Facebook’s long-dreaded update that switches on sound for autoplaying videos by default is starting to roll out causing users to lash out on social media. Here’s how to turn it off.
First Facebook rolled out autoplaying videos in the News Feed on its app by default, causing users to complain about the increased data consumption from their mobile plans. Now those same autoplaying videos will start pumping out sound in a feature, as one user put it, “literally nobody asked for”.
The feature was announced in February, but has only been slowly rolling out to users showing an in-app alert when updated, with some of the earliest complaints to be found around May. By June users were revolting:
...and that was the day @Facebook's app was deleted from all of my devices. Utterly tone-deaf; nobody likes autoplay let alone with sound. pic.twitter.com/sdxul5Ir0d
— Mike Tomkins (@TomkinsMike) June 7, 2017
"videos now autoplay with the sound on"
— David Guthrie (@djguthrie5) June 30, 2017
...they're advertising this like it's a good thing. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING FACEBOOK. pic.twitter.com/ljbZdnRTFJ
Awww thanks @facebook, you're the best! The only thing people love more than autoplay video is autoplay video with sound. Ask MySpace pic.twitter.com/dgU2WnHi5i
— Jorge Branco (@JorgeBrancoBNE) July 4, 2017
Facebook getting way more aggressive with autoplay audio now on Android. Immediately turned this setting off. Very annoying. pic.twitter.com/FDW5bViewr
— Peter Berg (@peter) June 7, 2017
Literally nobody asked for this pic.twitter.com/9dM1aJelUe
— Owen Williams ⚡️ (@ow) July 16, 2017
During Facebook’s announcement of the feature in February, product manager Dana Sittler and engineering manager Alex Li said: “As people watch more video on phones, they’ve come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on.”
“After testing sound on in News Feed and hearing positive feedback, we’re slowly bringing it to more people.”
Sadly, these positive feedback-giving people seem to have ruined the experience for the rest of us. But there is salvation. It is possible to turn off autoplay sound, or stop autoplaying videos altogether, but it’s still an opt-out not an opt-in feature.
Users need to enter the Facebook app’s settings and turn off the feature labeled “Videos in News Feed Start With Sound”.
In the Android version of the app the setting can be found under the three-line “hamburger menu” icon, located in the top toolbar in the App Settings option.
The option is buried deeper in the iPhone or iPad version of the Facebook app. To get to it you have to tap the hamburger menu icon in the corner of the screen, navigate to Settings, then Account Settings, then Sounds to find the setting.
You can disable autoplaying videos in their entirety in the settings of the Facebook app too, or restrict them to wifi connections only.
The Facebook app will respect the volume setting of the smartphone or tablet, however, which means that if the phone is set to silent videos will not make any sound. The situation will be a little trickier when users have their ringtone and alert volume set to silent, but media volume set to make noise.