Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

You can have it fast, good, or cheap: pick two, and unless you’re bankrolling the developer you’ve already chosen cheap.

• YouTube test threatens to block viewers if they continue using ad blockers
• How well is uBlock Origin working for you in Chrome Mobile?
• Read up on Manifest V3. They were forced to delay Jan 2023 implementation due to outcry, but it’s still very much on their roadmap.

Are you really certain that Google is trying to eliminate adblocking is just an alarmist assumption?

I think the issue is that Google has both A) a track record of backdooring restrictions on adblocking, and B) an overwhelming motivation to do so seeing as how they generate their revenue from online advertising. They’ve forfeited the benefit of the doubt, especially when they’ve already disclosed that the whole point of the change is to enhance the profitability of online advertising:

Google’s engineers elaborate, “Websites funded by ads require proof that their users are human and not bots…Social websites need to differentiate between real user engagement and fake engagement”

So given that once implemented, this hop and this skip would just require a teensy jump in order to further restrict adblocking, it is reasonable to assume that’s within their desired goals.

Makes sense. People are thirsty for a something along the lines of “Twitter, but fewer nazis”, so tons of people checked it out, but it still lacks feature parity with Twitter since it was a rushed-to-market MVP.

I think once it adds on a handful of new features, it’s only a matter of time before audiences gravitate to Threads over a platform whose owner is bragging about funnelling money to human traffickers.

Yes, and after such valuable discussion on Twitter such as “How much do Jews control the world: completely or just excessively?”, a little vapid inanery with a side of brands doesn’t sound so bad.

I believe that’s a bit of a misleading meme that’s making the rounds. You can deactivate it, which is functionally the same, and they haven’t yet rolled out the feature to delete it because they rushed this thing to market to take advantage of Twitter’s dumpster fire.

I also might be slow here, but I struggle to understand why this is a big deal. There are countless reasons why I would have reservations with Meta, but aww shit I can only deactivate not delete the Threads account associated with my source Instagram account seems like a weirdly esoteric hill to die on.

I wonder how much of that are Reddit-specific problems vs just plain old humans online in a pseudo-anonymous setting problem.