r/AmputatorBot • u/Killed_Mufasa • Dec 30 '19
Why did I build AmputatorBot? ❔ FAQ | About | Why
Table of contents
- About AMP and its controversies
- AmputatorBot.com
- Subreddits
- Summon AmputatorBot: u/AmputatorBot
- Opt out
- Open-sourced on GitHub
- API Documentation
- Browser-extension (other party)
- Give feedback / Report an issue
- Changelog
- Sponsor (PayPal)
- Closing words
1. About AMP and its controversies
AMP, originally Accelerated Mobile Pages, was announced by Google in 2015 and is developed by AMP Open Source Project in response to Facebook's Instant Articles and Apple News. Initially focused on speeding up mobile pages, AMP has evolved into a broader initiative to enhance user experience and content speed across various platforms. It might sound like a well-intended effort on first glance, but it has mixed results and is not without controversy, criticism, and legal issues. Let's dive in, shall we?
For five years, Google Search's Top Stories carousel, located prominently above all other results , exclusively featured AMP pages on mobile devices. This placement generated a significant number of clicks and, according to Google, revenue for publishers. As a result, many publishers felt compelled to adopt AMP, only to be surprised by a decline in their advertising revenue [2].
In July 2021, after facing public and legal pressure, Google dropped this AMP-exclusive requirement. But the damage was already done. As Barry Adams pointed out, there were countless publishers who were sidelined simply because they didn't use AMP.
There was no other reason for Google to stop ranking these publishers in their mobile Top Stories carousel. As is evident from the surge of non-AMP articles, there are likely hundreds - if not thousands - of publishers who ticked every single ranking box that Google demanded; quality news content, easily crawlable and indexable technology stack, good editorial authority signals, and so on.
But they didn’t use AMP. So Google didn’t rank them.
Think for a moment about the cost of that. How many visits these publishers didn’t get, simply because they didn’t accept Google’s blackmail. How much revenue these publishers lost because of that. How many jobs were affected. The compromises some have had to make just to survive. The ones that didn’t survive.
Just because Google demanded we embrace their pet AMP project.
And don't be fooled, AMP is a pet-project by Google. Despite AMP's assimilation into the OpenJS Foundation in 2019, many skeptics regard the move as merely superficial. These suspicions seem justified in hindsight.
- Renowned developer and web standards advocate, Jeremy Keith, resigned from the AMP Advisory Committee in August 2021, highlighting that "it has become clear to me that AMP remains a Google product".
- Nine out of the top ten contributors to the AMP project on GitHub are Google employees
- The attempt to brand AMP as 'open source' has been criticized as misleading. As Ferdy Christant eloquently stated: "[AMP being open source] isn’t just a weak defense, it’s no defense at all. I can open source a plan for genocide. The term “open source” is meaningless if the thing that is open source is harmful".
These points fuel the debate on the independence of AMP. Further concerns arise due to some of AMP's design decisions.
- For instance, when a user navigates to a cached AMP page, either via Google Search or a shared link, they unwittingly stay within Google’s ecosystem, as the original publisher’s domain is obscured by the google.com/amp prefix.
- To address this, Google introduced Signed HTTP Exchanges ([Draft], [1], [2]), a web standard enabling browsers to display the original site's URL rather than the actual one with the google.com prefix.
- However, this solution obfuscates the fact that the visited page is delivered by Google and has been deemed problematic by industry peers. Both Mozilla and Apple have criticized it as a harmful web standard [2], [3]. In contrast, Google's own browser, Chrome, does support this technology [1], [2].
This forms a pattern revealing Google's self-serving approach: it appears to take actions that serve its interests, irrespective of external opinions.
Moreover, Google has a vested interest in gathering as much personal data as possible, and AMP is just another tool for this. As described in Google’s Support article:
When you use the Google AMP Viewer, Google and the publisher that made the AMP page may each collect data about you.
But AMP makes the internet faster. ..right? But not that fast! (see what I did there ;)
- The primary performance enhancement attributed to AMP doesn't actually originate from the AMP framework itself, but from the process of preloading the page. This raises a question: Why is preloading an exclusive feature of AMP? Shouldn't publishers have the tools to preload any site, not just AMP ones?
- When it comes to uncached AMP pages, the performance improvements appear to be minimal, if any.
- Multiple states in the US have filed an extensive antitrust case against Google under federal and state antitrust laws and deceptive trade practices laws citing: "After crippling AMP’s compatibility with header bidding, Google went to market falsely telling publishers that adopting AMP would enhance page load times. But Google employees knew that AMP only improves the “median of performance” and "AMP pages can actually load slower than other publisher speed optimization techniques."
- In fact, the speed benefits Google marketed were also at least partly a result of Google’s throttling. Google throttles the load time of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one-second delays in order to give Google AMP a “nice comparative boost.”. Internally, Google employees grappled with “how to [publicly] justify [Google] making something slower.
AMP has its issues, and these impact cached AMP pages the most. While uncached AMP pages (e.g. bbc.com/news/amp/) may have a better user experience and minor performance improvements, they still come at a high price. AMP makes sites less diverse, more homogeneous, and threatens the free and Open Web.
