Until now whenever someone posted a video on their Facebook profile, these videos did not play unless you tapped on the video thumbnail. But Facebook has changed this with the newest version of their app. Now if you scroll through your Facebook feed, it will start to play the videos automatically without you having to tap on their thumbnails. This is very similar to how videos are handled on Instagram, another app owned by Facebook.
The problem is that this setting (auto-playing of the videos) works under all types of networks – including WiFi and mobile data. If you are using an expensive mobile data pack, then you should disable the auto-playing of videos on Facebook in the following manner:
- Launch the Facebook app in your smartphone and press the menu button. From the menu that appears, select Settings to access Facebook settings.
- On the setting screen, scroll down and tap on Autoplay option.
- From the three auto-play videos options, select Never Autoplay Videos.
- Press the back button to close the settings and go back to Facebook app.
The process is same on both the Android and iOS based devices. However if you access Facebook in the web browsers of your desktop PC, then you will have to open Facebook settings, select Videos section from the left side and choose not to play videos automatically.
Disabling the automatic playing of the videos in Facebook is very useful if you are on a metered internet connection and the ISP is going to reduce your connection speed when a FUP (fair use policy) limit is reached.