DYK that Lemmy now auto-plays videos **WITH SOUND**?!?

submitted 2 weeks ago by OpenStars@piefed.social edited 2 weeks ago

Here is an example link (edit: I originally had this example link, which also has the issue but then does not match the same posting as the other links below so the first one would have been better). Apologies in advance that the content of this video is political, but you can pause it immediately and not watch if you prefer yet still see the effect.

Caveats:
1. on most desktop browsers I have tried the auto-play is blocked; however in Firefox on Android it auto-plays with sound. For me, (edit: whoops what happened to the word "Chrome") shows the video embed yet pauses it, properly refusing to allow it to play unless I hit the giant Play button in the center. It has been too long but this may not be standard behavior for Chrome, although I did confirm this effect on 2 different devices from different manufacturers (yet if I made any configuration changes in the past to block auto-playing videos, I definitely would have done it to both:-P).
2. Lemmy.World users are safe for now, as too are users on sh.itjust.works, both presumably b/c they are instances not yet running the latest Lemmy code - though note that that just means that it is coming for you eventually, even if not quite here yet
3. none of PieFed, Mbin (edit: apparently this one does too, after a fashion, read in comments below), or Tesseract auto-play videos either, or as I mentioned seemingly any Lemmy instance prior to 0.19.6, though e.g. viewing this post from lemm.ee, the 3rd largest Lemmy instance, auto-plays it. Others that auto-play it include view this post from Discuss.Online, view this post from StarTrek.Website.
4. Edit: an interesting wrinkle, *sometimes* when you click the link directly, the video does *not* auto-play (most desktop situations seem this way, and some mobile devices too). But if you navigate to that post more naturally, e.g. click the link to the community first, then find the post (although note in this case that there are many posts describing this situation, e.g. have the word "ceasefire" in them) and click the link to it (or just hit the back button), then the video *does* auto-play.

This troubles me. Once again this kind of opt-out behavior offered "for my convenience" reminds me of some other place... although even Reddit offers the option to stop the auto-play feature (except for ads I suppose), whereas I see no such option in Lemmy (the closest would be "Auto expand media", which I have set to OFF). The number of places - like Netflix - that offers these kinds of “well ackshually these are *not* ads you see b/c..." really is off-putting to me.

The more you know I suppose.

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13 Comments

Iframes? What year is it?!

Is there a more modern alternative to embedding videos in plain HTML? It's easy to use them for embeds from youtube and peertube, streamable, etc.

I mentioned in my comment (whoops, and your reply is how I found out that I linked to the wrong post on lemm.ee as my initial example) about this link: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/2676.

I feel like that's probably highly dependent on your client or the web interface you or your instance are using.

I know, that's why I included so many caveats. However, it *is* coming to you, eventually. Well, then again, perhaps not *you* - your instance software version is very much behind:-). Perhaps when you find some additional admins to help, the software will be updated, and then you won't feel so left behind, when news ads can start auto-playing for you too? :-D (edit: unless you use an app I suppose, and in that case... I have no idea what would happen, probably depends on the app)

I don't know if this will be helpful, and I'm not sure I have ever seen a video before, but I looked at the link, and while I have to click to open the image/video, it immediately starts playing (mbin). Unsure if normal behavior since I dont think I have opened a video before. Firefox fork on Android.

Interesting, yes I see that too.

Going to https://moist.catsweat.com/m/[email protected] and searching for this post, I don't even have to go into the post, but as usual clicking on the embed link (double window icon) expands the content just below the post. And as you say it *immediately* starts playing, not waiting to be asked to do so with another button press as is usually the case.

So I should edit my OP about Mbin.

Can't reproduce on chrome or firefox on a desktop (I don't even see a video). Something's up with your client my dude.

I can't read. I can reproduce on firefox android.

OP clearly cites Firefox on Android; I experience the same on the Fennec fork.

Reading is hard for me today apparently. Reproduced here on firefox android.

HOLY SHEET THIS IS PEAK!!

I am thinking - hoping - that it's an unplanned side effect of a change, but that raising the issue like this will likely get it fixed before most people even have to deal with it.:-)

Stuff happens. What's important is how we deal with it from here, imho.