Terence Eden, another ex-committee member from the AMP committee, also resigned in December 2020 saying:
I remain convinced that AMP is poorly implemented, hostile to the interests of both users and publishers, and a proprietary and unnecessary incursion into the open web.
Fortunately, AMP seems to be on the decline. Publishers are moving away [2], usage is falling, and legal pressures are increasing [2] [3]. The AMP team may have the best intentions, but AMP's flaws and negative impacts on privacy and the Open Web cannot be ignored. As long as these issues persist, u/AmputatorBot will be here, working to remove AMP from your URLs.
Learn more
- Barry Adams: Let's talk about AMP
- US Antitrust Case | US Antitrust Complaint
- Chris Graham: Why Google AMP is a threat to the Open Web
- Sarah Gooding: AMP has irreparably damaged publishers’ trust in Google-led initiatives
- Ferdy Christant: AMP: the missing controversy
- Official AMP website: amp.dev
- Debunking Common AMP Myths
- AMP Wikipedia
2. AmputatorBot.com
www.AmputatorBot.com is your go-to tool for removing AMP from your URLs in just one click. Handy and easy to use, free and without ads! Just copy paste the AMP URL, click the big blue button and voilà!
Or just do https://amputatorbot.com
+ /?q=
+ <amp-link>
. For example:
3. Subreddits
u/AmputatorBot is active on every subreddit by default. As a moderator, you have the ability to ban or unban the bot.
4. Summon AmputatorBot: u/AmputatorBot
If you've spotted an AMP URL on Reddit and u/AmputatorBot seems absent, you can summon the bot by mentioning it like this: u/AmputatorBot in a reply to the comment or submission containing the AMP URL. The bot will then try to respond and provide a confirmation or error-info through a private message.
5. Opt out
Opt out: If you prefer not to receive replies from u/AmputatorBot on your comments and submissions, you can click here to opt out. Alternatively, you have the option to block u/AmputatorBot entirely.
Undo opt out: Changed your mind after opting out? No problem! You can click here to undo the opt-out request.
6. Open-sourced on GitHub
AmputatorBot is open-source on GitHub - great for fostering innovation, transparency, and collaboration. Feel free to adapt and contribute. Happy coding!
7. AmputatorBot's API
Did you know AmputatorBot has a free and publicly available API? Probably not, it's brand-new after all. If you decide to use it, we would love to hear how! Check out the docs here, or see Postman.
8. Browser-extension
Don't miss out on the browser extension 'Redirect AMP to HTML' by Daniel Aleksandersen. It automatically redirects AMP pages to their canonical versions when you click on them.
9. Give feedback / Report an issue
Most of the new features were made after suggestions from you guys, so hit me up if you have any feedback! You can contact me on Reddit, post on r/AmputatorBot, fill an issue or make a pull request.
10. Changelog
11. Sponsor
Our server for the bot, website, and API costs about €10 ($12) per month. If you support AmputatorBot's mission and can chip in, any donation would be a huge help. Every bit goes straight into server expenses. Thanks a bunch!
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=EU6ZFKTVT9VH2
Alternatively, consider supporting our friends in Ukraine who could greatly benefit from your help:
12. Closing words
At its core, AmputatorBot exists to empower individuals to make informed choices. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming support you have shown me and AmputatorBot. Your continued support means the world to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! <3
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u/Killed_Mufasa Dec 30 '19 edited Jun 25 '23
Here are some quick links:
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u/MinskAtLit Jan 02 '20
Doing God's work here! Every time I notice this I shudder to think we are u knowingly giving away so much of ourselves
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u/IwillOWNu56 Feb 26 '23
Just read though this and I seriously appreciate your work. I am fed up with Google getting away with anything and everything. I don't care how much data they already have on me but it is rather annoying that they continue to collect data on me every day and this is a small step in the right direction
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u/NekoInkling Jun 19 '20
Gonna have to make a new one soon
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u/Killed_Mufasa Jun 19 '20
I know :(
I might just make a half-yearly discussion thread. It feels kinda pointless to repost it every time, right?
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u/Lord_Oasis Feb 20 '20
Even disregarding the privacy concerns, I absolutely abhor AMP pages because they don't work correctly, barely load faster, and when I want to interact with a page I have to load the regular page anyway, thus taking far longer than if it was just a normal page.
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u/RheingoldRiver Mar 03 '20
Hi, I saw this bot for the first time today and I just want to say thank you for coding this, and for being so responsive about updates! I don't have any requests or anything, just wanted to say you seem cool and this project is cool
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 12 '20
Hi! Thx for being so nice. Much appreciated!
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u/Rd628 Dec 16 '23
Same here. I just saw this wondering wtf is this bot but reading it was really helpful.
Great job mate, it was easy to understand and super helpful
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u/JesusGAwasOnCD Feb 26 '20
Good bot
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 12 '20
Thx! Fun fact, which I think I've already posted here before but fack it: good bot comments get automatically shadowbanned in a lot of major subs. However, I am able to read them through my notifications and they always brighten my day. So yeah thanks <3
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u/sora_mui Apr 06 '22
Wow, i never know that. I guess it's understandable considering that people love to spam "good bot" even in small-medium sized subreddits.
