Re: Disable autoplay and infinite scroll or risk massive fines, EU tells Meta
Rich <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | comp.misc |
|---|---|
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Sylvia Else <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11-July-26 8:44 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote: >> Social media networks are optimized for what they call “engagement” -- >> that is features that, by their nature, almost invariably lead to >> addictive behaviour from their users. Because that is an inseparable >> part of the mechanism by which they earn their revenue. >> >> Now the EU regulatory authorities are taking direct aim at these very >> features of those networks >> <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/disable-auto-play-and-infinite-scroll-or-risk-massive-fines-eu-tells-meta/>. >> Can it succeed in reining them in? > > Auto-play has always seemed to me to be a fraud on their advertisers. > And it seems to keep being turned back on. > > They can be showing advertisements, and charging for them, when there's > no one there to watch them. That's the entire point. They get to charge the advertiser for an "ad-view". For some reason the advertisters do not seem to recognize (or care) about the grift. Of course, the browsers could solve the auto-play problem overnight by disabling all auto-play. But since the largest majority browser is written and distributed by an advertising company, that is not likely to happen.