Remember the ice bucket challenge? That thing people were really into up until about two weeks ago that raised over $100 million for charity? Well, everyone except Kim Kardashian who finally did hers on Friday – a good two weeks after the last most out-of-touch person on your Facebook wall did theirs. Well, it turns out that apart from the ALS Association – who received the majority of the cash raised – the real winners were your mobile phone service providers.
READ MORE: Here's Why Some Critics Are Saying We All Need To Step Away From The Ice Bucket Challenge
Thanks to a much derided Facebook update that now makes videos on your feed play automatically, The Sun are claiming that many smartphone users have found themselves using up their mobile phone data faster than usual due to the onslaught of clips users posted of themselves being doused in freezing cold water. If you'll cast your mind back to the heady days of three weeks ago you'll vaguely remember the couple of days when each and every one of the posts on your Facebook feed was of friends old, new and irrelevant doing the challenge then nominating others. As a personal side note, still no-one has nominated us to take part. It's obviously too late now but thanks loads for leaving us out guys, really appreciated it.
The update was first trialled over a year ago but has only reached full roll out in recent months. Other cristicisms of the update have claimed that it’s exposed users to video content they didn’t necessarily want to see – such as the appalling Islamic State beheading videos.
Luckily – as with most irritiating Facebook quirks, you can turn this auto-play feature off. If you’ve got an iPhone head to Settings<Facebook<Settings<Auto-Play and then select the ‘Off’ or ‘Wi-Fi’ only option. For Androids head to Settings and find the ‘Auto-play videos on WiFi only’ option and tick it and you're good to go; job’s a good’un. You’ve beaten Facebook at their own game and it’s only bloody Monday. Well, done you.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.