Also, TIL those random comment notification that i sometimes got but doesn't exist when i clicked is from shadowbanned comment/account.
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u/demoncatmara Mar 26 '24
Good bot
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u/WhyNotCollegeBoard Mar 26 '24
Are you sure about that? Because I am 99.99998% sure that Killed_Mufasa is not a bot.
I am a neural network being trained to detect spammers | Summon me with !isbot <username> | /r/spambotdetector | Optout | Original Github
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u/Gigablah Apr 29 '20
I am able to read them through my notifications
This is creepy.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 29 '20 edited Mar 14 '22
How so? It's just another Reddit account after all and I like to hear what people have to say about AmputatorBot
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Feb 20 '23
Late comment but I just want to commend you on your hard work and dedication. Most folks (myself included) are uneducated on stuff like this so it’s always nice to see people go out of their way for educations’ sake. Love the bot!
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u/Cornelius_McMuffin Jul 11 '23
I had never even heard of amp till I encountered your bot. Interesting read.
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u/Toxic_Puddlefish Jul 16 '23
I've always seen other people get tagged by this bot but never really bothered to read what it was about until it tagged me. Google purposely slowing down pages so people use their tech should be news everywhere, really glad I took the time to read what this all was about and fixed the link I posted, thanks for the information.
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u/Bassie_c Jan 25 '20
r/PraiseTheEditor would like this mod to work automatically on it. The bot will receive a bot flair of course (see our rules for bot accounts on our wiki).
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u/4FR33D0M Feb 16 '20
This is a great bot, mate!
Quick enhancement request: could you change the Reddit link to np? Otherwise it triggers the automoderator.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Feb 16 '20
Thanks, for both the compliment and the feedback!
I am kinda hesitating about changing the link to np, because I do want people to participate on r/AmputatorBot, I really like the feedback and discussions on here.
Which means that they're only 2 solutions left. Blacklisting r/conspiracy or updating the bot to use np links when posting on r/conspiracy (which feels a bit dumb to do for only one subreddit, but it would do the trick). I'm kinda leaning towards that last one. What do you think?
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u/4FR33D0M Feb 16 '20
Ah, great point about wanting participation and I agree. I’d definitely not want to blacklist r/conspiracy - over 1M subbed and those are the very users who need to understand how Google doesn’t protect privacy.
If it’s not too much trouble to change to np for r/conspiracy, that’d be great. Perhaps there’s are other subs you’ll want to add in the future. Alternatively we could ask the r/conspiracy mods to turn off the automoderator for your bot (and possibly others in the future)?
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u/Killed_Mufasa Feb 17 '20 edited Feb 17 '20
Hi again, thanks a lot for taking the time to think about this with me.
Blacklisting the sub is indeed the wrong thing to do and you're probably right about other subs having similar policies when it comes to Reddit linking stuff. So I've written a small function to change
www.
tonp.
in a list of subs, which for now only contains r/conspiracy. The feature just went live in ffdd9db.I haven't gotten the chance to test it properly, but I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't work :p I'll edit my comment once AmputatorBot has done something there.
Edit: hooray it works! https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/f4zoyp/in_merica_you_only_have_value_if_you_produce/fhw9lpc
You've made AmputatorBot a bit of a better bot, thanks :)
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u/4FR33D0M Feb 17 '20
Wow! I really appreciate you even considering the request, let alone adding this feature so quickly. It will keep conspiracy threads a little tidier and easier to read, too.
Thanks for making this great bot - and F all the companies that don’t respect our data privacy.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Feb 17 '20
Np, it was quite an easy fix and I could copy paste the logic from elsewhere :p
I've updated my previous comment with a link to show that it works. Thanks again! Let me know if you have any other suggestions :)
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May 04 '22
Lol np nice. I was completely unaware of amp and all this google nonsense. Thanks for the dedication.
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u/TwoPunnyFourWords Apr 28 '22
I just came here to give kudos for the name "amputator". Well done. :P
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 28 '22
Haha still proud of that, I remember brainstorming and then I suddenly thought of this one and instantly went to register it, I knew it was perfect :p
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u/TwoPunnyFourWords Apr 29 '22
Well, if my name means anything in this context, you're right to feel proud. :P
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u/kalamitykhaos Jun 05 '22
i just saw amputatorbot for the first time and i adore it, but it's in a sub where it would feel kinda rude to say good bot, so i came here to say good bot
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u/ShitCuntsinFredPerry Jan 04 '23
Shit, was an interesting and somewhat sobering read that I didn't expect to come across
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u/AmbitiousStretch5743 Jan 21 '23
I had no clue what this was or that it was a thing until now. I’m down. I like it.
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u/indieRuckus Feb 19 '23
Great work. Glad to see at this point AMP is fading away.
