I have tapas on adblock, and I have reasons

[zimriel]

So I come here from time to time to read comics. I usually use an ad blocker. Some of the adspace then told me off for using an ad blocker. Okay, fair enough, I don't want to hurt the content creators, since 2016 I don't block youtube...

... until I started getting ads for Planned Parenthood here. uh, NOPE.

So now I am back to using ad blockers. Call me a special snowflake if you wanna. But I'm not supporting P.P., not by any means. Youtube was advertising similar politically-charged stuff in 2012 and I blocked them then, too.

I advise to Tapas to do a better job vetting its advertisers. If individual artists want to advertise this stuff, they can do so on their profiles.

[YangKoete]

You could just ignore the ads.

So long as you're on the page, we get ad views! owo

[heterodont]

I'm almost pretty sure ads are curated off your google searches and google being like, 'yeah we think this person would be interested in this'.

also PP doesn't get your money unless you click on the ad directly, even.

[eleoza]

Some ads can indeed be annoying, especially if they stand for something you are highly against. I had an ad play loud sounds at 3am once, made me jump x.x
But fortunallly ads switch from time to time. If you really don't want to see PP ads which I can understand, I'd suggest keep them off for now but try to turn them on again next week and see if it's safe?

[Polyak_Attila]

As far as I know Tapas has Google ads on it. You could simply opt out of personalized ads and turn adblock off if you want to support Tapas and/or the creators. I personally wouldn't recommend doing so as most of the times personalized ads are actually better than random ones, but it is true that sometimes the personalization fails miserably.

[LordVincent]

Ads are mostly based upon your google searches so if you wanna avoid that stuff, stop looking at that stuff. However sometimes when I look at board games, google ads start advertising sex toys to me just because the party shop I looked at board games in sell adult toys too. I find it pretty funny.

Also, reprouctive health simply being available is "politically charged" to americans? That's odd. At that point, anything can be "politically charged" or "offensive" since you won't find a single company that hasn't supported or involved themselves with something someone disapproved of at some point. There's no way you could micromanage ads like that. And you shouldn't, really. I am met with things I disapprove of every day and I only speak up when I see something that could actually affect me negatively one way or another. PP isn't trying to force you to do anything. They're just making things available to others.

[sushy00]

Planned Parenthood probably has to pay to have the ads up here. In other words, showing them to users that have no interest in Planned Parenthood actually is a loss to them. You viewing them does not mean they make money from it.

[UrMom]

Lol I like how idiots seem to think PP is only about abortions. My mom used to go when she was pregnant with me and couldn't afford to go to the hospital for stuff, while they deal with abortions, PP's major focus is general reproductive health care for people with low incomes or who lack health insurance. They also deal with contraception, which you may or may not be against. (in my experience anti-choicers are usually against measures that prevent pregnancy as well, but who knows, there's a lot of people out there)
I actually went there myself for birth control when I couldn't afford to go to the doctor, and my "times of the month" would cause me to pass out due to how extreme my blood loss was.

Regardless! Like everyone said, your money won't be going to PP, it will be going to the creator who allowed ads for revenue. Ads are normally there to get people to whatever is being advertised, advertisers don't make money off them unless you check out and/or consume whatever they're advertising. If I remember correctly you can also customize whatever ad-block does and doesn't blocks via their whitelist/blacklist.
Personally I don't blame you for using ad block, I'm not sure if it's been taken care of, but last time I had it off an ad redirected my screen and another lagged my computer to oblivion.

[sarahrebecca58]

I gotta say, there is a lot better reasons to block ads than not giving money to good service to low income people.

Like, I don't know, ads being a kind of surveillance network.

[mintycanoodles]

well u could also just stick your head in the sand. that way you don't have to see anything u don't like.

[SpavVy]

Planned Parenthood does not make money off of these ads, we creators on the other hand do. You can easily customize which content ads you see on google or whatever search engine you use.
One time On YouTube I kept getting ads for pregnancy tests, diapers, formulas etc. All because I went to a baby naming site to find names and their meanings for a side villain in my comic.

