The seventh circle of Internet hell, just above dial-up and goatse (don’t Google it), is autoplay video. And that’s exactly where Twitter finds itself: Starting today, native videos, Vines, and GIFs will begin to play automatically as you scroll through your timeline. Don’t fret! You can turn it off.
Today’s announcement comes from Twitter product director Baljeet Singh, who broke the news gently in a post on the ol’ corporate blog.
“Today, it’s become even easier to enjoy video on Twitter,” writes Singh. “You can keep up with the action without missing a Tweet and get a better sense of what’s been shared instantly.”
This is, understandably, a very generous interpretation of why Twitter has introduced autoplay. Sure, the particularly attention-deprived and unmotivated might find it a relief not to have to go through the trouble of tapping their smartphones to watch an infinitely looping six-second clip. That's not the target audience here, though. Nearly 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising, after all. As rivals like Facebook and Google have already found, video ads represent a lucrative chunk of revenue---as long as you can get people to watch. That’s why Facebook introduced autoplay in its News Feed in 2013, and why Twitter is doing it now.
The news isn’t all bad; Twitter will automatically make videos click-to-play if you’re “somewhere with high data rates,” or have low bandwidth that might cause a sputtery experience to aggravate you and your advertiser alike. Sound on autoplay videos won’t be enabled until you tap on content either. Most importantly, Twitter will allow users to opt-out in their settings menu, or to limit autoplay to when you’re on a Wi-Fi connection. The steps could not be simpler:
It doesn't appear that Twitter has pushed video autoplay settings to the Web app yet, though, so for the moment you have to use the mobile app in order to change this.
You can expect to see autoplay strike today on iOS and on the Web; this is one case where Android users benefit by lagging behind, but it’s “coming soon” for them as well. In the meantime, remember that you can just fiddle with your settings to make the madness stop. Maybe turn off those open DMs while you’re in there?
