Reddit this week announced that it will no longer allow Reddit users to opt out of ad personalization, which means that ads on the platform will be...

TL;DR: Reddit is removing the option to opt out of ad personalization, targeting ads based on user activity. Some specific ad categories can still be limited, but there’s no more opt-out option.

@dan@lemm.ee
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31Y

Best of luck with that.

SokathHisEyesOpen
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201Y

Is that even legal in the EU?

In select countries, the option to turn off ad personalization will remain, allowing Reddit to continue to comply with GDPR restrictions.

@Blackmist@feddit.uk
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51Y

If it’s anything like Twitter, it resigns you up to them anyway. There’s no “turn off all” as far as I could see. The missus has to run some JS to untick all the boxes for her. Next week she’ll go back and it will have ticked more.

@pre@feddit.uk
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51Y

They will not be forcing me to accept personalized ads. How are they going to personalize them when I have no reddit account, block their cookies, use a VPN and change my IP address often, and don’t use their website.

neosheo
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51Y

Isn’t it sad that we have to do all this to prevent our information being spread around the corporate world like a virus

@pre@feddit.uk
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51Y

They should teach defensive web-browsing in schools.

neosheo
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11Y

I want to live in that reality

Well if you don’t use their website you aren’t a user.

funny as im seeing this while nuking my old reddit account. havent used it since they took apollo from me and honestly i won’t miss it. they are just digging their own grave at this point.

@realitista@lemm.ee
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81Y

I would care if I used Reddit, but I don’t.

@AbstractifyBot@beehaw.org
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1Y

Here’s the best summary I could make of the linked article


Reddit is removing the option for users to opt out of personalized ads. The site will now target ads based on a user’s activity and account information. Reddit claims this requires little personal data and will improve ad relevance. However, users will no longer have control over whether their data is used this way. They can only filter ads by category, not opt out entirely. Personalized ads will still be optional in some countries due to GDPR laws.

Overall, Reddit users can expect to see more targeted ads based on their engagement with different communities and content.


This comment was generated by a bot. Send comments and complaints via private message.

Have you heard anything about uBlock origin, Ghostery and similar programs?

Get Mozilla Firefox and add uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Ghostery plugins.

For over the top action, but a Raspberry Pi with an ethernet port and install PiHole and change your router DNS to the IP address of the PiHole and bask in glory that 99.999% of the crap out there, will not come or go out of your household.

The Doctor
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51Y

It boggles the mind that there are people who still don’t use adblocking measures these days.

I don’t understand how they can do this with iPhone when Apple requires all apps to prompt with the option to deny tracking?

For those who are paranoid about this - some of you have a Facebook account, and half of you have a Google-filled smartphone. Privacy is important, but IMO there should be a balance between convenience and privacy - unless you actually do stuff that requires the utmost privacy or you need to stay fully anonymous everywhere as much as possible.

Division of identity - that is, having unique profiles/identities for different types of things you do on the web, using alias emails and anonymous email for certain things etc. - is a more viable strategy than trying to be 100% anonymous on the web.

Commercial social media that is free does and will track your activity on the site, whether for personalized ads or for algorithm purposes. Lemmy and Mastodon don’t because they’re FOSS, and don’t run on ads (99.9% of the time).

Apple is not considerably better for privacy either by rhe way. They just pay more for marketing that says they’re more private than the rest of big tech.

SokathHisEyesOpen
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5
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Commercial social media that is free does and will track your activity on the site

I don’t think many people have an issue with this. It’s all the bullshit they pull to track you off the site that is the problem, and they do a lot of that.

Edit: and the selling of that information to third parties that you would never consent to. That’s also a huge issue.

They just went from we love you guys to we don’t even give a fuck bend over boy in like 6 months.

Twitter has also shifted into a dystopian QQ wannabe.

Meta has been a dumpster fire for a decade now.

Tik Tok. heavy sigh

This kinda seems like end of times.

Track_Shovel
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551Y

if this is your version of the end of times, I suggest you take a look out your window at the burning hellscape of western north america and other locations around the globe. I also hope you’re not too attached to birds or polar bears.

bubblefizzpop
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It’s almost like we can be upset about multiple things at one. Wow.

Why are we playing these games of let’s come up with something worse so we can devalue what someone else is talking about? This isn’t a competition. That is such unnecessary behavior.

Track_Shovel
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11Y

How am I devaluing what they are saying by pointing out there are much, much, more serious signals of a looming apocalypse?

It’s like worrying about the mosquito biting you in a room full of blood thirsty canibals.

I realize I shifted off topic, but they were getting a bit dramatic with the end of times bit

bubblefizzpop
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11Y

How is it dramatic when it’s all interconnected to begin with? People noticing a shift like that online might start to get involved in other ways as well if they start to feel more of the effect personally. It’s a good thing that people are noticing this stuff.

Again it’s not a competition and people shouldn’t have to have their frustrations compared to something else, that is devaluing it. We are allowed to be upset about something and have that stand on its own without others chiming in and acting like it doesn’t matter because of something else so that they can act self important or more intelligent. It’s just old and tired.

You seem to have an incredibly bad attitude and I wouldn’t be shocked if you were trying to start something, so I’m done here. Maybe try some empathy out for a change.

Track_Shovel
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11Y

I’m not trying to start anything, I just don’t follow your logic, and your comments seem like an over reaction.

I’m happy to agree to disagree though, and won’t presue a conversation neither of us really wants to have.

Hopefully you find other people on here that are more suited to your perspectives (I’m legitimately sorry we’re clashing). Lemmy is a great platform and I want you to enjoy it as much as I do

Kerrigor
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441Y

My world ends whenever someone doesn’t understand hyperbole

Track_Shovel
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411Y

Now I become death, destroyer of literary device

You became Death? How did you manage that?

Track_Shovel
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81Y

By taking things literally, apparently

meseek #2982
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41Y

This makes me want to just set myself on fire!

PaleRider
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birds or polar bears

Phew! Luckily I just like penguins…

FaceDeer
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61Y

I have bad news. Penguins are a hybrid of bird and polar bear.

Even the name Penguin is a hybrid of polar and penguin.

deleted by creator

If it’s the end of the era of social media, I’m plenty ok with that. Shit’s been cancer for almost a decade now.

And may it usher in the era of antisocial media. The era where we all stop trying to impress each other, monetize each other, and just buy a thing and have it do the thing we bought it for, and not be bothered. Long may it reign.

Lol that’s more like the end of American consumerism, and while I wholeheartedly agree, that’ll take a generation or two at least to decouple from American society. That shit’s been going strong here for over 100 years.

Time to poison their data, I guess.

Glad I left. It can only get worse…

thingsiplay
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121Y

I don’t like Reddit.

flicker
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121Y

'Tis a silly place.

SokathHisEyesOpen
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21Y

On second thought, let’s not go there.

Who views ads in Reddit? Except for all the shill posts, that is.

There’s enough astroturf on Reddit for a continent’s worth of obnoxious suburban fake lawns.

@loops@beehaw.org
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91Y

Shill posts, shill posts everywhere.

I’m pretty sure it’s everyone who uses their app, since every third post and every fourth comment on it is an ad of some sort (or at least that’s how it seemed). I’m sure anyone on old.r with an adblocker is unaffected but during the brief time I had their app installed there were enough ads to render it unusable and unnavigable.

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