Facebook's Hidden Battle Against Ad-Blockers

[upnorth]

Content source

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46508234

The methods Facebook uses to thwart ad-blocking technology have been criticised by web developers. The social network injects dozens of lines of code in every page to make it harder for ad blockers to detect and hide sponsored posts. But that makes the website less efficient and stops software such as screen readers used by visually impaired users from working properly. The BBC has contacted Facebook for comment. In order to block advertising, developers look for patterns in a website's code that can be consistently identified and hidden. It would be easy for a plug-in to spot the word "sponsored" or to find a container labelled "ad" inside the webpage code, so companies, including Facebook, use coding tricks to obfuscate their ads. The tricks Facebook uses to fool ad-blocking plug-ins include:

• breaking up the word "sponsored" into small chunks only one or two letters long
• inserting extra letters, as in "SpSonSsoSredS", hidden to the viewer
• adding the word to all regular posts on the news feed, even ones that are not ads, and then using another piece of code to hide it on the non-ads

 

[plat]

Facebook and how it gets its revenue-- no shock there, only disgust at its ingenuity in duping users along with its lip service and "determination" to put things right. Individually, we can't argue with FB and we can't change its methods with our puny little hands.

Zuckerberg has fed to over-repletion. Time to kick his "innocent" butt to the curb.

Do or do not, there is no "try"-- Yoda.

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

I am not on FB, but those folks are aggressive and vicious in the data collection business. I love adguard, but you cant stop there with these folks, I also block Facebook CDN's. It is another step in the right direction. Important thing is to follow a list that is Updated regularly.
Thanks @upnorth

 

[DeepWeb]

Facebook is completely forbidden on any of my mobile devices and I only log into Facebook through my VPN in a different browser inside its container to change the password every 6 months because of all the data breaches. I should simply delete my account but I cannot afford to lose the connections. Any social media trackers are blocked by Nano Adblocker, Privacy Possum, Kaspersky and my hosts file. I've opted out of all the data brokers that this company partners with. This company will do anything to track you across the Internet and personally I've declared war against their practices. What bothers me the most is how they do it without any consent.

 

[Deleted member 178]

Facebook is 5 steps ahead, it has the brains, skills and resources and most of all, it is still very popular.
In business terms, Facebook is a world-class champion; ethically it is another story.

 

[509322]

Facebook succeeds because there are so many levels of user ignorance. People just don't know what a mess they've gotten themselves into. And even if they did know, they'd still use Facebook. For many people, Facebook is one of their top 5 daily priorities.

 

[Deleted member 178]

And even if they did know, they'd still use Facebook. For many people, Facebook is one of their top 5 daily priorities.

Sorry Bro, there is too many hot "not-too-difficult" babes for me to quit it.
I have quite some scores , grace of FB. Lol