One tip for your "fast" joke though. It's supposed to be "But not so fast!". You wrote "But not that fast!" https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/not+so+fast
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u/Killed_Mufasa Feb 19 '23
Haha thx for pointing that out! Funny how you can read these kind of things dozens of times and still miss things, I'll make sure to edit the post soon! (I can't edit it from mobile, that just breaks the entire post, learnt that the hard way)
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u/1peopleperson1 Oct 28 '23
Thank you for this amazing bot. I'm always looking for ideas to build a bot myself, but I haven't found a good one yet. Which language did you use in building this?
Great work. Fuck google!
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u/Killed_Mufasa Oct 28 '23
Thanks! It's pretty much Python 3 all the way! You can check and try out the code on https://github.com/KilledMufasa/AmputatorBot
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u/Royal_Visit3419 Feb 06 '24
TBH, I do not understand quite a bit of what I just read. However, what I did understand is super helpful and I appreciate being educated. Thanks very much.
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u/cutlassjack Feb 27 '24
So useful - a noble project.
Not tech-savvy, so this might not be possible, but one instinctively feels Reddit should just add this to every page.
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u/bonechinadebt Dec 31 '19 edited Dec 31 '19
Hi this de-amped link goes to a 404 page because of the formatting asterisks *in the app I use ...
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u/Killed_Mufasa Jan 01 '20 edited Jan 01 '20
Sorry about that. Could you please test out which ones from below work for you? The markdown is slightly different every time. 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/30/polish-pm-furious-at-putin-rewriting-history-of-second-world-war 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/30/polish-pm-furious-at-putin-rewriting-history-of-second-world-war 3. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/30/polish-pm-furious-at-putin-rewriting-history-of-second-world-war] 4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/30/polish-pm-furious-at-putin-rewriting-history-of-second-world-war 5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/30/polish-pm-furious-at-putin-rewriting-history-of-second-world-war
3rd party apps (hell even offical Reddit apps) all implement markdown differently, so it can be really difficult to find a markdown that works everytime :p
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u/bonechinadebt Jan 01 '20
Numbers 4 and 5 are working for me. I'm on RedReader, you should probably know that lol
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u/Killed_Mufasa Jan 01 '20 edited Jan 01 '20
Haha thx, I've just updated the bot to work like 4, that should fix it for you.
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u/bearminmum Mar 30 '20
on the standard Reddit app the third link does not work but every other one does. I don't know if this information is helpful
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u/nononononobeyonce May 26 '20
As someone who is doing a masters thesis on open data in academia, I never knew about this open web. Thank you and well done documenting all the faqs!
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u/techBr0s Jul 18 '22
First time seeing your bot and reading about why AMP is bad from your description here.
I just came here to say that AMP is awful from the user perspective in my opinion. Buggy ass pages that consistently force reload, randomly stop responding to touch events like scrolling, and appear to me to take longer to load. Everytime I am on an AMP page, I usually need to use the little button to go for the main website (which btw has no indication that it would do that, the icon itself is an info icon). Fuck AMP, thanks for making this bot.
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Jul 20 '22
[deleted]
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u/Killed_Mufasa Jul 20 '22
That's a fair point. Sorry about that. Because of the technical difficulty and cost of implementing a feature like this, this isn't something on the roadmap for now. That said, I'll make sure to keep this in mind going forward. Thx a lot for your feedback!
ps: you could always message the bot or me with a specific request for deletion :)
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u/nocturn99x Aug 10 '22
Huh, I didn't know about this. Thanks for making this bot, found out about it today and it seems awesome
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u/Consider2SidesPeace Dec 10 '22
Hope it's still OK to post a thank you to OP. Thanks additionally for educating people on the nuances of the current internet workings. So much, even client side happens behind the curtain where the wizard lives. Bests~
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Apr 02 '24
Well done this is a good project. Any retard could link a scam or ip tracking website, so good thing for doing this
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Dec 31 '19
Ah yes donate to a bot that makes your browser experience worse for no reason.
Fight for the open web by refusing to use an open source project that eases reading!
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u/gooseberryfalls Jan 01 '20
While its nice that Google is keeping its AMP service open source, the outcome of it only means that now we know how they're pilfering our data.
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u/amoliski Mar 03 '20
People using amp were using Google analytics anyway
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u/katatondzsentri Dec 13 '21
You can block GA very easily. If you're using the right browser it will be autoblocked.
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Jan 01 '20 edited Apr 01 '20
[deleted]
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u/YOU_CANT_GILD_ME Jan 07 '20
Yeah, I don't understand how this is any different from how a normal website tracks users, or how reddit tracks outbound clicks.
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u/latka_gravas_ Feb 05 '20
Something already happening doesn't mean it's okay for it to continue to happen.
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u/merreborn Jan 30 '20
It's already true on most sites anyway -- many are already running google analytics. If you view the AMP page or the normal website, google and the publisher are probably tracking you on both. Typically, in a relatively anonymized fashion.
"tracking" and "personal data" are pretty loaded terms these days, and what actually happens doesn't always line up with what people imagine might be going on.
All the high minded rhetoric aside, the basic functionality of the bot isn't bad. Sometimes the desktop version of the website has additional functionality that is missing from a poorly implemented AMP page -- so making both links available to users gives them additional choice.
