Never trust a corporation (to do the right thing).
Fuck all of that.
FUCK CORPORATIONS.
Got my YouTube account permabanned for posting a song about Luigi Mangione, citing it was ‘terrorism’ the world is bonkers now.
That seems justified. He’s a murderer and no one should celebrate murder.
I mean this is just them making official how they’ve been acting for 2 years minimum, as much as google and youtube want to act progressive and inclusive, people still get demonetized for talking about lgbtq or women’s issues, unless they are harassing them, in which case the video will stay up no matter how many of youtube’s rules it breaks. For example, trans NB game critic Stephanie Sterling had multiple harassment videos against them (they listed pronouns as they/them last I checked, please correct if changed) that are still up right now, several years after upload, despite those videos exclusively attacking them for being trans/non-binary, which breaks youtube’s TOS
Companies are not your friend.
Thank god for Sterling.
As far as I’m aware, they/them and she/her are both good for Steph. They said on their podcast that they use she/her most often in their personal life (because tiddies and long hair) but either set of pronouns works.
That’s good to know, thank you!
We knew that was coming when we saw Sundar Pichai in Oligarch Row at the inauguration
Assholes.
Boycott.
Unfortunately most of the content creators publish their videos exclusively on YouTube. There is no relevant alternative video platform.
I think we would also do well to consume less content frankly. I’m closing in on two years since I’ve stopped viewing YouTube videos, and watching creators on platforms like Nebula or just buying indie media has been fine enough honestly. I also donate a fair bit to a creative focused PeerTube instance for my short videos.
Don’t take this as an all or nothing call though. Reducing reliance on the YouTube monopoly for your eyes, and being more adversarial to YouTube to any degree more than before is a net positive. Run ad blockers, use alternative front ends like Invidious, directly download videos with YT-DLP, and redirect your content consumption to more friendly platforms (or just reduce watch time in general). There is no true alternative to YouTube, but that doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel, or refuse to reclaim any bit we can back.
I’m right there with you. I try to grab important or favorite videos while I can to stash on my server for future enjoyment, and I run extensions that block the recommendation feed, ad block, as well as anti-clickbalt (shows random thumbnail from middle of video) when I do use it.
That algorithm is POWERFUL. Blocking the front page and “more like this” or whatever feeds has cut down on my rabbit hole stumbling almost entirely. (I’ll occasionally disable it to find new stuff)
I notice so much of it anymore is just content farming, stuff that exists only in the context of the content business, generating views and courting sponsors. Even though it can be entertaining still, it feels empty.
Genuine human expression is increasingly hard to find on that platform. I mostly use it for those ultra long music playlists and art and game dev stuff. Gotta be careful there too though! So many people are just wannabe gurus selling unattainable saccharine pipe dream lifestyles instead of actually doing the work.
I also donate a fair bit to a creative focused PeerTube instance for my short videos.
This sounds neat! Any recommendations? :)
Yeah, giving Google unfettered access to your attention span with their algorithm (or any giant corporation) is just a disaster waiting to happen. None of them are interested in your well being or helping you in any way, only to keep you engaging, and to try pushing narratives to the masses. These very same algorithms also determine how creators act and what they post, since disobeying the nebulous ‘algorithm’ results in having your video cratered.
As for PeerTube, I will tell you right out of the gate it won’t be a major supplement to offset something like YouTube watch time. You will find some fun though, it’s quite cool watching super indie stuff you end up enjoying, think like 2005 tier YT where people just kinda post stuff for fun. If you are a creative (e.g. artist, musician, maker, tech reviewer) and have the rights to your videos, MakerTube is the instance I’m on, and they would be happy to have you (my channel). If you aren’t a maker, you can browse the instance list and try to pick a server you’re comfortable with (all of them have an info page which shows their rules and what you can do). I know that’s tedious and overwhelming though, so I spent a little bit mulling for something I’d consider acceptable as a starting point and found Peertube.wtf. They seem to be open signups, allow video uploads with a high limit, non-US, a proper no bigotry policy, looks good at a glance anyway!
There are still ways to damage them, doing nothing is unforgivable.
So it is okay to bully women now.
