So I love Plex. I have been using it for a decade. Have a lifetime pass. Have most of my friends and family setup to use it with lifetime passes.
And this makes me both sick and angry. Social media is revolting. Turning my private watching into a way to line your corporate pockets is disgusting.
Based on reading some other posts, I think there are some people who like these features - but at least based on posts they are a small minority compared to those of us who are angered/turned off by them.
Can we somehow request to NOT have any more social features or even roll back?
Yes, I get that for now there are ways to turn off certain sharing⊠but as is always the case, the opt outs become increasingly complex as the integration grows. In fact opt-outs are typically explicitly chosen as a method (vs opt ins) because they make networks larger by defaulting people in who wouldnât actively choose to be part and/or canât figure out how to leave.
I get that the CEO took PE money. I would be willing to pay more directly to Plex to have a private fully functional media server that respects my privacy and doesnât try to exploit me and my family.
I can definitely see how the social features could benefit large families or groups of friends who all use PLEX, but I use PLEX solo, I just need one big Social Features : OFF button in my account settings.
Having this as a quick and easy option for all managed members of a household would be great too!
Itâs just me here, but I get that people with families may want to have a quick way to just turn off all that stuff too, especially since it simplifies the interface and saves on load times quite a bit.
I can understand how some people enjoy social features.
AlsoâŠâŠthey can cause all sorts of unneeded and unnecessary drama. Not all families get along. People have multiple friend groups that donât always get along. A random media viewing that alerts people to whom someone is friends with is unnecessary.
I get that we as a society have largely thrown privacy out the window. I personally am not ok with that at all.
To underline that pointâŠ. I donât have any social media accounts. I donât even use gmail. I pay for Proton Visionary (which I would highly recommend). I manage my own in house servers for email, contacts, file sharing and media.
Yes we can turn off features, but the nature of a company trying to implement social aspects to their product is that they constantly push the boundaries. I donât want to have to police my media server to make sure some update doesnât accidentally over share.
I guess what Iâm saying is at the very least can we switch to an opt in model that puts the options clearly front and center and that future developments donât try to circumvent the opt in?
You can follow others if theyâve set their profile to be available to others. They do not need to confirm to allow you to follow them since theyâve already made their profile visible. My profile is set to private and i donât plan to follow others so Iâll probably forget about this in the future.
It could be argued that plex are also being somewhat sneaky here with the roll-out of this new social feature. They have added a new privacy setting (which can be seen via this reddit thread â Reddit - The heart of the internet) to set Allow Friend Request from but have ONLY added it to their new mobile app, meaning anyone who checks their settings via the traditional apps or the webux wonât see this. Mine was automatically set to Anyone signed in to Plex
Iâm sure they will say itâs coming but thats not good enough âŠ
TYSM for this. Although I have the android app installed on my phone, I never actually use it. When I saw this new âfeatureâ introduced I immediately checked my privacy settings on the web app to make sure they hadnât been changed to accommodate this latest social garbage . I didnât think to check the mobile app as well (because why should I assume account settings should differ between clients?!). Although perhaps I should have given this current (apparently uncommon/unnoticed) bug: Plex broke consent settings by purpose - AGAIN? - #3 by JimKarnage in the mobile app.
edit: just scrounged through my maxed out votes to find something to remove so I could vote for this!
edit2: checking that reddit thread, I also discovered this page of settings: https://www.plex.tv/vendors-us/#tcf-vendors that Iâd never seen before, and have no idea how to get to from Plex account settings. Somebody else in that thread has helpfully posted a list of all(?) the privacy settings pages. WTF are these settings so obfuscated? I should be able to go to my account settings in any client and easily find and change all of these things.
What really annoys me about this social stuff, is nobody wants this or actively doesnât want it on the platform. But instead of adding actually wanted features like PseudoTV channels or audiobook support they keep on adding features to to this social media thing no-one likes.
One day, these techbro companies will get whatâs coming to them. In the last 5 years, they have overstepped so much, but the issue is much greater with how much brain rot people have, like crackheads, people simply cannot seem to want to let go or even try and give up their need to harvest dopamine 24-7 on these hideous platforms.
And poor Plex, to receive that sweet VC coc..I mean, money, they need to mine our data, while compromising our privacy, so they can sell it.
But hey I get to âfLeX oN SoCiAl MeDiA oN WhAt I aM LiStEnInG tOO!11!"
I would suggest that instead of forgetting about this, you periodically check your settings. Companies have a habit of âaccidentallyâ re-enabling socials with updates.
This post mentions that the android app error may be a violation of EU privacy laws. Is there a way to report that? I imagine a 10% revenue fine may help get the message through that this is NOT ok. Theyâre screwing up a platform that we otherwise love.
My point is software updates often âbreakâ privacy settings (read: set things back to default opt-in by accidentâŠ.whoopsy) so having these settings, means you have to check your privacy settings on the regular. Given the number and frequency of updates to Plex, this is a huge potential issue
TBF, everyone and their mother should be getting emails from tonâs of mega corps right now whether that be social media sites, tech, or streaming platforms⊠these corps are currently updating their privacy policies AND or their TOS. It actually should be YOUR job as an end-user to check your settings annually. You may disagree but setting it and forget it is NOT ADVISABLE if youâre connected to the internet and use digital services. Itâs a human chore but YOU must bear responsibility too.