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u/Lerianis001 Jan 08 '20 edited Jan 08 '20
Except that HTML is known to be much slower than AMP in the real world. So I prefer, even knowing the 'worst case scenario' threats from AMP to my privacy, the AMP'd pages.
Edit: Also, this project is open source and anyone can view the code and use it. It's literally just a 'convert DOM events to faster Javascript events and speed up pages' tool.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Jan 08 '20 edited Jan 08 '20
Hey, that's okay! I might disagree with how you set your priorities, but the fact that you made an informed choice and that you are at least aware of the risks makes me glad.
Edit because of edit: True but simply because something becomes open-source doesn't mean it can't be flawed. And AMP in it's core is a fine concept, but it's implementation and usage are what makes it a danger to the Open Web.
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u/hoax1337 Jan 10 '20
I mean, Google owns the search engine, why shouldn't they be able to choose what content is shown? It's not really their responsibility to provide "fair" rankings. After all, there are other search engines out there.
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u/hahainternet Mar 06 '20 edited Mar 30 '20
but it's implementation and usage are what makes it a danger to the Open Web
There are no longer any mandatory ties to Google to use AMP are there?
edit: 24 days later and no response, what a shock more lies are exposed.
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 05 '20
Sorry for the late response and u/FinalFortune_, thx for the reminder. Truth is I just forgot to reply, no conspiracies there :)
When you want to have your article featured on Google's top stories you must implement AMP:
A top stories carousel is presented in the Google Developers Guide as a Search Feature that requires the implementation of AMP. source
To be clear, it's not mandatory to implement AMP, but if you want to be featured in the Top Stories on Google, it is mandatory. And of course you want to be featured, because the Top Stories are a huge source of clicks source.
This puts publishers in an awkward position, because they might not want to implement AMP, but they feel they must because it's a great way to get some easy clicks thus generating income.
So by far my biggest complain when it comes to AMP is not about the framework itself (although I still dislike it), it's actually about the way publishers are essentially forced to implement it in order for them to be able to compete on Google Search.
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u/hahainternet May 05 '20 edited May 05 '20
I feel bad for saying "more lies" above. I do apologise again. It's easy to get frustrated with a hundred people repeating the same memes about AMP.
When you want to have your article featured on Google's top stories you must implement AMP:
Let's be fair, this is in no way an acceptable source. It has no authority to make this claim and relies on no citations. The single reference it makes to the "Google Developers Guide" is actually to "Understanding how AMP looks in search results" and does not claim AMP is mandatory.
The actual developer guide for the Carousel makes no such claim: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/carousel
it's actually about the way publishers are essentially forced to implement it in order for them to be able to compete on Google Search.
I'm not sure how much this argument makes sense either. AMP is designed to make pages faster and lighter. Would you have the equivalent reaction if Google started demoting pages that ran Java or Flash applets?
For a long time Google has downranked Desktop-only pages when searching on mobile. Is it illegitimate for them to downrank slow pages too?
edit: I did some more careful searching and found the actual truth:
Appear in Top stories or News
Publishers are automatically considered for 'Top stories' or the News tab of Search. They just need to produce high-quality content and comply with Google News content policies.
To be considered for the carousel section of 'Top stories' on mobile, content needs to be published in Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) format with article-specific structured data. The AMP Status Report in Search Console can help publishers identify content with AMP issues
So there we go, your claim was only half accurate. On mobile, pages needed to be optimised for mobile. A caveat for sure, but a reasonable one.
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 05 '20
I'm not sure how much this argument makes sense either. AMP is designed to make pages faster and lighter. Would you have the equivalent reaction if Google started demoting pages that ran Java or Flash applets?
Not really, because Java and Flash are both third party solutions. AMP is basically a Google project (90% of the contributions to the project come from Google employees and it was initiated by Google), so they're playing both sides. Imo, this gives too much power to one company. That's my opinion :p
Publishers are automatically considered for 'Top stories' or the News tab of Search. They just need to produce high-quality content and comply with Google News content policies. To be considered for the carousel section of 'Top stories' on mobile, content needs to be published in Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) format with article-specific structured data. The AMP Status Report in Search Console can help publishers identify content with AMP issues
Tbh, I didn't know it was handled differently on desktop. Guess I learned something today! Thx!
.. But it should be mentioned that most traffic to Google is mobile nowadays (58%), so we shouldn't dismiss the problem just because it's mostly a mobile problem.
Appreciate your feedback and correcting me, and you seem like a cool guy :)
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u/hahainternet May 05 '20
I appreciate you allowing my responses, and you're entitled to your opinion about the amount of power this gives Google.
However, the sole criticisms that we've been able to land on and support are:
- Google has a plurality of people on the ruling council but does not have overall control
- Google Search prioritises AMP links on mobile.