[Michelle]

Women's healthcare, specifically, is politically charged in the U.S. . It's horrible, because organizations like PP provide a lot of life-saving healthcare for women like cancer screening and counseling for abuse victims that poor people cannot afford. And, like @DaniBoy mentioned, prenatal care for pregnant women. Abortions actually comprise a very small percentage of their total services, somewhere between 3-10%.

But like others said, just having an ad pop up on your screen doesn't mean that advertiser gets money. If that's how it worked, websites would probably be wallpapered with ads.

[LordVincent]

Women's healthcare, specifically, is politically charged in the U.S. . It's horrible, because organizations like PP provide a lot of life-saving healthcare for women like cancer screening and counseling for abuse victims that poor people cannot afford. And, like @DaniBoy mentioned, prenatal care for pregnant women. Abortions actually comprise a very small percentage of their total services, somewhere between 3-10%.

Here in Sweden, I do believe most forms of birth control are part of general healthcare, which is provided cheaply or entirely free (tax paid) to any citizen that might need it.
There are people that disapprove of abortions here too, just like anywhere else. But most recognize that it's a choice they make for their own lives and that they are not entitled to deciding for anyone else.

Most of us just stare at US culture and scratch our heads, haha.

[UrMom]

@LordVincent Yeah, the US is pretty much run by corporations. I can only assume part of the reason why we don't have socialized healthcare yet is because the insurance and pharmaceutical companies making bank off us would become obsolete... another part is the group of people who don't want to pay extra taxes for strangers who need life-saving treatments/medicine.

Really there's a whole can of worms about why the US works the way it does.

[tayo_rafferty]

But I'm not supporting P.P., not by any means

When you view an ad you're supporting the creator not the advertiser.

[GoldenPlume]

When you view an ad you're supporting the creator not the advertiser.

Since most advertisers are bidding CPC (cost-per-click) they only pay when the ad is clicked vs. when the ad is shown. If they are buying impressions then they pay whenever the ad is shown.

If you want to cause financial damage to a company the best way do so is to actually click the ad, so Google will bill them for it, then close the page after 10 seconds. That way it will register a bounce. The higher the bounce rate is the less important/relevant a website is.

That's about the most damage you can do.

If that's too much effort then you can also click the little X on the upper right of the ad. When you do so the ad will disappear and it will say, "Ad Closed By Google". Then it offers the option, "Stop Seeing This Ad". If you click that, presto you won't ever see it again.

[tayo_rafferty]

@GoldenPlume Interesting but I don't understand why you're telling me.

[shaylafarley5]

I use ad block as well, mainly on YouTube and anime sites. I just hate pop ups!
Especially when I'm trying to read something then BAM! Congrats you just won!
Now I gotta waste my time trying to close the window before something else pops up.

[Mari]

When I was in high school an anti-choicer was being a public menace outside of a mall and stopped my friend and me on our tracks to say "did you know there's over 10 000 abortions performed every year in finland" and my friend screamed at the top of her lungs "Good" and marched past him.

Seeing people just offended that they saw the existence of women's health organizations sure feels odd.

[VibrantFox]

I can't quite understand the hate for PP but the only time I ever used adblock on Tapas was during a period of time where having ads slowed down my browser speed and forced me to close the entire thing and reload it. Only after feeling guilty and looking to see if the issue still occurred did I take adblock off, especially since it feels relatively hypocritical of me to use it as a creator trying to earn ad revenue myself.

I agree with GoldenPlume's advise about closing the ad and following the options provided by google. I've done the same when it came to Facebook ads I didn't want to see. Being that now, as opposed to early on where you couldn't really control your content, you can choose what you do and don't want to see. So there's little reason in my own opinion to complain.

Plus if I'm not mistaken if you look through your personal google settings, if staying logged into an email or YouTube account is something you do, you are able to choose whether or not you get suggested ads based on what you've looked at across the web. I'm not the biggest fan of custom ads but I try to be aware of the options I have to control what's there when possible.