ADBLK-18: Blocking platform.twitter.com breaks embedded tweets



Issue Information

Issue Type: Bug
 
Priority: Major
Status: Closed

Reported By:
Ben Tasker
Assigned To:
Ben Tasker
Project: Adblock Lists (ADBLK)
Resolution: Fixed (2020-03-17 17:46:37)

Created: 2020-03-17 13:48:02
Time Spent Working


Description
Raised by a user on Github - https://github.com/bentasker/adblocklists/issues/1

platform.twitter.com

This domain breaks some tweets embedded in articles in Google News app on Android




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That's actually sort of by design - https://github.com/bentasker/adblocklists/commit/80d32ab43713b2a3e5d78fd1425ae1ca8d65e5e2 - having it unblocked allows Twitter's tracking.

The primary aim at the time (back in 2018) was blocking the "Tweet" buttons (just as Facebook's Like button etc are blocked), but it does now appear to have the spill-over effect of breaking some tweet embeds.

Obviously it'd be easier if people [used screenshots instead of embedding](https://www.bentasker.co.uk/blog/opinion/481-screenshot-don-t-embed) but we can't control that.

I guess, really Social Media tracker domains (like platform.twitter.com) should be split out into a separate list - much like other upstreams do.

I'll have a fiddle about with it shortly

Repo: adblocklists
Commit: 45782b8790571d4c1b336ab4212ae05dc2a725d5
Author: B Tasker <github@<Domain Hidden>>

Date: Tue Mar 17 14:14:43 2020 +0000
Commit Message: ADBLK-18 Adjust deployment script to seperate social media trackers out (they'll need moving to a different config file)

Does 3 new things

* Creates `social_media_trackers.txt` - an ABP compatible list containing just SM tracker domains
* Creates `adblock_compiled_no_sm.txt` - an ABP compatible copy of `adblock_compiled.txt` SM tracker domains excluded
* Creates `easylist_modified_no_sm.txt` - An ABP compatible copy of `easylist_modified.txt` with the SM tracker domains excluded



Modified (-)(+)
-------
bin/build_abp.sh
index.html




Webhook User-Agent

GitHub-Hookshot/a27b443


View Commit


Repo: adblocklists
Commit: 5944e5fcc4a92763639b30f0b0f6a312d9f36771
Author: B Tasker <github@<Domain Hidden>>

Date: Tue Mar 17 14:18:23 2020 +0000
Commit Message: ADBLK-18 Move social media trackers into new config file - `social_media_trackers.txt`



Added (+)
-------
config/social_media_trackers.txt


Modified (-)(+)
-------
config/manualblock.txt
config/manualpages.txt




Webhook User-Agent

GitHub-Hookshot/a27b443


View Commit

OK, there are now 3 new lists added here - https://www.bentasker.co.uk/adblock/index.html

- https://www.bentasker.co.uk/adblock/adblock_compiled_no_sm.txt
- https://www.bentasker.co.uk/adblock/easylist_modified_no_sm.txt
- https://www.bentasker.co.uk/adblock/social_media_trackers.txt

The first two are copies of the original lists, but with the social media paths moved out.

The easylist_modified_no_sm.txt does still contain some (heavily limited) platform.twitter.com lines from upstream - I've not interfered with those as they're limited to specific 1st party domains.
This change does mean though that platform.twitter.com will drop out of the DNS blocklist.

The other domains (can see them here - https://github.com/bentasker/adblocklists/commit/5944e5fcc4a92763639b30f0b0f6a312d9f36771 ) wouldn't have been included anyway as they were specified as paths rather than a bare domain.

I think, given the difficulty for the average user of unblocking a single domain blocked at the DNS level, it's better to keep SM trackers at the adblocker level so that users can exercise some choice.

Repo: adblocklists
Commit: d85c7ca08d2742ccdb20727a1dc473d5f2ad02a2
Author: B Tasker <github@<Domain Hidden>>

Date: Tue Mar 17 17:03:44 2020 +0000
Commit Message: ADBLK-18 Create a pihole compatible list with the social media domains re-inserted



Modified (-)(+)
-------
bin/update_addomains.sh
index.html




Webhook User-Agent

GitHub-Hookshot/a27b443


View Commit

Actually, on second thought, it probably doesn't make sense not to also include a pihole list with SM, so there's now one here
- https://www.bentasker.co.uk/adblock/blocked_domains_with_sm.txt
btasker changed status from 'Open' to 'Resolved'
btasker added 'Fixed' to resolution
btasker changed status from 'Resolved' to 'Closed'