not comprehending the intended sentiment, that's why you're arguing.
The point is that instead of clicking some shit, you can make the browser appear as a desktop browser. There is no magic that tells the service provider that it isn't true; there are only settings, that some browsers give you control over.
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There's an app for that:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
https://chrome.google.com/webs... [google.com]
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I stopped using the app a while ago when a confusing prompt left me giving it access to all my contacts, and I've never had any reason whatsoever to go back to it. You can pin it to the Android home screen and it'll act like an app.
Which is why I find this so amusing. Twitter was in a sweet spot where most people weren't that annoyed by their ads and just let them display, even though they were hilariously bad at targeting. (Exactly why am I getting an ad for Lexus of Saudi Arabia in the US, Twitter?!)
By exploding the number of ads people see, they're just going to drive people to ad blocking. I currently use the official Twitter client when I use Twitter because it's the path of least resistance. But if they make using the official c
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Never use official Twitter client, or the Twitter webpage. Third-party clients usually filter out all the ads and promoted tweets.
For Android, I'd suggest Talon, For Linux, Cawbird. That's what I use.
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Unfortunately not available on some mobile platforms
People who decided to let Apple curate their computing experience have effectively ceded the right to complain by voting with their dollars for someone else to make their decisions for them. I may not be able to help the people who passed control of their decisions to Apple Inc., but I can help the others.
LIES (Score:2)
As Twitter's Business website explains, "we're thoughtful in how we display Promoted Tweets, and are conservative about the number of Promoted Tweets that people see in a single day."
If the number isn't 0, then you are not being thoughtful
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Any Buddhist can tell you that being thoughtful is not enough by itself; you also need compassion.
If you combine thoughtfulness with greed, the thoughtfulness is not an improvement.
Corporate Arrogance (Score:5, Informative)
it seems like nearly every other tweet is now an ad -- and often, a repeated ad. Twitter says the change is not a glitch, however -- it's intentional.
How come there's so many repeated ads now on Twitter?
Because Fuck You, that's why.
Nothing but standard 21st Century Corporate Arrogance to see here. Move along, pissant. Not like you're gonna do anything about it anyway.
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Same as now you can't even get a facebook account unless you own a cell phone. They l 'require' you to receive a text to verify your phone , so no cell phone , no account for you. I believe there is a process where you can contact them and provide your drivers license. I'm not interested in a curated platform with verified users. Maybe some people are , but not me.
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Same as now you can't even get a facebook account unless you own a cell phone.
Burner phone costs you, what, $10?
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Probably still more than being on twitter is worth.
Re: Corporate Arrogance (Score:3)
So you want *me* to pay to be a whore?
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At $10, Facebook is overcharging by about $150 per month.
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So how much are you willing to pay for ad free service?
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So how much are you willing to pay for ad free service?
This is an interesting question considering Twitter won't even give you the option.
Quite a few services won't give you the option. In fact, it's not all that abnormal for paid services to start showing ads along with the subscription. After all, subscription fee + ad fee = more money than just the subscription fee, and it's all about showing large increases in profits for as long as possible.
Of course, I personally don't find Twitter to be useful enough to bother paying for it, so maybe they have a point. B
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_xeno_
Quite a few services won't give you the option. In fact, it's not all that abnormal for paid services to start showing ads along with the subscription. After all, subscription fee + ad fee = more money than just the subscription fee, and it's all about showing large increases in profits for as long as possible.
You were around to clock how cable services were first ad-free, no? And the brief and few commercials in local theaters that began as local ads that promised to be a finer segment of investment and increase an ad's impact, but eventually became corporate as everything else after slowly desensitizing everyone to a far greater length? I'm guessing you do.
Now that the passing of an age of the domesticated wife has taken soap-operas with her (and the occasionally wonderful Mr. Mom), will people forget how th
Re: Corporate Arrogance (Score:2)
How much do you offer that is of any worth or uniqueness whtsoever?
Twitter can be replaced by Wordpress and RSS and just not typing in more than the post titles. Hell, by a HTTP server and plain HTML pages, a plain text list of URLs of pages you "follow", and a ten line shell script.
*Spongebob_rainbow_meme.jpeg*
INNOVATION!
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If it were that simple how come all the competitors have failed to displace it?
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Same on YouTube and others! :(
Sounds like Parler (Score:3)
Having promoted content shoved in your face all the time rather than promoting organic communication between users is how Parler has worked from day one.
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Freedom isn't free. Now go buy some health-sustaining covid-fighting miracle bleach.
Re: Sounds like Parler (Score:1)
Says the fucker who takes our freedom.
How is freedom not free if I sit over here in the plain wilderness??
It's only not free if you come over and fuck with me!
So you have the audacity to tell me I'm to blame? Fuck off and don't fuckin fuck with me!!
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Having promoted content shoved in your face all the time rather than promoting organic communication between users is how Parler has worked from day one.
You make it sound like Twitter served a purpose at some point.
