Introducing the Fairfax autoplay snuff movie

July 8, 2011 4:09

So here’s a thought, Fairfax.

You know how you promised to stop autoplaying video?

And you know how media is suffering something of an image crisis at the moment?

How about you don’t autoplay video of a man falling to his death?

Perhaps I’m not a typical reader, but I didn’t really want to see that. But by the time I noticed the video, it was already playing, so I did. So thanks for that. It’s always nice to finish my Friday with a snuff movie.

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He now writes industry newsletter Unmade - subscribe at unmade.media

topics autoplay Fairfax Media journalism online Video

Comments: 9

David 8 Jul 11

I’m sorry but that is really quite fucked up, they have enough time to add in a warning message but can’t disable auto-play!

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Logic 8 Jul 11

anything for pageviews.

matthews needs to clean the place up.

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Matt 8 Jul 11

Simple solution to those annoying autoplay vids. Don’t visit the Fairfax news sites. Which I don’t.

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sdog 8 Jul 11

It looks like they’re replaced it with a still?

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MediaTroll 10 Jul 11

@Logic you know it is Matthews who keeps autoplay running yeah? I am not sure if he can clean the place up as he is part of the problem.

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Oedipus Shmoedipus 12 Jul 11

People close to Fairfax Video claim that the order came down from video management to not put ads or autoplay with it, but the production staff are in such ‘autoplay’ mode that it went through with ads and autoplay despite instructions otherwise.

RESULT!

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Clint 14 Jul 11

Won’t be able to move to a user initiated model because it will severely reduce the video inventory. Bit of a fail this one.

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Joel Webb 18 Jul 11

Its amazing that such big media players cant get basic user experience right. Its equally amazing that advertise must continue to believe their page/ad view stats are accurate.

I filled out the ‘video feedback’ link on the bottom of an auto-play vid in Feb this year and received the following response:

“Thanks for your feedback.
We will be working on some changes to our auto-play feature during the course of the year and a site wide ‘off’ setting will be included as part of these changes. We appreciate you talking the time to send in your thoughts for us to consider.”

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pietro 23 Jul 11

I use an add-on to Firefox called Flashblock which works for everything except these autoplay clips that drive me insane. We need an app that blocks autoplay as well.

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