Per Elad: Opting-out of social media buttons now available on My Account page!

[Poll_Blind]

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/12401097#post147">here

PB

[teddy51]

1. I just opted out of it as well. Cool. n/t

[Poll_Blind]

3. If you have the time, drop by that thread on DU3 and thank Elad for making the change!

PB

[teddy51]

6. Will do... Thanks! n/t

[Poll_Blind]

2. kick- this should be stickied but I doubt anyone can sticky it here.

:kick:

PB

[smokey nj]

5. We'll have to do an old fashioned kicky-sticky!

[riderinthestorm]

4. I did it too Poll blind. Thanks for putting this up here! nt

[countryjake]

7. yay! n/t.

.

[ellisonz]

8. K & R

For responsiveness.

[Generic Other]

9. Done and thanks for the heads up!

Yay.

[zane25]

10. It is another one of the features that requires a star?

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. Is it?

[druidity33]

33. I know the 'Classic' setting is... nt.

[Poll_Blind]

11. Kick for visibility!

PB

[Sinistrous]

12. I thought nobody at DU3 was listening to us over here...

I mean we have it on the HIGHEST AUTHORITY that we are irrelevant.

[jannyk]

13. K&R!

[Hatchling]

14. You are only opting out of displaying the buttons.

I don't see how that blocks the social media. An I missing something?

[EFerrari]

17. How do you "block" social media when anyone can copy a post address

and put it up anywhere? Any way, the buttons seem to make some people freak out so, if this helps them, that's something.

[Poll_Blind]

19. Let me very briefly explain:

Those social media buttons aren't just buttons, they're Javascript. Most people just call them "scripts". But they're essentially little programs. When those buttons are embedded on a page, those scripts (those little programs) run. What they do, what those little Javascript programs do, especially in Facebook's case, is send a lot of data back to Facebook. It sends some data back to DU, too, but that's not what's terribly concerning. It's what Facebook gathers on you.

Ok, now we can turn those buttons off in the My Options page of DU3. Those buttons and the little javascript programs aren't displayed, don't run.

Some of us run privacy addons on Firefox like Ghostery or NoScript (I run both). Those addons will show you what scripts are running. So, on DU2 there's just Google Analytics or something similar. Not a big deal.

On DU3, up until the change was made, those social buttons caused about 7-9 different scripts being run, and from several different places like Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Now that those buttons are turned off, I basically see the same script running on DU3 as I did on DU2, which is confirmation that those scripts are nolonger active.

When people talk about "social media" or the "social media buttons" on DU3 causing a problem, we were talking about all those scripts running, because of the buttons, without us wanting them to.

Now that we can turn those buttons off, they nolonger appear, the javascripts don't run and my privacy concerns, anyway, are satisfied.

I don't want to be overly longwinded, but I wanted to explain what the problem was and how the fix the admins made addresses it.

Does that help make things any clearer?

PB

[teach1st]

20. Yes

There is no way the various social media sites can keep up with what you're doing without you clicking on the buttons and entering your login info. If you don't do that, the stuff you post at DU is only knowable as search engine stuff. Just like it always has been with Google, etc.

The real value of opting out of the buttons for me is that filtering software at work doesn't come into play - it really slowed stuff down when the filtering software blocked the button links.

[TorchTheWitch]

15. Thank the gods!

That was the one thing that absolutely offended me no end. I never wrote many OP's to begin with but that crap would have kept me from ever posting one ever again.

But without the Hide Thread option I'll likely just not be visiting DU at all anymore once DU2 is achieved and closed. That I can't survive without.

[suffragette]

16. Glad to hear this

Done!

[EFerrari]

18. I don't see how anyone, admins included can block social media

@48thave Elizabeth Ferrari
Test. How do you block social media bit.ly/smbskC
58 seconds ago via web

https://twitter.com/#!/48thave/status/146786919655813121

Put the link I tweeted into your address bar: bit.ly/smbskC

[Poll_Blind]

21. It was the social media buttons that were the problem, see reply #19 for...

...hopefully a clearer response about what the problem was and how the situation was remedied.

People can still post links to anything in twitter or whatever. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the buttons themselves were little programs sending data back to Facebook, Twitter and Google whether you clicked on them or not. Just loading up the button in your browser caused the program to run.

PB

[EFerrari]

23. That was a clear explanation, thank you.

I detest Google and Facebook myself but I guess I've long since given up trying to avoid them. I don't even think it's really possible any more. We can now turn off those buttons at DU3 but don't similar scripts run every time we use Google or Yahoo! ? Or visit any number of places, most of which now load the very same buttons? I see them at just about every major news outlet.

[Poll_Blind]

25. I use FireFox and two free addons: NoScript and Ghostery. A brief...

..."Here's how NoScript words" can be found http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2304797&mesg_id=2305129">here at DU, from an earlier message I posted about it. I also use Ghostery, mostly for the prominent way it displays the scripts that are running on a page.

While it's kind of overkill (you only need NoScript), Ghostery's display of the scripts in a little temporary-appearing box in the right hand corner of my screen makes being aware of what's going on very convenient.

With NoScript, no script runs without me giving it permission. When you first visit a new domain you migth have to allow that domian's scripts to run but it remembers your choices and you don't have to fool with it anymore for that domain. You usually need to enable scripts from a domain you're visiting to get things like search boxes to work and certain forms, but if you want to disallow even those you can still use most sites reasonably well unless they do stuff which is heavy on java, like streaming video or real-time updates, etc.

PB

[Leopolds Ghost]

30. Does Noscript work if you have Greasemonkey installed? n/t

[Poll_Blind]

32. I believe it does. I had GM installed for a while and didn't notice any problems. nt

PB

[EFerrari]

37. I learned something from this post so thank you for taking the trouble

to lay it out. I will go look at those FF add ons. :hi:

[countryjake]

24. Poll, could that be what was slowing everything down for me at DU3?

We've got ten thousand security & blocking agents running on our browser, and I've been seeing slow, sluggish page loading over at the new place. I'm wondering if those scripts are what was causing the lag.

[Poll_Blind]

26. It could have been. I had read a number of message from other users on DU3 who...

...were mentioning that sort of thing happening to them and they believed it was an interaction with those scripts and their corporate security.

PB

[countryjake]

27. Thanks for the quick reply...I'm gonna go over, fix, and see...

if things speed up for me now. And also look for those other messages that you've mentioned, in case I'm still lagging after I turn off the data-mining buttons.

[TorchTheWitch]

22. nobody said anything about blocking

The complaint is making it so easy with the buttons and PROMOTING sharing of posts outside of DU without the poster's knowledge or consent.

[suffragette]

31. I see Poll Blind already gave a good response

I was eating dinner :)

Apparently Facebook tracks non Facebook users, too:

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/17/8861877-facebook-user-or-not-youre-being-tracked


I remember also reading something about web beacons and the way they are used to track differently than cookies.

I realize we're being tracked everywhere else, but I like that DU responded by allowing an opt out.

[BrendaBrick]

34. Thanks for this link! n/t

[suffragette]

39. You're welcome! n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. Don't retreat -- RETWEET!

/)^_^(\ hugz for Skinner, Elad and EarlG

[Renew Deal]

35. Thanks for pointing this out

:D

I just turned them off.

[dana_b]

36. thank you for the heads up! n/t

[ellisonz]

38. Kick.

[Poll_Blind]

40. .

:kick:

PB