Facebook turns on sound on autoplay videos. Here’s how you can turn it off again
THE world’s biggest social media channel is switching on sound for autoplay videos whether you like it or not. Here’s the hack to get around it.
FACEBOOK has decided the world loves the embarrassment of a viral video blasting out without warning and has flicked the switch so sound plays automatically as you scroll.
The social media giant announced the change in a blog past, saying that “as people watch more video on phones, they’ve come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on”.
Previously people had to tap on the video to hear the sound, which avoided the embarrassment of everyone on your bus ride home from work having to listen to the latest in lame videos.
But after trialling automatic sound for several months, Facebook decided that noise is the way of the future.
The good news is if you don’t want everyone around you having to listen to the latest interaction between a cat and a cucumber, there is a way to get around the automatic sound.
The first and perhaps simplest way is to have your phone on mute.
The trouble with that system is that you are likely to forget your phone is not on mute until the video starts to play — and there are few things harder to do in life than to reach a mute button in a hurry.
The other option is to go into your settings on your Facebook app and fix it yourself.
If you’re on an Android phone, look for Help and Settings and then App Settings. If you are on an iPhone, go to Account Settings and then Sound. Then, in either case, go to Video in News Feed Start With Sound and move the slider to Off.
Facebook announced other changes to video today.
It says it has made vertical videos look better in the app, again showing how Facebook, and Instagram which it owns, is moving to copy the best features of Snapchat.
Facebook also announced today it would be launching a Facebook video app for Apple TV.
Facebook’s announcement comes a day after Twitter’s embarrassment of a backflip on a change to its system.
Twitter yesterday announced it was changing its notification system so that people did not get a notification when they were added to a list.
However, the social network quickly was forced to reverse the decision in a flood of complaints by people complaining the move was likely to make it easier for trolls to add someone to a list designed to encourage harassment.
Originally published as Facebook turns on sound on autoplay videos. Here’s how you can turn it off again
