YouTube Is Awful. I'm Not Posting There Anymore | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Is Awful. I'm Not Posting There Anymore

joshgriffiths.site

66 pointsspeckx40 comments

>You are able to turn these ads off, but only individually by editing the videos one by one. I spent hours going through my backlog of videos disabling ads I didn’t place.

This is like my Google Wallet where I have hundreds of old boarding passes that can only be deletion d by editing each on. No delete all, no multi select. I consider this malicious compliance, where Google sees a way to store your history (travel in this case) despite having all other location history off.

> I consider this malicious compliance

Hadn't thought of it that way before but this sounds spot-on.

Google Photos too

I'm not sure what platform of Google Photos you were trying, but on the web and mobile app, you can drag to select sequential photos (i.e multi-select).

What if you are trying to delete all 30k of them after a google takeout?

Media distributors have always exercised control over the content they deliver—editing for length, compliance, or audience standards is nothing new. The confusion often comes from viewing YouTube as a neutral hosting service, like Dropbox, rather than as a full-fledged media distributor. Once you recognize that YouTube operates more like a broadcast network than a storage platform, its behavior - curating, monetizing, and enforcing content policies - looks far less unusual.

What feels different today is the scale and automation: traditional networks relied on human editors and clear standards, while YouTube uses opaque algorithms that can affect visibility and revenue in ways creators don’t always understand. That shift makes the control feel more intrusive, but the underlying principle - 'the distributor sets the rules' - has been part of media distribution for decades.

What's interesting is how YT has gradually shifted from being that neutral hosting service and into the media distributor role.

The part that's new in the distributor setting the rules dynamic is that there is no specific "they" to blame for the rules.

The strangest content has found me on YT

> What's interesting is how YT has gradually shifted from being that neutral hosting service and into the media distributor role.

The correct answer here, rather disappointingly, is that they were never neutral. Google Videos (the one that Google actually launched) arguably is a neutral service, but YouTube was always designed to be a social media (even if that term is not as well-known at the time as it is now). It even had five star ratings, which as the style for its time. It is always closer to Instagram rather than Dropbox (although that's an anachronistic comparison since that YouTube was the first of the three).

Correct yes sure - point is that it cultivated a neutral hosting service brand image and that's interesting

Media creators have always criticised those controls and their dynamic, so neither is there anything unusual here in this post

Though

> traditional networks relied on... clear standards

this was never true

how is not true? every TV channel has content and editorial standards to comply with FCC regulations and advertiser demands. Youtube is full of ads that would never be shown on cable TV.

> comply with FCC regulations and advertiser demands.

Or with a politician not liking a comedian? How would you rate the clarity of that rule?

But also, so does YouTube has standards to comply with laws, regulations, and advertiser demands, how does any of that adds clarity? The totality of those regulations is pretty fuzzy with plenty of changes in interpretation of the supposedly clear rules.

> Youtube is full of ads that would never be shown on cable TV.

Sure, one vague set of rules can still be more restrictive than another vague set of rules

I'm surprised there was no mention of shorts which take attention away from long form content. It's all they a pushing these days. In my feed I regularly see 6 shorts, then a video, then 6 more shorts. TikTok is not the ideal model for everyone.

If you're on a web browser, there are extensions that hide them (for now). That and members only and such.

Soon, assuming my setup continues to work, my youtube experience will be completely unlike the default: no shorts, no autoplay, no ads, no sidebar recommendations, homepage is subscriptions, no premium.

I'm bleeding them dry!

May I recommend de-arrow and sponsorblock as well?

https://unhook.app/ - removes the addiction from the tube

(i'm not affiliated except as a user)

Guy i dont know, pops up on a feed i dont control to tell me he isnt doing something anymore.

> WHY

> Algorithms

https://youtu.be/qMsH_3cRKeI

(Okay, it's a different subject and totally different algorithms but still what I was reminded of.)

Walled gardens are meant for the owners. Everyone else are decorations.

Affected channels: https://www.youtube.com/@TripleIris https://www.youtube.com/@JoshJunkDrawer

> Unbanning Election Conspiracy Theorists and Anti-vaxxers

Why should people be banned for these? I don’t agree with either group, generally, but I don’t really see the harm either?

If the election and vaccines are so air tight, why doesn’t anyone just publish a piece tearing down the top N counterarguments? There are a few that aren’t obviously stupid and would require more research for any random person to be sure they are wrong, but I haven’t seen anyone publish solid deconstruction pieces on them. I don’t really know why, though.

It seems like it has been moralized and the people who are “right” don’t have to actually rebut arguments against their position because they are so right? I don’t get it.

>Why should people be banned for these?

They bring the quality of the platform down and sully YouTube's reputation.

No sarcasm tag?

Because lying is always easier than telling the truth?

You have to be incredibly naive to think information/evidence is treated equally.

If you prove one lie wrong 20 are up and running.

Imagine your proposal in court: if you're caught in a lie, just move the goalpost and if found guilty of lying in court nothing happens!

Because the super duper rock solid evidence that will take 20 years will surely convince everyone to switch sides.

>It seems like it has been moralized and the people who are “right” don’t have to actually rebut arguments against their position because they are so right? I don’t get it.

It's the opposite.

Conspiracy theorists cannot be reasoned with. Recently some people took a flat-earther to one of the poles and showed him the 24 hours of daylight to prove the earth is a spheroid, and he went into all sorts of mental gymnastics to cope with the cognitive dissonance rather than face the fact that he's stupid and got had. Something about how there must be some other way to reconcile it with the midnight sun. Anyways.

