Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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I've been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I'm logged in via SmartTube account.
So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.
Sorry Google... I'm not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.
What happens when you send a selfie of Jeffrey Epstein?
About a year ago I bypassed YouTube's facial recognition by using a YouTube video and just taking a photo of that. So many big youtubers just talk directly to the camera and that made it pretty easy
I was just thinking about using a picture or a video found online. Nice to know it works.
I imagine it works "for now". I can see this becoming "verified govt id only" soon enough. There's precedent for that IIRC
When that happens, it’s going to be a great day to de-google permanently.
There no time like the present
Best time was 15 years ago, second best time is now.
Well, you must have got in before the new faceID scan. Trying now redirects you to a QR code, which only works on phone. Which then very politely asks to use your selfie cam / won't accept camera roll.
Oh wow. That’s annoying. Could also be a regional thing though.
Possible...though it could just as easily be a test case. AU and UK first...not sure what happened to US
https://gamerant.com/youtube-new-age-verification-feature-id-recognition/
I guess they’ll start with the countries that require age verification. It’s gotta be extra hassle for them as well, so they won’t do it unless it’s absolutely required by the local government.
youtube is the only thing I still have of theirs, maybe that is 1 too many.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with alternate video sites such as Odysee, PeerTube, and Nebula. I think I might manage without YT. There’s plenty enough to watch elsewhere. Haven’t made the switch yet, but I feel well prepared.
I have looked at other video sites in the past and never found one that ticks the boxes, things change though, and there really does need to be other options.
Yeah, know what you mean. This stack of sites doesn’t cover everything I use YT for. Regardless, I think they can tick enough boxes to form a viable option for me. It’s not perfect, but it’s usually good enough.
I'm using pipepipe on my phone, it's okay for what it does, I would rather be signed in to like and comment, but I'm not doing ID crap for that.
Enjoy it while it lasts. I have a feeling that YT is going to take the FB approach of slamming a login wall to your face at some point.
Lol - tell me you used Mr Beast or the like for that.
I love when I get that final push to leave a garbage service behind.
I watch far more on Nebula than I do on YT anymore. I prefer the model without comments, upvotes/downvotes or any of that garbage. That and supporting creators much more directly is a super win. And no ads at all. And it's cheaper by far than YT premium.
^ Exactly that.
Its working for me on android with pipepipe, but often these things are rolled out incrementally.
Smarttube is an odd duck in that it has both a local cache and hooks into Youtube account...but doesn't accept direct CSV (like Pipepipe does) via Google takeout download. I'm going to look to see if I can scrape my own subscriptions etc and convert them into a format that smarttube understands as local only playlists. After that, I will look towards mirroring the actual vids locally.
Really not Google's fault. Talk to your local representatives. And all these people complaining about Meta and other social platforms "harming children" instead of just harming fucking everyone . Well how is Google going to protect the children without knowing who they are?
Yes, it's all performative nonsense but talking to govt reps is a long wait for a bus that never arrives.
So - as usual - sailing the high seas will be the solution.
Frankly, i'm thankful for the enshittification. As of right now, we can still access YT fully (search etc)...so long as we're not logged in. It boggles my mind how that makes any sense.
Not logged in? Sure, watch whatever you want.
Logged in, want to access your saved play lists, search etc? Papers please.
talking to govt reps is a long wait for a bus that never arrives.
That may be true but the point is they're the only ones with the power to change that.
That hasn't been my experience. About half the time YT will block me from accessing videos without being signed in "to make sure I'm not a bot".
Oh, lovely :/. I do hope that starts to happen here too. Gives me an excuse to hyper focus on an over engineered solution.
No better fuel then spite.
Thank you for joining us Anthony Albanese, but many of us are aware that is bullshit, and that if you wanted to protect people, you would be doing a lot of things very differently.
I don't know who that is or who you think I am but I certainly don't control any of that.
Albo is our prime minister. That commenter is sarcastically suggesting that you're quoting the party's talking points.
Wouldn't the prime minister be the one responsible for that legislation? Wouldn't the party's talking points be "yes we did that?" All I know is it's not Google. Meta, surely, but ultimately the buck stops with the politicians.
That was the point, the post is about how it is in Australia "AU"
...what was the point again? That you agree that it's not Google?
My mistake, hello donald trump
Australia is all poo poo now
vpn is the way around that... for now
Grayjay?
Last I checked that didn't work so well on SmartTV. Will check again...though am tempted to get ChatGPT to generate a fake image for facial recognition. More delicious - make shit fight shit
I'd ditch YouTube entirely but it has some stuff I share with students on there, plus my kids like watching old duck tales cartoons. The latter can be neatly addressed with Stremio / CloudStream but the former is a pain in the ass to work around.
complain about things being shit and then use chatgpt, well done champ.
Fire with fire, champ.
more like urine with urine
Shit with shit.
Interestingly, their faceID thing now requires that you use your phone with a live selfie, so the ChatGPT idea is a bust.