- some YouTube videos use nonfree Javascript to implement DRM. https://notabug.org/GPast/avideo/ is a youtube-dl variant that avoids running that JS code. notabug.org seems to be down as I type this, perhaps it will return later. - should you wish to allow your video to be downloaded, YouTube sets up needless barriers to allow downloads. - hosting with YouTube means you and your users are being tracked by Google (which owns YouTube). - YouTube doesn't make it clear how to download the precise video file the submitter uploaded; users get rewritten videos instead. - YouTube only hosts videos, not arbitrary kinds of other media.
All of these problems are easily solved: use the Internet Archive (at https://archive.org/) and your own hosting instead of YouTube. IA offers a download URL which is static and will redirect to your uploaded data. You can use this URL in an HTML5 video or audio element to embed the data in a webpage (again, no JS needed). IA will (by default) rewrite certain kinds of files, but your original uploaded file is also available and machine-determinable (via an XML file that clearly indicates which is the source file and which are derivative files). IA can be used fully without JS turned on (no need to worry about executing code to get files). IA hosting is gratis (zero cost), as is YouTube.
I have no evidence which indicates IA tracks users akin to how Google does.
I encourage you to consider hosting your media with the Internet Archive and your own website instead of YouTube.
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One more reason Google sucks:
Google recently deleted hundreds of videos of the war in Syria. Potential evidence of war crimes erased. Original uploaders may be dead.
I don't think some tech people realize the consequences of their decisions.
This particular section of the transcript annoyed me the most.
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He’s fired. And becomes like basically a celebrity for certain parts of like the right. And they were kind of like… Like this is not what he was necessarily saying about himself, but for them, it’s like… He’s like this perfect symbol of like the qualified, brilliant, genius coder who’s the best person for the job, whatever his race or gender happen to be, who said one reasonable thing and like got fired because of political correctness.
(Also, frankly, this interview doesn't exactly present its participants as the sharpest tools in the shed.)
It's an entertaining episode from a show I enjoy. Apparently, there are no other fans of the show here.
Very sorry.
So don't worry; in a day nobody will remember this subthread anyway :).
Anyways, I googled it and no it is not possible to delete a hacker news account. I successfully disabled reddit, facebook, twitter and linkedin though. So, this is the last outpost of an abysmal time on the web.
Thanks everyone. I am out.
Wow, that is truly evil. Do you have a source on this?
Edit: found article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/middleeast/syria-yo...
Arguably. Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform and has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable for their platform.
Those videos should be sent to news agencies, (inter)national archives, the UN, war crime tribunals, etc instead (or in addition to) "entertainment" video hosting sites.
In the spur of the moment, in particular in a warzone, the proper place to store something is the last thing on one's mind.
By parallel, misprision of felony is a crime in the US:
> Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
There is a moral imperative created when someone else is giving you these records. It's like someone asking you to call 911. You don't have to go out looking for emergencies to call 911 about, but you do have to deal with it when one is dropped in your lap. In this case "dealing with it" just means retaining a copy and making it available on some terms.
One implies the other. If your media backup and recovery plan is Youtube, then you need another plan.
For "not a political platform," Youtube has quite a lot of political content, and it's not at all clear to me why someone would think that the idea of a general interest video hosting site and a political platform are somehow exclusive at all.
And as far as obligations go... I'd imagine that there's no legal obligation, and maybe there shouldn't be, but that isn't the end of the question. As far as I know, I'd have no formal obligation to stop and render aid or even contact emergency services if I came across someone unconscious and bleeding on the sidewalk near my house, but that doesn't mean I might not be under some obligation.
And one problem is that organizations like Youtube often don't put themselves together in such a way that there's anyone interested in and capable of responding to these questions.
It's almost like they come across a turtle in the desert, and it's flipped over on its back, belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out their help. But they're not helping. Why is that?
A general interest here seems commercial in nature and is thus susceptible to whims of the owner(s) and their ToS.
