Haven't they had ads disguised as posts for years now?
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
705 points (97.6% liked)
Technology
59410 readers
3003 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I dunno, uBlock never showed any.
fuck spez, fuck Reddit
I remember them showing up in the mobile apps, before I discovered third party apps.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Sort of. At least on old reddit, sponsored posts were in a light blue box. Now it sounds like they have a little gray "sponsored" somewhere on it.
Steve doesn't care as long as he can extract money before the repercussions hit. That's why he didn't care about alienating so many people that volunteered their time and energy, he's counting on their being enough momentum to get through the IPO so he can ~~steal~~ take the money he thinks he's entitled to.. he doesn't give a single shit what happens after because he won't be there and will just blame everyone else.
yep, my thought too. it was one of the big red flags for me awhile back
load more comments
(3 replies)
Another reason I really look forward for them being sued in Europe - This is a highly illegal practice in the EU and has already brought sizeable penalties for various other media outlets, both conventional and online.
And weeks ago the Dutch and German consumer protection agencies as well as the GDPR ombudsman already commented that they are looking into Reddit (Reddit has it's European office in Amsterdam).
That will be fun.
Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself
- Napoleon Dynamite, inventor of ice cream
"Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake."
-Sun Tzu
"Troops like to be fed."
-Sun Tzu
I wonder if an email to european consumer protection would help speed things along
load more comments
(1 replies)
I thought this was illegal in most countries
~~Which is why~~ they’re now under investigation from the FTC.
edit: FTC not FCC edit 2: looks like they're being investigated about AI, not ads.
Which is why they’re now under investigation from the FCC.
Ummm, no, they aren’t. They’re under investigation by the FTC for their deal that allows Google to train AI on user content. The FCC is not conducting the inquiry and it has nothing to do with these ads.
It’s really annoying that people can just make things up and it gets upvoted because nobody actually reads the damn articles.
load more comments
(2 replies)
You know what's wild?
I have seen them replace the top comment on a post with an ad.
Literally still have all the responses to it that are now completely out of place, but treating it like it's naturally in there. And also it means the top comment (which might have been a bot anyways) has just been taken over by reddit and used to sell ad space.
That is wild. Are you sure it's not the author of that comment editing their post to become an ad? Screenshot?
No I think it's some kinda of fucked up bug from them trying to have the first auto scroll spot be the presented as and it taking over the space of the top comment. Like this.
My partner still visits reddit on mobile (the communities they want just are not here and they don't like to post), I know when showing me something we've clicked on a post to have to scroll past a "Presented" comment (ad), the communities stickied bot comment, then we finally get to the first real comment only for it to be some highly upvoted joke comment. Sprinkle in bots and native ad's, I seriously don't understand still putting up with it. It's like saying a shopping complex is still a social hot spot like a mall was back in the day.
load more comments
(1 replies)
More of their bullshitery. I had the audacity to use my browser to click a reddit link.
Old.reddit still works
As does putting .i on the end, to use the compact interface.
The links are a bit spotty nowadays, and some of the newer features don't work quite right, but it otherwise works a treat for most things.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(7 replies)
Been that way since the api exodus
Yup, they’re forcing people towards the app because it allows them to collect telemetry data. Your browser walls them off so they can’t data mine your device, but the app gives them full control. It’s why so many services and companies have switched to apps instead of mobile sites; An app allows them to collect and sell your data.
The former mod of /r/jailbait has everything under control. The IPO is going to be a huge success, no doubt about it.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Also all the things they (reddit) claim in this article i call BS. Specially so close to the ipo.
Here is what one of these ads looks like:
https://www.reddit.com/u/PhillyCanada/s/O52X2oGf5V
It does not appear to be labeled as an ad on the Reddit mobile app.
This is how it's looks. No notification anywhere that is an ad post.
Jesus Christ, 1.5k upvotes on an ad. I know it didn’t say it explicitly but it does read very much like an ad
What are the chances the upvotes are fake though?
100% chance
Reddit would not let actual sentiment be shown, which is part of why the comments are locked (archived). If you're an advertiser they'll bend over backwards to please you. Guaranteed.
5 years ago people were down voting ads to oblivion. Now? They've got controls for that.
Oh man I miss when down voting an ad actually worked. That was such a funny movement for a second before they fixed that.
But yeah all those up ones are definitely fake and just a way to make it feel more real. The Jesus ads still don't show any up otes since they aren't paying for that feature I guess.
Pretty sure the votes don't work on the ads. Why would they, every ad would get down voted into oblivion and not show up on people's feeds. It reminds me of the fake comments on Facebook ads. "Pre-ordered my shwami blankets, can't wait!"
🤢
Yeah this is really scary. Maybe the golden thing on the top right is supposed to be the marking? But this is clearly not clearly marked. Should be easy to sack in a court.
This may be on purpose though. They communicate to their future shareholders that they will do everything - legal and illegal - to make profit and pay dividends.
I think that's the icon for archived posts, not ads marking.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this referenced ad post is over a year old. There's been "organic" guerilla marketing by advertisers on Reddit for almost a decade now. How is this relevant to the recent changes?
The context is in the article posted. This was one of the early experiments for the new ad platform. Looks like they did some simple test by coordinating things manually, then once they validated the concept, they spent the year building out a platform and interface for advertisers.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Why are there so many comments in the thread going "Omg great ad/marketing idea!!", that's so weird...
Wtf is up with the comments... They're all congratulating the marketing to for a good campaign? Saying they're buying the shit.
100% Reddit astroturfing. It's so unnatural
load more comments
(1 replies)
This has been the case for ages so it's not anything new.
Gotta juice up those numbers before IPO so executives can sell their stock and leave others to hold the bag
Anyone remember when a certain oat milk brand paid to promote a megathread about their new ad campaign, with comments open, and just got savaged by Reddit? The funny thing is that generally people seem to like the product, but hated the smug marketing so much it turned real bad, real fast.
I wonder how they're doing:
The stock has fallen 42% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 23%.
Ha.
if you replace the www.reddit part of the link with farside.link/libreddit it will send you to a random frontend instance.
this means no ads, no js, no trackers, and probably none of this.
to do this you'll need a browser extension. try this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/ (couldn't find this one for chrome but you can choose another)
if you used the extension i gave you you can import below as a plaintext in the settings.
redirect.txt
{
"redirects": [
{
"description": "",
"exampleUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/r/example",
"exampleResult": "https://farside.link/libreddit/r/example",
"error": null,
"includePattern": "https://www.reddit.com*",
"excludePattern": "",
"patternDesc": "",
"redirectUrl": "https://farside.link/libreddit$1",
"patternType": "W",
"processMatches": "noProcessing",
"disabled": false,
"grouped": false,
"appliesTo": [
"main_frame",
"sub_frame"
]
},
{
"description": "",
"exampleUrl": "https://old.reddit.com/r/example",
"exampleResult": "https://farside.link/libreddit/r/example",
"error": null,
"includePattern": "https://old.reddit.com*",
"excludePattern": "",
"patternDesc": "",
"redirectUrl": "https://farside.link/libreddit$1",
"patternType": "W",
"processMatches": "noProcessing",
"disabled": false,
"grouped": false,
"appliesTo": [
"main_frame",
"sub_frame"
]
}
]
}
view more: next ›