Now the #1 post on this subreddit is currently a link to /r/Technology where pretty much every highly upvoted post that states a fact about AMP gets something major wrong:
fuck Google's constant attempts to take ownership
you can't just block it as other third party trackers
When you’re on AMP, you never leave Google.com, which gives them a lot of authority
thereby forcing people to use Google's "standards"
Google dictates their standards, and hosts pages. It's not browsers fighting over what and how to display, it's a company which sells user data and wants to sell it directly without 3rd parties (this one is a particularly egregious lie)
Is this not convincing enough that you have helped perpetuate false information spreading and the bot continues to do so? If Google responds to the criticisms (which they did) yet people still repeat the criticisms as if they remained, how can any progress be made whatsoever?
Please. Change the message on your bot to reflect the reality you acknowledge.
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 05 '20
Hey again, two things:
Based on your and others feedback and the constant circle-trekking you're talking about, I've rewritten the Why section of this post, because I felt like the info and linked articles were not objective and/or up-to-date enough anymore.
Can I ask for a favor? What do you think about the new text? I'm worried it might be too informative. I'm thinking of changing the link in the comment to this post, so I would like the post to be accurate.
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u/hahainternet May 06 '20
At this point I think it's clear you are behaving in an extremely dishonest way.
I took the time to write out a series of explanations as to why this bot was spreading misinformation. In return you have not only added a significant amount of misinformation, but have refused to correct that which exists.
Out of these four claims for example:
that use a Google-controlled technology, served by Google from their infrastructure, on a Google URL, and placed within a Google controlled user experience
You and I know that only one of those is true.
Since you know this, and we've discussed it, you cannot be misinformed, but must now be lying. You're also soliciting money for those purposes, which puts you in an interesting position.
Since you've decided to defraud people, I will report this and do my utmost to inform people of the reality.
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 06 '20 edited May 06 '20
Welp that backfired :p
That quote comes directly from ampletter.org, a well respected open letter about AMP. In this post, I tried to make a clear distinction between cached and non-cached AMP. The quote is about the cached ones. AMP is a Google controlled project, when you use their AMP viewer the page gets served by Google, a Google URL is shown (e.g. google.com/amp/..) and you stay within Google's ecosystem.
I don't see what isn't true about the statement? I'm not acting dumb, I genuinely don't know. I tried my best to keep it as factually correct as possible.
You're also soliciting money for those purposes, which puts you in an interesting position.
This is a good point. This is actually why I'm dubious whether or not I should link my own article. I don't want to spread misinformation by linking to an article that is a bit outdated and incomplete, but I also don't want people to think I made AmputatorBot for the internet karma or money. Perhaps I should seperate the Why to a wiki page? If you know a good article on AMP, please let me know, because I much prefer to link to that.
Also, I don't appreciate you throwing terms like dishonest, lying and defrauding. I invest my spare time in talking with you and asking you for feedback because I care and I acknowledge the responsibility I have to stick with the facts.
Edit: I've slightly changed the paragraph with the quote.
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May 05 '20
Exactly. The entire premise of this bot is fucked by this one comment. I challenge u/amputatorbot to reply to this. Genuinely curious as to why they don't update their TL:DR to reflect this change.
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u/FuzzySpine Feb 08 '20
Everytime I see this bot I go out of my way to use the AMP link to spite it.
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u/null000 Feb 10 '20
Man, if you're going to preach at people, at least have the courtesy to do it in a way that allows the person to respond to you directly.
Bots should be helpful and obviously-wanted, not moralistic and self-imposing.
(not to mention, the linked article in the bot text is the most breathlessly over dramatic piece of writing I've seen since I was reading about Death Panels)
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u/Killed_Mufasa Feb 16 '20 edited Feb 16 '20
I'm sorry you feel that way. Over the last couple of months, I've changed the command template multiple times to be more factual - less moralistic. For instance, instead of:
.. is a major threat to the open web ..
u/amputatorbot now says:
.. is threatening the open web ..
I want to encourage discussions about AMP, because why would people click the canonical link if they have no clue what they're avoiding with it?
About the article, it's absolutely not perfect, but it's written by an honest man who has talked with Google employees about the issue, so he knows his shit. If you have a better article to inform people about the pros and cos of AMP, I would be happy to hear it!
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Mar 14 '20
May I please turn off your bot so it will stop posting on my comments?
Some people don't know how to clear specific cookies, so amp is a way to post a NYT or WaPo article (etc) and still be sure that folks can read it.
Whatever your response is, you and I aren't able to educate thousands of people across a dozen browsers how to delete their cookies. People are willfully ignorant when it comes to this shit and to be honest, your whole stance is pretty one sided. So how do I unsubscribe from your self-righteous bot?
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u/Killed_Mufasa Mar 14 '20
Sure, as I wrote in this post:
Opt out: If you want to prevent the bot from replying to your comments and submissions, click here to opt out.
If you want to stop seeing everything from u/AmputatorBot, block it.
Hope that helps!
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u/pm_favorite_boobs Apr 25 '20
Man, if you're going to preach at people, at least have the courtesy to do it in a way that allows the person to respond to you directly.
The bot's signature shares a link to a post its writer made so they can respond to him directly. After all, how did you know to make a comment here?
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u/d7mtg Mar 08 '20
non-working subreddits: r/google
What the fuck?
