Youtube/Google is evil, time to fight back

[NiHaoMike]

This "Global Trust & Safety" is another BS term, it's all about credit card financial matters, nothing about ethics or having consistent rules.
The money laundering things I get, but they (the credit card companies) need to drop the "customer is always right" nonsense.
Sometimes the customer is a con artist, or a troll, and send money to someone just so they can trigger a chargeback (result -$40 donation).
Or donate to a Patreon creator, download everything, then call the bank and complain just so you get it for free.

This Woke nonsense is a symptom not a cause, the real issue is listening to cranks who use their personal credit cards to drain other people's bank accounts.
After a while the bank gets annoyed about how much this is costing them, and wrongly hassle Youtube/Patreon/Google, instead of telling a handful of their customers to take a long walk off a short pier.

That problem is solved by cryptocurrencies, where transactions are irreversible.

[wilfred]

That problem is solved by cryptocurrencies, where transactions are irreversible.

How does it solve the problem? You contact the bank or service provider and seek a refund. Another irreversible transaction gets you the refund. What's different?

[vad]

Here's a list of what to do:
* If you're not already using one, install an adblocker. If you want to, whitelist Youtube to support creators, blocking Google ads everywhere else still makes an impact. (Hiding the ads and "autoclicking" them with AdNauseam instead of blocking them might work better in that it would cost Google the ad views/clicks, but that would also increase their ad view/click count.)
* Don't use Google search, use DuckDuckGo.
* Don't use Chrome, use Firefox or Chromium.
* Don't get Youtube Premium (cancel it if you have it), use an adblocker and give directly to the creators.
* Use Make Internet Noise or similar to waste Google's resources as a protest, use in conjunction with an adblocker. It would also make their data collection less useful although it works best if you minimize the data you're giving them in the first place.
* Use/support more ethical alternatives to Youtube.

1) Thanks, I already have AdBlock, but not for YouTube. AdBlock stopped blocking YouTube ads some time ago.

2) Why should I use some shi..y search engine? Google works well for me. Your mileage may vary though.

3) I do have YouTube Premium and it is great

4) Protest what? I do understand that this half dresses lady is pi..sed off of her falling revenues despite 1.5M subscribers on YouTube. Maybe she can have better luck at other platforms. But why should I protest?

5) Content providers who I am interested in are all on YouTube. YouTube Premium is convenient way to watch or listen to that content. Alphabet is definitely more ethical than some shady alternatives like Telegram.

[wilfred]

I like Odysee but my concern is, I read they allow anything on there such as hate speeches that could give governments like the UK the justification to ban it from their country (if out of their jurisdiction to force them to change) which might lead to it's downfall.

What fringe nutters need to be mindful of is they are just fringe nutters. When or if they become mainstream the platforms will be happy for their business. Most people, I think, and me included don't really want to live in a society where others are marginalised or subjected to hateful treatment. Gay people are way more tolerated now than say Alan Turing was. Does anyone care that Big Clive is gay? One of my sisters kids is transgender and I don't want them to live in a world where they are excluded or worse.  I have a particularly low regard for people who make others lives miserable for profit. And getting thrown off Patreon or Odysee won't stop the comments but it throttles back the profits. And that's a good thing. It will at least reduce the comment to those who genuinely believe them and weed out those who just say them to profit from them.

The platforms know full well it is bad for business to become part of the fringe echo chamber. Same goes for site that feature porn. That is more likely to lead to their downfall.

The people who created LBRY/Odysee did it to ultimately profit from it. Don't get in their way or no access for you. Patreon same. Twitter same. And Trumpet was created for the same reason but only with smaller ambitions. When their ambitions grow they'll shed the nitwits and nutcases just the same.

[EEVblog]

I like Odysee but my concern is, I read they allow anything on there such as hate speeches that could give governments like the UK the justification to ban it from their country (if out of their jurisdiction to force them to change) which might lead to it's downfall.

If that happens then you have more to worry about than not being able access Odysee.