One possible solution seems to be something like a Wikipedia for videos, a non-profit org, but the cost of video hosting seems to still be prohibitively high for a non-commercial entity in 2018.
Regarding "has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable": Yes, sadly, this is a problem not unique to YouTube. All hosters get to decide what to host and to change that decision at any time.
Some people choose to respond to hosting on sufferance by becoming sycophants (placate the hoster with speech one believes won't offend the censors) but that is ultimately detrimental to one's own message and free speech overall. We have no solution for this that is really easy for nontechnical computer users because we all depend on other parties for Internet access. If homes had Internet access that could not be taken away, we might be able to recommend self-hosting. For now, in the age of the ISPs, the best we can do is massively decentralized hosting which uses no DRM, running additional nonfree code (such as YouTube's DRM in JS), and somehow getting a lot of peers with lots of storage and bandwidth to keep available copies of everything uploaded (we ought not decide that one message is worth sharing and not another message because that is the very problem we're trying to solve).
This is a tough problem to solve. I don't know what a viable solution will look like quite yet. But I know what to avoid: we won't solve this problem by placating big business desires for more control over what we say and how we get copies of other people's works.
> use the Internet Archive (at https://archive.org/) and your own hosting instead of YouTube
> You can use [the Internet Archive URL] in an HTML5 video or audio element to embed the data in a webpage
If a hoster doesn't want one to distribute the files, that is the issue. Not whether one distributes them for use in an HTML5 video/audio element, or downloading for local storage, or use in some other way.
https://blog.archive.org/2009/07/01/archive-org-supports-the... would seem to address your claim.
I’m confused that you think this isn’t relevant. You’re directly advocating hotlinking against Archive and you don’t even mention supporting their operation in the slightest. I have no idea what you think I said, because your reply makes little sense.
Not a scaleable solution though. If everyone were to do the same they'd quickly be consumed by bandwidth costs.
IA has been around for many years and not bumped into this problem. Nor are they making choices that even hint at this problem. In fact, they have long made choices (such as default derivatives generation) which suggest they have plenty of storage space and bandwidth.
Also, this isn't an evidenceless complaint specific to IA.
unfortunately this makes your content pretty hidden. You are not within youtube's search anymore, you're not in any sidebar as related video either
Own your own content, but if you seek to spread a message you might want to use closed proprietary ecosystems as long as you aren't dependent on them.
For example, I was recently updating linkedin, and went to add Bruce Schneier, but he had a post that said he never checks or uses it and only links to his website from there. He still has a presence there though, and that really hit me how much these little walled gardens we let take over so much of our compute ecosystem are starting to look like prison, even for your standard copyleft hating SV hipster.
Of course Stallman would say don't even use them, and he makes some good points, but the problem we have now is even if you have a good message you can't reach the masses without going through some priestly gatekeeper of the government-corporate media power. So you have to use the system to beat the system.
Upload to as many sites as possible, link between them. Keep offline copies if you can.
Which by the way is what RMS did back when the GNU system didn't exist: use proprietary UNIX to develop GNU, replace the system piecemeal.
In Stallman's case there were no free software OSes. One could not use a computer in freedom. Therefore he used a nonfree OS to write free software until he could run a free software OS and thus had no more need for nonfree OSes. For years now he (and the FSF) don't run nonfree systems. They even endorse computers (and other computer hardware) that can be run completely in freedom (see https://www.fsf.org/ryf for details).
We already have file hosting options that don't use DRM, nonfree JS (or indeed any JS), and avoid the other problems of YouTube. There's no need for coming up with something new as we already have viable other means of sharing files.
We don't need YouTube, they need us. By buying into their limitations and restrictions uploaders endorse YouTube (which is undesirable and certainly not very thoughtful) and help foist YouTube's choices on others (which is unethical).
I'm all for getting rid of YouTube, but I'm not sure how we should do it.
YT never deletes anything, which is why they're losing money. Any archive ALWAYS loses money. Hosting cat videos for 10 years isn't a good business case.