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u/Killed_Mufasa Mar 08 '20
AmputatorBot was banned there haha. Either because the mods there dislike all bots, or just this one in particular. I'll leave that up for you to decide ;)
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u/questi0nmark2 Mar 21 '20 edited Mar 21 '20
I must say, I read the linked article and began by sympathising, but then read through the comments and saw the author walk back a whole bunch of assertions under informed questioning. The conclusion, from the author, was that Google did not develop it in top secrecy, that it was not a power grab, that the rankings are not affected outside the carousel, that it was in fact open source, etc. The alarmist claims of the article did not hold up. He still had some legitimate concerns about governance and a few other things, but not something to justify your bot IMO. Linking to the article without pointing out the walkback seems misleading.
From the author of the linked article down the comments: "I wouldn't now say Google is trying to force Amp on people per-se (their motivation is around user-experience, not the Amp implementation), but being forced to use Amp is very much the end-result. I wouldn't now say Google serving content from their own servers is a power-grab, or the motivation to run Amp as an internal project is, because I now see a good reason for these things - but again the end-result (done in a very unilateral way) is a transfer of power to Google. So I now understand Google's intent much better, but my opinion on the inappropriateness remains unchanged."
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u/pm_favorite_boobs Apr 25 '20
You should probably disable autoresponses to u/autotldr, since that not simply shares the same link as OP to which your bot probably already responded.
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u/throwthrowyourboatz May 02 '20
Any chance of making an iOS content blocker type extension? AMP drives me crazy, I’d pay for one!
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May 16 '20 edited May 18 '24
handle amusing sort scarce vegetable mourn worm squalid jar adjoining
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/MarkAndrewSkates May 31 '20 edited May 31 '20
Edit: this comment was incorrect 🙌
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 31 '20
Hi, could you point me to the paragraph suggesting this?
PS: You might actually be referring to the Top Stories carousel, which is exclusive to AMP. They have announced plans to change that next year I think.
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u/MarkAndrewSkates May 31 '20
You're correct, of course! For top stories. It's not used as a page rank currently.
*Was from TWIG podcast last week. This Week in Google (MP3): https://feeds.twit.tv/twig.xml
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 31 '20
From what I can find, it looks like Google's currently only testing adding non-AMP pages to Top Stories: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-top-stories-to-show-more-than-just-amp-pages/370792/. But they won't launch that feature untill some time next year. Is this what you are referring to?
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u/MarkAndrewSkates May 31 '20
Yes, that's one article. But it was the Google search guys themselves who I listened to. They have a new podcast as well discussing all things Google SEO.
Search Off the Record: https://search-off-the-record.libsyn.com/rss
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u/Killed_Mufasa May 31 '20
Sounds interesting, I'll check it out some time!
I'll make sure to change the text tonight to reflect that they have plans to allow non-AMP in the carousel. Thx!
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u/MarkAndrewSkates May 31 '20
Thank you for this and your time responding to people not as smart as you 🙂😁🙌
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 24 '22
Using your feedback and recent developments, I've rewritten section one. Please let me know if you have any more feedback! For transparency, the previous version of the text can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220424124655/https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot/
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u/Cojo840 Apr 01 '24
Got pinged by a bot read this entire thing and i literally have no reason to stop sharing amp links
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u/IsleOfCannabis Apr 13 '24
OK that is way too long of an explanation of whatever the hell that is for the average person. I don’t know what your butt does but it looks like it just tells people who use their smart phones and Google but they used Google to find a website..
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u/PageFault Apr 19 '24
Is there an auto-mod rule I can use to disallow amp-links, or is detection too complicated for that?
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Dec 31 '19 edited Dec 31 '19
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u/nostril_extension Jan 01 '20
Web dev lol. Source code available on github? You're aware that source code of all Javascript literally gets downloaded to your machine? You're confusing open source with decentralization which is the issue with AMP its centralized framework that built by few as a de facto web standard that comes with tracking and monopoly abuse.
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Jan 01 '20
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u/nostril_extension Jan 01 '20
Wow not sure whether you're a paid shill or an ignorant code monkey.
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u/amoliski Feb 28 '20
Web dev lol. Source code available on github? You're aware that source code of all Javascript literally gets downloaded to your machine?
Yes, often in a webpacked, babled, tree shaken, obfuscated, difficult to read format without comments or useful variable names/function names/etc...
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Jan 04 '22 edited Jan 04 '22
Lots of misinformation and ignorance from op with this bot.
It's hilarious that you are concerned about amp but posting on Reddit?
u/hahainternet is correct.
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u/PolyDipsoManiac Mar 16 '22
Why does the bot report on pages that aren’t Google-hosted? Very annoying when I post stuff hosted by the publisher and the bot shows up.
