This is a tone deaf delivery of this service and not in line with why i originally loved plex. There is no redeeming value in my eyes. If it’s not removed (opt-in isn’t enough) i feel my 10yr love of plex is over.
3 Likes
Good heavens this was a colossally misguided feature roll-out. Collecting everyone’s watch history and defaulting to broadcasting that to everyone else was about as boneheaded of a mistake as I could possibly imagine. You don’t just turn something like that on without informing a user and making sure they have the opportunity to stop it before it starts. It’s certainly illegal in many jurisdictions. I hope Plex rapidly comes to their senses here and fixes their approach to rolling out such a massive privacy invading feature. This could have very real world consequences for people in many parts of the world. For example if you are in Germany where anything N@zi related is illegal, and perhaps you were researching Triumph of the Will or something.
6 Likes
This feature, defaulted to be enabled and to leak my information is an unforgiveable violation of trust. I’ve deleted my account and I will not be back.
Get wrecked plex.
4 Likes
Good god Plex, what are you doing. This is such a colossal f*** up and is completely unacceptable behavior for any software company. Your Product Managers (or whoever made this bone-headed decision) should be embarrassed.
All of this nonsense feature bloat is ruining what was a great platform. The world doesn’t need another garbage social media platform.
6 Likes
How can you possibly think this would be a googd idea to just implement it and auto ACTIVATE it!? Are you borderline crazy?
Change it to disable by default and NEVER do something like that again!
And best idea would be to fire the persons who were involved in this lunacy, or at least give them propper treatment!
… I mean seriously?!
Edit: Now that i have read all other replies and thought about it, i am also seriously considering to let Plex delete all my data and my account with it.
The damage is already done so there are consequences to make, at least for me.
Probably moving to Jellyfin and take everyone i know with me and/or prevent them from falling into the mistake that is plex.
5 Likes
I agree get rid of this. I should be able to disable on my server and for anyone I give access too. Can Plex please weigh in? I have been testing Jellyfin to switch over. I don’t want to send you any data. It pisses my off that I wasted money on plex pass to have this rammed down my throat. When can we expect a fix for this? Or should I go live with Jellyfin?
3 Likes
Please get rid of this feature, or turn it off by default.
I’ve been a happy subscriber for years, but this feature makes me want to look into alternatives. I don’t care what other users are watching, I care about a service that isn’t bloated with unnecessary features.
4 Likes
Holy CRAP! Did PLEX just email my friends with what my family… what my children are watching, without asking?!?
4 Likes
That’s kind of the point. Yes you are.
1 Like
Does this turn this feature off for ALL users? I DO NOT WANT USERS SEEING EACH OTHER’S USERNAMES, LET ALONE WHAT THEY ARE WATCHING.
I can’t believe anyone thought it was a good idea to force some social media idea on everyone without their consent.
1 Like
Why do you think they would see this? Being ‘friends’ with you doesn’t make them friends with each other so why would they see anything?
What a dishonest dodge. I just went through and “unfriended” all my users and saw that some are “friends” with each other. THEY ARE NOT AWARE OF THAT BECAUSE YOU OPTED THEM ALL IN WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. If I’m getting emails about what my “friends” are watching, SO ARE THEY. Not all of them are tech-savvy enough to wade through pages of submenus to turn off a “feature” that NO ONE ASKED FOR.
1 Like
I didn’t do anything. But, assuming you are correct and Plex are opting people in, why would they only opt some of your friends in? Surely they’d opt all of them into being friends with everyone else? Could it be possible that Plex haven’t done anything and the users have added friends themselves?
They are absolutely are setting this as the default. But that’s not even the point. Why does Plex have access to this? Why are they collecting it? The whole point of self-hosting is to get AWAY from this kind of behavior. Absolutely ridiculous. This feature should be canned.
3 Likes
This is an awful breach of trust with customers and against the ethos on which Plex was started. I’ve been a paid customer for over 12 years and have onboarded other paid customers. Plex, you are sacrificing your morals for email clicks to sells ads in streaming content. The trade-off you just made is dangerous and it looks like it’s resulting in lost users.
It’s one thing if you educated users and allowed them to activate the feature on their own. You did the cowardly move and activated it for us because you knew most users wouldn’t want it.
I’m done using Plex and am removing it from my TVs and devices. And will work with support to delete my account and all my data. Farewell. 
4 Likes
I’m on an older software version and don’t see any references to any of these features yet. Does this mean my viewing history is safe, or does it mean it’s already being shared and I don’t have access to the controls to stop it yet?
I meant I’m not actively engaging in it, I don’t really care what it’s collecting because in the future I might use it when it matures more.
You have to connect to Plex central to use your local content. If you were that concerned you should probably move to a different product that doesn’t require “phoning home.”
This is an awful feature and needs to be disabled for everyone then only enabled if people go out of their way to opt in.
3 Likes
You actually don’t have to at all.
However, by default you do but that isn’t the point of comments others are making.
Justifying this mess that Plex has made (as they did when they introduced Discover) is a task best left to Plex themselves.
1 Like