They have TOS
https://odysee.com/$/tos

Part of it:

6. General Conduct Restrictions
You are solely responsible for your conduct while using the Services. You will comply with all applicable laws and third-party agreements to which you are bound. Further, you will not do any of the following in connection with the Services or any other users:

a) Use the Services in any manner that could interfere with, disrupt, negatively affect or inhibit other users from fully enjoying the Services or that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the functioning of the Services in any manner;

b) Impersonate or distribute Content on behalf or any person or entity or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;

c) Cheat or utilize unauthorized exploits in connection with the Services;

d) Stalk, intimidate, threaten, or otherwise harass or cause discomfort to other users;

e) Send, distribute or post spam, unsolicited or bulk commercial electronic communications, chain letters, or pyramid schemes;

f) Harvest or otherwise collect information about users, including email addresses, without their consent;

g) Use the Services for any illegal or unauthorized purpose or engage in, encourage, or promote any illegal activity, or any activity that violates these Terms;

h) Use the Services to distribute Content that you do not have the lawful right to distribute or reproduce; or

i) Circumvent or attempt to circumvent any filtering, security measures or other features we may from time to time adopt to protect the Company, the Services, its users or third parties.

[EEVblog]

Patreon are just as bad. They banned Sydney Watson because they disagree with her political views. What's so bad is it wasn't because of anything she said on Patreon, but elsewhere online. If Dave says something they dislike on this forum, they might ban him. It doesn't matter if you agree with Sydney's political views or not and this isn't the place to discuss them. The fact companies are monitoring people's online activity and banning them because they say something they don't like is dangerous.

I've never heard of her and have no idea what her views are, but watching that video I would say she's intelligent, articulate and overall sounds very reasonable. Whether we call it "cancel culture", a "culture war" or something else, this banning people over random things they do or say somewhere is scary, it is quite literally authoritarian oppression no different than what the most reviled tyrants throughout history have done. Every one of those tyrants and their followers believed in their cause, believed they  were on the right side of history and believed what they were doing to be noble and just. The irony is that type of personality will steadfastly refuse to see the similarity between what they're doing and what other authoritarian figures of the past have done. The only good thing about it is that these movements have a tendency to eat their own as they get divided by various purity tests and eventually collapse.

Patreon lost a lot of large creators over this "Manifest observable behaviour" thing (google if you want to know more), and it's what spawned Locals and SubscribeStar.
Every creator on Patreon lost a significant number of Patrons over this issue of baning creators for what they say off-platform, as many customers left in protest. I lost maybe 10% of my Patrons over it.

[Halcyon]

I don't understand why card merchants like Square or even some of the bigger ones like Visa or Mastercard don't create a platform similar to Patreon to enable donations to be easily deposited in content creator's accounts via their network. It seems to be a bit of a gap in the market.

It would be easy for them to develop a product for hobbyists capped at say, $100k per year in donations in exchange for a discounted fee on transactions.

[Zero999]

I like Odysee but my concern is, I read they allow anything on there such as hate speeches that could give governments like the UK the justification to ban it from their country (if out of their jurisdiction to force them to change) which might lead to it's downfall.

What fringe nutters need to be mindful of is they are just fringe nutters. When or if they become mainstream the platforms will be happy for their business. Most people, I think, and me included don't really want to live in a society where others are marginalised or subjected to hateful treatment. Gay people are way more tolerated now than say Alan Turing was. Does anyone care that Big Clive is gay? One of my sisters kids is transgender and I don't want them to live in a world where they are excluded or worse.  I have a particularly low regard for people who make others lives miserable for profit. And getting thrown off Patreon or Odysee won't stop the comments but it throttles back the profits. And that's a good thing. It will at least reduce the comment to those who genuinely believe them and weed out those who just say them to profit from them.

The platforms know full well it is bad for business to become part of the fringe echo chamber. Same goes for site that feature porn. That is more likely to lead to their downfall.

The people who created LBRY/Odysee did it to ultimately profit from it. Don't get in their way or no access for you. Patreon same. Twitter same. And Trumpet was created for the same reason but only with smaller ambitions. When their ambitions grow they'll shed the nitwits and nutcases just the same.

I didn't know Big Clive is gay and I don't care. I watch Fran's videos and couldn't give a toss about he being trans.