This is how advertisers work. (Score:3)
First it was newspapers, then magazines, radio, live tv, movie theaters, cable tv, internet, streaming, social media, apps, DVRs (fu TIVO), well it never ends does it? How long before we see ads while at the dentist or sitting on the toilet?
Obligatory Futurama (Score:4, Funny)
First you see one, then suddenly it is like wack-a-mole. Advertisers infest everything, sort of like a fungus.
First it was newspapers, then magazines, radio, live tv, movie theaters, cable tv, internet, streaming, social media, apps, DVRs (fu TIVO), well it never ends does it? How long before we see ads while at the dentist or sitting on the toilet?
Leela: Didn't you have ad's in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!
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How long before we see ads while at the dentist or sitting on the toilet?
You mean you don't get ads at your dentist or while on the toilet?
The dentist I use has this fancy digital setup that means they have a monitor facing the patient that they can use to show X-rays and other stuff on. However, most of the time, it just shows a slide show advertising other services they offer, along with dental products.
As for the toilet, public restrooms have had ads placed on the inside of the door of toilet stalls and behind the urinals for ages.
So yes, you literally already get ads at the
It's simple (Score:2)
The platforms are going to try and fill the drop in ad revenue that occurred after the precipitous drop in US election advertising after that occurred. Otherwise, their December financials will be a mess.
Thank you, karma Jesus! (Score:1)
Yes, dear Twats (I don't know ... that's what they're called, right?) ... it should hurt to du stupid things like use Twitter.
That's there so you're motivated learn to do something better. Because merely being highly attractive wasn't enough to bring you to do that better thing.
But of course, you can keep using Twitter and just scream louder. That'll surely improve things. Like when you keep running against a wall, head first, and take pain killers, and keep running against that wall. :)
Aaah, wonderful! What Internet rule is that? (Score:2)
A typo, *precisely* *right* after calling people stupid. :D
Nevermind then...
Tampermonkey/Scriptmonkey for hiding ads (Score:5, Informative)
// ==UserScript== // @name Blank Twitter Ads // @namespace http://www.areyes.biz/ [areyes.biz] // @version 0.1 // @description Replace promoted Tweets with nothing at all. // @author Alexander Reyes // @match https://twitter.com/* [twitter.com] // @grant none // ==/UserScript==
(function() {
'use strict';
function blankAds() {
let articles = document.getElementsByTagName('article');
for (let article of articles) {
if (article.getAttribute('blankadschecked') === 'true') {
continue; }
article.setAttribute('blankadschecked', 'true');
let divs = article.getElementsByTagName('div');
let lastChildDiv = divs[divs.length - 1];
if (/^Promoted(.*)?$/.test(lastChildDiv.textContent)) {
article.setAttribute('style', 'opacity: 0;height:100px');
}
}
}
setInterval(blankAds, 500);
})();
A slightly modified version of this [github.com]. (I added a height attribute so that blanked spots aren't huge.) Pop this into Tampermonkey or Scriptmonkey (or just as a bookmarklet) as you please and ads are hidden (not blocked; that's acceptable to me, and avoids any issues that can occur when trying to block them). It doesn't work on threaded posts but I'm also fine with the odd ad in exchange for using the hellsite known as Twitter.
(It doesn't help in the app, of course, but blech to apps.)
Proof yet again... (Score:2)
...that users of Social Media are not the customer, they are the product.
Sigh. (Score:3)
When it becomes more hassle for me to get to your content than I can be bothered with, I go elsewhere. Even if there is no obvious "elsewhere".
It's a very simple equation.
If you can't make money with hundreds of millions of people using your service every day, without pissing them all off with crap adverts, you don't deserve to be in business. It's just that easy.
Personally, if you could just fix the trend thing so that I see no sport after my removing EVERY SINGLE sport trend as "not relevant" every time I go on it for the last two years, you'd buy yourself some time, but your trend / recommendation algorithm totally sucks. So I don't use it.
Simple (Score:2)
If you have any vested interest in what happens on Twitter, you're ALREADY an odious person, full stop.
Twitter provides nothing of value. If you 'deeply care' about what they're doing, you're deeply bought-into the nonsense that they're promoting, making you part of the problem.
It is an exercise in applied narcissism, exploited by corporate greed (which itself isn't BAD per se, it's like "canine hunger" or "feline indifference" it's just a THING characteristic to the clade, but Twitter certainly leverages
I'm not a twitter follower or user, but. . . (Score:2)
This wreaks of abuse. The users tell Twitter, "We're not happy with this," and Twitter's response is, "It's intentional." What do they think the reaction is going to be from the users?
"I really wish you would quit hitting me!"
"But I'm hitting you intentionally!"
"Oh, well, that's alright then. Carry on. And try to put some power behind it."
What's the problem? (Score:1)
Twitter Users? (Score:2)
Not really sure, never much cared what other people think or do.
How do u think twitter makes money? (Score:2)