Protecting Your Eyes From Auto-Play Features On Social Media
By Greg Argos
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The shooter posted first person video of his murders to social media. Many people ended up watching the killings, inadvertently in some cases as these social media sites have what's called auto-play features.
"Yeah, I saw the video. It's tragic," said Corey Floyd.
Floyd was watching television news coverage of the Virginia journalist killings yesterday when he logged onto Facebook.
"I had to look at it for a second, and I was like, why does this look familiar, and I'm literally looking at my TV and I'm like, Oh crap," Floyd said.
In his feed, the video of the shooter's point of view started playing. It was the recording of a murder right on his computer screen.
"Yeah, it literally started automatically playing," Floyd said.
That applies for any offensive video, not just what aired yesterday.
"The reason that platforms are baking in the autoplay is that they want to stop your attention as you're scrolling through a feed and watch a video," said social media expert Annie Heckenberger.
Heckenberger explains that the reason for the feature simply boils down to money. More views equals more cash for social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
"Facebook is probably a place where we look to spend time with friends and family, not a place we want to see something like this. If I pick up a newspaper, I may be more prone to suspecting I may see something sensitive like that," Heckenberger added.
There are ways to disable this auto-play feature on Twitter and Facebook. You just have to visit your settings.
"As I scroll down their is a section that says content," Heckenberger explains. Then, you can unclick the auto-play video button.
"If you unclick that, now videos will not auto-play in your video stream."
It takes a little digging, but for people like Floyd, it's worth the extra time.