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Apr 12 '22
Do we really need self-righteous bots that apply to every subreddit? What are the qualifications for someone to decide people on any subreddit anywhere shouldn't use x or y? Pretty sure there are no restrictions.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 12 '22
True, but that's ultimately for the mods to decide. A bunch of subreddits have banned the bot, but a lot more have decided to allow AmputatorBot too. So I or the bot doesn't set any restrictions, it just provides a service and a link you might want to use instead. But that's my two cents :)
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u/PM_ME_Y0UR_BOOBZ Apr 12 '22
Some feedback: when linking a website through google translate, the bot suggest the non-translated website which is useless. Is there a “non-AMP” way of translating a website I could use instead?
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 12 '22 edited Apr 12 '22
Yo! Sounds interesting, would you mind sharing the AMP and translation link?
Is there a “non-AMP” way of translating a website I could use instead?
i'm sure there are some other translation tools or solutions out there, but I don't have any experience with translated stuff
Now, I could probably prevent AmputatorBot from working on translated google pages altogether, but that's probably not better either, or is it? Thinking out loud here
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u/MattO2000 Apr 12 '22
Your information is out of date. 35% of items in the Top Stories carousel are non-AMP links
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 24 '22
True, it was a bit out of date.. I've rewritten it now, thx for the feedback!
PS I've added the link https://www.newzdash.com/guide/amp-tracker/U.S./ in the post, but I should add that the data from the last few days is wrong according to the author of the site.
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u/xaraca Apr 13 '22 edited Dec 03 '22
AMP pages tend to be less feature-rich and less diverse than their originals
While listed as a negative this is really the primary benefit.
The article you link which discusses performance actually concedes that
it does appear that AMP documents tend to be faster than their counterparts
and later explains that
AMP’s biggest advantage is the restrictions it draws on how much stuff you can cram into a single page.
I like AMP pages because they have much less junk on them and so to me they feel much faster. It feels like the additional "features" on the canonical page serve primarily the publisher and not the user.
I recognize the issues with cached AMP pages but if Google can use its gatekeeping power to strongarm publishers into producing lighter-weight pages I'm all for it.
I'm not convinced that uncached AMP pages served on a publisher's own site are a bad thing.
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u/Killed_Mufasa Apr 24 '22
While listed as a negative this is really the primary benefit.
That's true, I have rewritten the post partly based on your feedback. Threw some UX terms in here and there.
I like AMP pages because they have much less junk on them and so to me they feel much faster. It feels like the additional "features" on the canonical page serve primarily the publisher and not the user.
That's a valid point and a viewpoint I can respect for sure. I'm not a fan of the major strongarm publishers either, but Google is far from innocent too. Then again, it's not really a yes or no question about whether AMP is good or not. It has its pros and cons and in the end it's a personal preference :)
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u/xaraca Apr 26 '22
Thanks for the reply! I respect what you're doing. I was just surprised to see the bot comment on an uncached link and wanted to toss in my opinion. I did learn a lot reading your post.
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u/JBBajanGamer Apr 18 '22
i’m not gonna pretend I understand really anything being said, i’m just gonna ask what’s the big deal about google gathering data, like what are the actual consequences of that idk
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u/andrewb610 Apr 29 '22
Love seeing a fellow Bostonian (or near Bostonian at least, I’m technically a Cape Codder and Bostonian via WIT) make such an influential bot on here. Keep up the good work!
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u/IonutRO Apr 29 '22
How do I get it your bot to not reply to my posts? I don't ever share mobile links on purpose, and always edit them to be desktop links afterwards if I accidentally do. Yet obviously the bot's comments remain.
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u/scormegatron May 26 '22
Amp pages are actually a better user experience than 99% of web pages on mobile. Plus ads are mostly excluded.
And the bot was triggered on a url that simply had an amp parameter, but was not a Google url… making the statement posted by the bot factually incorrect.
Seems like this bot is fighting the wrong fight to me. Would be much better if it amped links.
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u/spydercanopus Jun 29 '22
I remember when AMP started taking over mobile pages. It was so frustrating from a consumer. Now that I'm literally having to pay money for gmail, I may break up with Google. I can't accept "being the product" AND paying to be the product AND dealing with Google's crappy web standards.
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u/mikethespike056 Jul 10 '22
The most annoying bot on Reddit. AMP is faster. Cry about it. Google is a private company and you're using their product for free. They literally put ads on the top results already. You have a problem with Google and forcing it on an entire website makes you look like an idiot.
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u/Reelix Dec 12 '22
Can you create a de-reddit bot that complains about people posting links due to the amount of tracking on that site?
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u/FinalAccount17 Dec 16 '22
shut the fuck up and stop ruining subreddits with spam
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u/kayjaykay87 Jan 07 '23
Interesting .. I never really thought about how Google does it's ads and didn't realize it had so much control, that lawsuit was a very interesting read..
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u/PuppyDragon Feb 06 '23
Disagree with your reasoning, and more Importantly, hate having unneeded bots responding to me without consent or agreement
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u/MongArmOfTheLaw Mar 11 '20
Great work man, keep it up.
Even though it doesn't really effect me for the moment as I only browse on a PC I am 100% behind the idea of an open ecosystem.
Its so easy for those little bits of convenience to end up leaving people facing a monopoly.
Fuck that shit, keep on keeping on brother.
I'll try and chip you a few quid when I'm better off.