In September 2013, we started hearing about Facebook’s autoplay video feature, though ads didn’t figure in these stories. Then in October, it emerged that the company was thinking about rolling out advertisements through this medium in 2014.
For those who haven’t found out yet, when you scroll through your News Feed, you should be seeing videos which start playing automatically without requiring you to click on them. A new report says users have been facing a spike in their mobile phone bills since the feature was launched.
This is because the clips which show up in your News Feed when they’ve been shared by your friends or are pushed out as ads, begin playing without your intervention unless you turn off the capability. Now Facebook has confirmed to Money Saving Expert that autoplay is on by default on mobile and desktops.
Also see: Facebook autoplay ads won’t be bothering you until 2014
When a video starts playing automatically, it uses your Wi-Fi, 3G or whatever other data connection you’re on. If you’ve been crying over rising phone bills since the change was announced, may be it’s time you turned it off. You thankfully do get the option to stick to ‘Auto-play only on Wi-Fi,’ or ‘Off,’ after all.
On iOS, you can access these choices by going to Settings within Facebook from the main Settings menu. Android allows you to do the same by opening the social network’s official app, then Facebook Account Settings and finally, App Settings. Desktop users can click on Settings, then Auto-play Videos from Video and lastly, Off.
Apparently, those who log into Facebook via the Internet browser on their mobile devices do not have to worry about autoplay videos pushing up their bills.