The problem is there is extremist LGBT content is allowed, if not even encouraged by social media. Age inappropriate content is being pushed onto children. I'm all for teaching children to be tolerant of minorities, but despise radical trans activists who glorify gender dysphoria. There have been too many cases of vulnerable children and adolescents who have been convinced they're trans by manipulative people and undergone life changing medical treatments as a result. Many trans activists aren't really transgender, but male transvestites, who want to use women's spaces. A women was raped in hospital recently, because a man who identified as female was allowed on a women's ward. What's worse is the police didn't believe her, because the hospital staff have been told to deny there was a man on the ward. I hope the policy is changed and the staff are prosecuted for wasting police time and perverting the course of justice: following orders is no defense!

[wraper]

I like Odysee but my concern is, I read they allow anything on there such as hate speeches that could give governments like the UK the justification to ban it from their country (if out of their jurisdiction to force them to change) which might lead to it's downfall.

These days unwanted truth (by some leftist minority) often is labeled a hate speech and shut down by people with extreme opinion which is shared by like <5% of population. Youtube and major social meadia these days became an agenda marketplaces which shovel some fringe minority agenda into your mouth, and shut down those who dare to say something against this.

[wraper]

What fringe nutters need to be mindful of is they are just fringe nutters. When or if they become mainstream the platforms will be happy for their business. Most people, I think, and me included don't really want to live in a society where others are marginalised or subjected to hateful treatment. Gay people are way more tolerated now than say Alan Turing was. Does anyone care that Big Clive is gay? One of my sisters kids is transgender and I don't want them to live in a world where they are excluded or worse.  I have a particularly low regard for people who make others lives miserable for profit. And getting thrown off Patreon or Odysee won't stop the comments but it throttles back the profits. And that's a good thing. It will at least reduce the comment to those who genuinely believe them and weed out those who just say them to profit from them.

The platforms know full well it is bad for business to become part of the fringe echo chamber. Same goes for site that feature porn. That is more likely to lead to their downfall.

The people who created LBRY/Odysee did it to ultimately profit from it. Don't get in their way or no access for you. Patreon same. Twitter same. And Trumpet was created for the same reason but only with smaller ambitions. When their ambitions grow they'll shed the nitwits and nutcases just the same.

Modern social media lets you think that fringe nutters are mainstream and people with traditional values are fringe. Saying something that was completely normal like 10-15 years ago is labeled as blasphemy. People who asking for more censorship don't understand what they are promoting, because tomorrow they will be called a fringe minority and shut down for not being progressive enough. Shutting down the opposition pushes the overtone window further and further until perverse becomes mainstream.

[DiTBho]

4) Protest what? I do understand that this half dresses lady is pi..sed off of her falling revenues despite 1.5M subscribers on YouTube. Maybe she can have better luck at other platforms. But why should I protest?

Indeed. Why should I protest specifically for that Youtuber?
Good for her she earned a lot of money until it worked.
And That's all.

[DiTBho]

Patreon lost a lot of large creators over this "Manifest observable behaviour" thing (google if you want to know more), and it's what spawned Locals and SubscribeStar.
Every creator on Patreon lost a significant number of Patrons over this issue of baning creators for what they say off-platform, as many customers left in protest. I lost maybe 10% of my Patrons over it.

That's what I should protest against! And I will!

[madires]

Everything boils down to attention. Content related and social media platforms are businesses which want to make money. So they need to get as much attention of their customers as possible. Controversial and extreme content/opinions draw a lot of attention. This creates a classic win-win situation for the two groups. Don't pay attention!

[EEVblog]

For those who don't know what's going on here with Naomi, it's called algorithmic demotion. Youtube have publicly admitted they do this for independent news sources, famously promoting only  "authoritative sources".
And as much as they publically mouth support for LGBT stuff, there has been many complaints from trans content creators about being algorithmly demoted.
Several other categories as well. Same thing across all these types of channels hit, you can't find much of your own content even with exact title searches.
Some of it is ideologically woke driven, some politcially driven, some advertiser driven, but Naomi is just one in a vast number of channels it happens to.

[NiHaoMike]

How does it solve the problem? You contact the bank or service provider and seek a refund. Another irreversible transaction gets you the refund. What's different?

In most cryptocurrencies, the sending of coins can only be initiated by the one who has access to the source account, basically like cash.

For those who don't know what's going on here with Naomi, it's called algorithmic demotion. Youtube have publicly admitted they do this for independent news sources, famously promoting only  "authoritative sources".
And as much as they publically mouth support for LGBT stuff, there has been many complaints from trans content creators about being algorithmly demoted.
Several other categories as well. Same thing across all these types of channels hit, you can't find much of your own content even with exact title searches.
Some of it is ideologically woke driven, some politcially driven, some advertiser driven, but Naomi is just one in a vast number of channels it happens to.

