Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
#Google just announced that going forward, any account not logged into for two years gets deleted.
This means huge amounts of rare or unique #video is about to disappear from #YouTube as accounts get flagged as inactive, such as when the user dies. Families' #HomeMovies (often posted by an older relative for their family's benefit), historical footage, rare #television clips, etc. What an incalculable loss to human #history and culture!
If there are videos important to you on someone else's video channel, find a way to download them. And if you have rare #media of historical importance, consider leaving it to institutional #archives or lending it to archives for digital preservation.
My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
In other news, I'm currently recovering from this mild heart attack of suddenly experiencing ads on YouTube for the first time in probably 10+ years. 😵
Lot's of people asking me why I filed a complaint against #YouTube for their illegal deployment of #spyware to detect #adblockers instead of simply paying for YouTube Premium.
The answer is simple - YouTube Premium has no ads but Google still use it to profile you for advertising on their other products.
I refuse to pay for any service which doesn't respect my fundamental rights.
And so should everyone else, because until they do, Alphabet will continue with their illegal #surveillance.
A wave of new users is coming to #MakerTube because of #youtube began rolling out ad-block blocker everywhere. That is lovely, a warm welcome!
This also means a lot more resources are needed to handle the load. People are importing their whole youtube catalog and I needed to bring up a serious amount of resources which cost time and money.
FreeTube: #Freetube (https://freetubeapp.io/) is an ad-free desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that can load YouTube and stores subscriptions and history locally.
For most of these options, you can export your YouTube subscriptions at https://takeout.google.com and can import them into them.
MakerTube is open for public registrations! It's a peertube video instance for #makers, #musicians, #artists and #diy content #creators. If you thought of trying out a video platform besides big corp now is the time!
Last month, YouTube extended its ad blocker detection to users in the European union.
But privacy campaigners say that the adblock detection techniques used by YouTube (and almost everyone else) could be illegal under the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.
For WIRED, I looked at at the legal and technical arguments and spoke to privacy advocate Alexander Hanff (@thatprivacyguy) and MEP Patrick Breyer (@echo_pbreyer) about their work in this area.
With #YouTube getting more aggressive it seems like a good time to point out #PeerTube is probably our best bet in democratizing video on the open web.
Look at the cool stuff that @tilvids is doing by building a community with PeerTube.
We do ask that you please provide a reason why you’d like to join to help us combat bots. It also helps the Admin team get to know you a bit! :Pika_hello: :ffxivmsq_comp:
:boost_ok: Boosts are SUPER appreciated to help us reach folks who are seeking community.
YouTube is currently running what it describes as a "small experiment globally," warning users to toggle off their ad blockers and avoid being limited to only three video views.
I‘m going to mirror my #YouTube uploads to #PeerTube in the future. Videos should automatically appear shortly after they appear on my YT channel (but obviously without any random YouTube ads). Found a cozy place at https://makertube.net/video-channels/janbeta@MakerTube for now and it seems to work seamlessly. Embrace the Fediverse, people! 😘
***** Google is now implicitly endorsing the violence and worse of the Jan 6 insurrection *****
Let's be clear about what #Google's decision to permit election fraud videos to return to #YouTube really means. Election denialism led DIRECTLY to the horrors of Jan 6. By claiming that such videos are just like any other form of political speech, Google is wittingly or unwittingly ENDORSING that violence into the future. Unfortunately, it's that simple. And as someone who loves YouTube, I am both disappointed and disgusted. -L
#Youtube just killed the video on Cory Doctorow’s Hackaday keynote address on #Enshittification because I was watching it in DuckDuckGo, and directed me to watch on Youtube while signed into Google. I was right in the middle of the “Google is an acquirer, not an innovator” part! The IRONY! @pluralistic
The decision for #YouTube to allow 2020 election disinformation denial videos, a decision already being celebrated among the supporters of the Jan 6 insurrection, is in my opinion the single worst and likely most negatively consequential decision in the history of #Google.
YouTube tests restricting ad blocker users to 3 video views (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
YouTube is currently running what it describes as a "small experiment globally," warning users to toggle off their ad blockers and avoid being limited to only three video views.
YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting “harmful or ineffective” cancer cures (www.theverge.com)
It’s attempting to streamline its health moderation policies.
A word on reddit, blackouts, & effective protesting (Louis Rossmann) (www.youtube.com)
👉 https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/comment/jnk4oz4/?context=3👉 https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_the_community_ab...