In other words, people who are right don't have to rebut the arguments of conspiracy theorists because it doesn't matter. The conspiracy theorists will simply invent a new reason why their beliefs, upon which their entire self identity is built, are able to persist.

The problem is that rules need to be viewpoint neutral to be fair and effective. If we allow authority to pick approved opinions, we end up with this incoherent bullshit. One year you can't mention anything contrary to the CDC and the next you're not allowed to talk about Palestine, only because the dominant political parties switched places. If you tolerate this kind of rule making because you believe your opinions are correct, be ready to be oppressed when the next administration decides they hate you.

Banning these people is a shortcut for making it real easy for the intended audience of the website to block them. This is a fundamental part of the first amendment and enables the platform to shape its commercial offering to fit its business model.

You seem to have confused online social medial platforms with common carriers which is an extremely popular error lately.

No one is confused about the correct application of law, this is clearly an argument about principles as they apply to de-facto corporate controlled commons. Google is not the state, but essentially controls one of the few means of self publishing. It's not unlike company towns, and civil liberties. Just because it's not the state doesn't make it not an infringement.

I’d be interested in a citation for the proposition “social media is like a company town,” but I’m afraid if I promised to wait for one I might be here a while. The best I can do is direct you back to Marsh v. Alabama.

What makes it not an infringement is not that Facebook is not the state; it’s that Facebook does not encompass the traditional function of the municipality. The state action doctrine does not apply.

Again, principles! Not an argument about law. This an argument about aught not is.

> If the election and vaccines are so air tight, why doesn’t anyone just publish a piece tearing down the top N counterarguments?

because it takes a lot of time and effort to do a proper debunking, during which the liers make up 10 new lies, which again you would have to debunk.

I guess it is more like being hard prove a negative. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. But it is also difficult to prove vaccines cannot cause autism. The Anti-Vaxxers use this loophole to spread their beliefs.

How is that difficult though? Just do a study comparing vaccinated cohort to unvaccinated cohort and show that the unvaccinated cohort has a statistically similar rate of autism.

They have

12. Taylor B, Miller E, Farrington CP, Petropoulos MC, Favot-Mayaud I, Li J, Waight PA. Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet 1999; 353(9169): 2026-9.

13. Taylor B, Miller E, Lingam R, Andrews N, Simmons A, Stowe J. Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and bowel problems or developmental regression in children with autism: population study. BMJ 2002; 324(7334): 393-6.

14. Farrington CP, Miller E, Taylor B. MMR and autism: further evidence against a causal association. Vaccine 2001; 19(27): 3632-5.

15. Madsen KM, Hviid A, Vestergaard M, Schendel D, Wohlfahrt J, Thorsen P, Olsen J, Melbye M. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. N Engl J Med 2002; 347(19): 1477-82.

16. Smeeth L, Cook C, Fombonne E, Heavey L, Rodrigues LC, Smith PG, Hall AJ. MMR vaccination and pervasive developmental disorders: a case-control study. Lancet 2004; 364(9438): 963-9.

17. Makela A, Nuorti JP, Peltola H. Neurologic disorders after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Pediatrics 2002; 110(5): 957-63.

18. Jain A, Marshall J, Buikema A, Bancroft T, Kelly JP, Newschaffer CJ. Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with and without autism. JAMA 2015; 313(15): 1534-40.

19. Uno Y, Uchiyama T, Kurosawa M, Aleksic B, Ozaki N. Early exposure to the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder. Vaccine 2015; 33(21): 2511-6.

20. Hviid A, Hansen JV, Frisch M, Melbye M. Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism: A Nationwide Cohort StudyMeasles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccination and Autism. 2019.

21. Hviid A, Stellfeld M, Wohlfahrt J, Melbye M. Association between thimerosal-containing vaccine and autism. JAMA 2003; 290(13): 1763-6.

22. Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, Lieu TA, Rhodes PH, Black SB, Shinefield H, Chen RT. Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases. Pediatrics 2003; 112(5): 1039-48.

23. Andrews N, Miller E, Grant A, Stowe J, Osborne V, Taylor B. Thimerosal exposure in infants and developmental disorders: a retrospective cohort study in the United kingdom does not support a causal association. Pediatrics 2004; 114(3): 584-91.

24. Croen LA, Matevia M, Yoshida CK, Grether JK. Maternal Rh D status, anti-D immune globulin exposure during pregnancy, and risk of autism spectrum disorders. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2008; 199(3): 234.e1-6.

25. Price CS, Thompson WW, Goodson B, Weintraub ES, Croen LA, Hinrichsen VL, Marcy M, Robertson A, Eriksen E, Lewis E, Bernal P, Shay D, Davis RL, DeStefano F. Prenatal and infant exposure to thimerosal from vaccines and immunoglobulins and risk of autism. Pediatrics 2010; 126(4): 656-64.

26. Uno Y, Uchiyama T, Kurosawa M, Aleksic B, Ozaki N. The combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: the first case-control study in Asia. Vaccine 2012; 30(28): 4292-8.

27. DeStefano F, Price CS, Weintraub ES. Increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines is not associated with risk of autism. J Pediatr 2013; 163(2): 561-7.

From this site https://www.vaccinesafety.edu/do-vaccines-cause-autism/

The purpose isn't to protect the public, the purpose is to unlock the ban-hammer, with the full knowledge that it can be weaponized in case of political emergency (see the Hunter's Laptop story).

When you dream do you see the laptop (and hunter’s big dangler)?

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