Time to make some independent search that prioritizes those creators?

[madires]

For those who don't know what's going on here with Naomi, it's called algorithmic demotion. Youtube have publicly admitted they do this for independent news sources, famously promoting only  "authoritative sources".
And as much as they publically mouth support for LGBT stuff, there has been many complaints from trans content creators about being algorithmly demoted.
Several other categories as well. Same thing across all these types of channels hit, you can't find much of your own content even with exact title searches.
Some of it is ideologically woke driven, some politcially driven, some advertiser driven, but Naomi is just one in a vast number of channels it happens to.

From Schiller's Wilhelm Tell: The best cannot live in peace, if it does not please the bad neighbour.

[Ranayna]

There is one youtuber I regularly follow that is openly trans. She transitioned a couple of years ago, but i followed that channel many years before that already.

Her videos are still regularly suggested to me.
But that may be due to the fact the she very regularly releases a video each and every monday, and did so for many, many years, even before she came out as trans. In generally her videos are very critical about anything related to capitalism, she regularly uses foul language, and also complains a lot about being shafted by the algorithm. But i still get her monday video each and every time one is released.

I follow another youtuber that was actually "canceled" for a couple of months, due to a scandal involving the suspicion of "underage relationships". That was resolved after a couple of months though, and that channel is slowly gaining traction again. There the algorithm seems to have forgotten, or never even noticed, that this happened. Though his subscriber count took a *massive* hit back in the day. I do not know if he already surpassed the losses yet though, since i don't really care about the subscriber count of channels anymore. Or rather the other way around: i am inherently distrusting of channels with high subscriber counts

So i have no idea how the algorithm works. I wonder if it is somewhat related to the location of the viewer. Considering the perceived "prudishness" of US Americans, that would actually not surprise me.

[tszaboo]

Everything boils down to attention. Content related and social media platforms are businesses which want to make money. So they need to get as much attention of their customers as possible. Controversial and extreme content/opinions draw a lot of attention. This creates a classic win-win situation for the two groups. Don't pay attention!

Attention, you really think? I have x subscribers, who explicitly told Youtube by pressing the button that they are interested in my content.
And I have videos that didn't have 1/4th the impressions than my subscriber count. Meaning that they haven't been shown the video, because the mighty Algorithm decided it is not Worthy of their time. At this point, asking to subscribe is completely pointless.
If you turn off monetization your channel dies because no ads.
If you don't upload in regular intervals, 2-3x a week, your channel dies because no impressions.
You upload a few bad videos in a row, have a bad streak, your channel dies, because no impressions.
If you say a bad word your channel is killed, banned etc...
If you post videos that are less than 8:00 long, you loose advertising money because no midroll ads. You can either pad the video with useless content (which makes people click off) or loose midroll, which means less impressions.

[YurkshireLad]

Everything boils down to attention. Content related and social media platforms are businesses which want to make money. So they need to get as much attention of their customers as possible. Controversial and extreme content/opinions draw a lot of attention. This creates a classic win-win situation for the two groups. Don't pay attention!

Attention, you really think? I have x subscribers, who explicitly told Youtube by pressing the button that they are interested in my content.
And I have videos that didn't have 1/4th the impressions than my subscriber count. Meaning that they haven't been shown the video, because the mighty Algorithm decided it is not Worthy of their time. At this point, asking to subscribe is completely pointless.
If you turn off monetization your channel dies because no ads.
If you don't upload in regular intervals, 2-3x a week, your channel dies because no impressions.
You upload a few bad videos in a row, have a bad streak, your channel dies, because no impressions.
If you say a bad word your channel is killed, banned etc...
If you post videos that are less than 8:00 long, you loose advertising money because no midroll ads. You can either pad the video with useless content (which makes people click off) or loose midroll, which means less impressions.

Sadly this is the world we live in where AI rules the roost.

[madires]

Attention, you really think? I have x subscribers, who explicitly told Youtube by pressing the button that they are interested in my content.
And I have videos that didn't have 1/4th the impressions than my subscriber count. Meaning that they haven't been shown the video, because the mighty Algorithm decided it is not Worthy of their time. At this point, asking to subscribe is completely pointless.

