Facebook Bans 'Promotion' Of Kodi Boxes, Even If They're Perfectly Legal - Sensationalist Headlines

If you haven't noticed, the entertainment industry has a new, terrifying bogeyman. Over the last year or two, pressure from entertainment industry lobbying groups has resulted in an all-out war on streaming video devices (aka computers) that run Kodi, the video streaming software. Kodi has technically been around since 2002, first as Xbox Media Player, after which it became the Xbox Media Center until 2014. The XBMC Foundation then renamed the software Kodi, and it became popular as an easy way to store and stream content, including copyrighted content, from hardware running Kodi to other devices in or out of the home. Facebook Bans 'Promotion' Of Kodi Boxes, Even If They're Perfect..

What a load of shit

Ban VLC ads. Ban dvd player ads. Ban browser ads. Ban facebook ads. Ban it all

When are we gonna finally see a ban on the OG entertainment streaming device: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/109874/064a2e48-3161-415b-944b-0b0e845bf9fd/image.png

The only reason ads are still a viable source of income is because a lot of average computer users don't know adblockers exist. I had to introduce the concept to my dad, and he's never looked back ever since I installed ublock origin on his desktop.

So these kind of ad bans do nothing, because people wouldn't know what to do with it?. Tech savvy people would find this without ads?

considering that the Kodi boxes advertised on ads are categorically all set up to pirate shit i really don't see a problem with it

Good, so sick of "ALL THE MOVIE CHANNELS AND CABLE NETFLIX FOR FREE FOREVER!" ads all over facebook marketplace. Praying on people who don't know it's piracy and being directly lied to when they ask. I could care less what people do, but it's not fair to do to people who will get flagged by TWC in my area for using those services.

I remember when I worked in retail that we sold some android boxes that had Kodi pre-installed on them. The return rate was massive because everyone presumed them to be pre-loaded with the piracy repositories and were pissed when they couldn't get their free movies because of it. I agree with Facebook removing advertising for them. So many people can get potentially screwed when no warranty is served with them and repositories get shut down.

They banned all kodi boxes, not just pirate boxes.

considering that it's scummy in general to sell a legal box for profit when someone else made the software for you, and I don't think the Kodi brand advertised themselves on Facebook if they didn't then it's really a moot point: the Kodi name brand has been hijacked by shitty pirate boxes

It's not scummy to sell a box with open source software, it's explicitly allowed to do so.

You'd be surprised the number of people who sell "jail-broken" streaming devices pretty much out in the open on Facebook, too. Not advertisers, but like private citizens in sell groups.

surely by now this company would have learned about the streisand effect

And sure enough, just now I see someone on Facebook offering to install Kodi for $20 on any device.

oh look another story of facebook abusing its position of power to the detriment of small businesses, but since theyre extremely rich (lol cambridge) nothing will happen

Just a casual reminder that this was due to the advertisement of these boxes offering pirated content. If there is anyone to blame, it's those sellers - not the ones who only provided the software for its intended use.

the article seems to imply they blanket banned all Kodi stuff, including products the Kodi devs may one day sanction. and there's plenty of potentially illegal ads on FB that get ignored, and FB LOVES to allow people to steal YouTube videos (in fact i bet its still nigh impossible to report videos for stolen content)

They did blanket ban everything. But don't blame Facebook for protecting their ass from illegal action, blame those who sold Kodi boxes pre-loaded with piracy repositories. Facebook has certain things that they can control on their website, but they cannot take down everything and unfortunately blanket bans tends to be the cost-effective solution. I can guarantee you they won't create more jobs just for post/video/ad moderation.

And a lot of people will complain about ads, you can tell them over and over again about an adblocker, and they'll just never 'get around to it' and install one, and just continue complaining

so they're willing to remove all kodi stuff yet not unwilling to remove or even allow the option to report stolen content with millions of views? ok lol

You're talking two different systems dude. It's easy enough to blacklist the word Kodi into their advertising program. For videos, I'm assuming Facebook has an automated content matching system that is already used by the MPAA and other entities. This means that YouTubers and MCN's at a larger scale are reliant to register their content into their system so that their copyright can be held. Even at the content reporting stage for the end user, it's up to the creator to know their content is being stolen and claim or the user to report the video. It's not a perfect system at all and Facebook can always do better, but you're comparing apples to oranges. Please tell me where the budget would be for Facebook to hire staff to manually review videos posted on their service, because all these online sites are going towards automation due to the large amount of data being uploaded - it's up to the creator to go through the claim system either by registering their content or reporting their content after discovery.

The funniest thing about this is that I NEVER would've known what Kodi was or what it did until Facebook decided to make a complete shitshow out of this. Well done, Facebook.

facebook is one of the richest companies in the world, I think they can manage to add a report button, I don't know where youre getting the illusion that they'd have to monitor each individual video. And yes, creators are aware: read Kurzgesagt for one large scale example.

Not trying to make a gotcha because I genuinely don't know- does Kodi have any use other than for piracy? That's all I ever hear it being used for.

They do have one, it's dependent on the user to actually report it and go through the proper channels of claiming their content. I agree with you 100% that it's ridiculous that content is easily stolen, but you're comparing the ban on Kodi advertisements to DMCA'ing video content which are two COMPLETELY different processes. It's cost-effective to let an automated system look over both, and that means a blanket ban for Kodi. That doesn't work for video content, and the most effective way is for a human to view the video. They're not hiring people to do that any time soon so it's up for the end user to report the video (hint: they most likely won't) or for the creator to claim their content through contacting them. Stop trying to make an argument that Facebook is the evilest corporation because they blanket ban Kodi boxes but cannot remove stolen videos online. They're two different departments, two different processes, two different LAWS.

It's just media center software.