According to Facebook, it is better that videos are played automatically when they are viewed in a news stream, without having to press a Play button. This could also be true in some respects, but on the practical side it is a useless waste of resources, which consumes traffic, makes internet browsing and mobile application more burdensome.
Facebook videos, both on PC and on smartphones and tablets, start the moment they appear on the screen, without therefore having to click or touch the content.
If you don't want to watch the video, you can simply scroll down and ignore it while if you click or touch on the video it is opened full screen and you can also hear the sound.
Furthermore, not only is the automatic video playback also active for advertisements, which start from themselves, but the relative audio is also heard
If you do not like this setting, which is active if it has never been changed, you can disable the videos on Facebook and therefore prevent them from playing automatically and make sure that you do not hear the audio unless it is expressly requested in the Facebook app for Android and iPhone.
Audio can also be muted in Facebook stories.
Once the autoplay has been deactivated, the videos will be visible as static images and can only be viewed by pressing the Play button which appears large above the preview .
On the iPhone, from the Facebook application, to disable the video autoplay you need to open the application settings (going to something else ), touch the Account settings, go to Photos and videos and set the Autoplay switch to Off or choose to keep it active only when connected with wifi.
Also from the Facebook app for iPhone, you can choose to disable the audio of the videos in the settings, under the Sounds section.
On Android, always from the Facebook application, go to the main menu by touching the button with three lines on the right, then scroll down until you find the Application settings "and find the option of automatic playback to make sure that the Facebook app doesn't start videos on its own when the phone is connected to the internet.
On Android smartphones, there is also the option to disable " sounds in the app " in the same settings screen as the application .
On Facebook.com from PC, until recently, you could go to your account settings by clicking on the icon with the down arrow at the top right, then click on the Video menu in the column on the left (it is the last entry) and then change the AutoPlay option.
In fact, this option has been removed recently and cannot be changed anymore.
To disable the automatic start of videos on all sites and therefore also on the Facebook site, you can activate what is called the Click-to-play function of browsers.
On Chrome, go to Settings -> Change advanced settings, click on Content settings under the Privacy line.
In the box that opens, look for Plug-ins and select the option Detect and run important content that should be enough or put it directly on let me choose when to run the contents of the plugins .
If that is not enough, install the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension and no Facebook or other video site can ever be played automatically without clicking on it.
With Firefox, on the other hand, you can change an internal option hidden in the about: config menu.
Then open a tab by writing on the address bar about: config, in Search write Autoplay and double click on the option media.autoplay.enabled putting it on false .
READ ALSO: Download videos from Facebook, save them on PC, share them and convert them online