Electronics is a niche topic. Too uninteresting to be promoted. The algorithms promote stuff which has potential for much more views (= more ad revenue).

[tszaboo]

Attention, you really think? I have x subscribers, who explicitly told Youtube by pressing the button that they are interested in my content.
And I have videos that didn't have 1/4th the impressions than my subscriber count. Meaning that they haven't been shown the video, because the mighty Algorithm decided it is not Worthy of their time. At this point, asking to subscribe is completely pointless.

Electronics is a niche topic. Too uninteresting to be promoted. The algorithms promote stuff which has potential for much more views (= more ad revenue).

My niche isn't electronics. My conclusions were quite general, after doing some research on how things are on YT.
I would say I am slightly successful, because managed to get monetized in the first year, and get 8K subscribers. But also my views are falling maybe 30% every month, because ai.

[Poe]

Naomi says her business is "Youtube".  It isn't.

Naomi's business is selling content.  Youtube just happens to be her only customer.  Like if I made educational sing-a-long videos for kids and just sold them to PornHub. 

Youtube is not her boss either, it's her business partner.  A business partner that doesn't value her content.  Like PornHub not valuing my sing-a-long videos.  In fact, they'd probably be flagged and practically hidden on the Pornhub search results.  Like Youtube's situation, both likely just flag stuff and move on.  Too many content creators, not worth the resources.

If I was in her business, I'd either find a different partner or improve my value to my existing business partner.    Maybe she could pretend to have a mental disorder and act like a victim.  That has been a strong trend for the last couple decades on Youtube/Twitter/Tiktok/Reddit/etc and it's just gaining more steam.    Or she could look to one of the multitude of outrage merchants who are quite successful on the platform.  She could tell us who's lying to us.   We love that apparently.

[RJSV]

Yeah, thanks. A bad scene there, when someone just wanted use 'groggle' even for business related search, and you've got that whole mess, to figuratively shove aside,...from the distractions.
And 'politics'; first time through (casual search), you get, like 2 relevant 'hits', from news a couple weeks ago.  "That's not right? ", I'm thinking, where's any other coverage ?
Then, later same search and 3 or 4 different articles do come up, but seems erratic..., Like some other agenda when you're simply looking for 'Campus Speaker chased by mob'...Too much to ask ? Yeah somebody's algorithm stinks.
   Anyway, a very relevant topic: I even bought the book, Adnoids for Dummies', (sic) so I could operate the cell phone user interface... Couldn't even find basic stuff, like which buttons do what; that book was so chock full of ads, for APPs.
   Cardiac specialist had 'Google Forms', for starters. I'm thinking; Do I REALLY feel OK with Google, all up in my medical details (boring), now ?

[YurkshireLad]

Youtube is not her boss either, it's her business partner.  A business partner that doesn't value her content.

I would cynically argue that content creators are YouTube's products, not business partners. They only exist to create money for YouTube. Content Creators exist at the whim of YouTube's AI, and YT cares not one iota about them as long as they can make more ad revenue for the behemoth.

[Simon]

As our friend Naomi has finally discovered, after plenty of warning, one by one the channels not pulling in the million views per vid are being yeeted.

There is zero evidence that happens.

?

Why does Odysee exist?

Nearly every video I see now, OK, you're the exception, the creators complain about the algo, the shadow banning, the copyright matching, the word mincing, the nutters in the comments section. I watch a few hours of internet vids a week and more and more the channels big and small are regularly grumbling and e-begging more than ever.

They came for Jack Vale the other day because after ten years they are sick of him farting on the internet. Why would they do that?

All I'm saying, my evidence is the creators I watch who have been affected earlier and for longer are much happier now over on the alts and just flicking a select portion of the content up on youtube for the masses and for the legacy viewers or for those who want to share to legacy viewers.

On youtube the nuts might be in the comments but on odysee they are making the videos.... I look now and then but I don't see anything that appealing other than what I already know about like Dave. I actually pay for youtube so if I did watch dave on odysee he would not make any money. The whole sponsorship thing is a problem to me, I would rather have the model of paying an amount each month to the platform to distribute among the creators I watch, but we have been duped into this everything is free crap so creators have to beg for donations, you want the service? then pay for it!