The End of an Era...YouTube

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Aug 13, 2017.

  1. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I was an admiring patron of Google for so many years, but now I find myself trying to find alternatives to Google's services. It seems nearly impossible to get off the hook, even my phone operates on a Google OS.

     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Funny to see the righties suddenly wake up - net neutrality and anti-trust curbing of de facto monopolies on internet access has been a lefty cause for quite a while. It was one of the reasons for supporting Clinton, and other Democrats, for example - we could have had better Supreme Court justices and other Federal help in preventing this kind of stuff. https://www.isidewith.com/candidate-guide/hillary-clinton/domestic-policy/net-neutrality
    Instead, we got a replacement for Scalia - who never saw a corporate monopoly he didn't like.

    Reminds me of the famous Larson cartoon: https://camlawrie.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/larsoncowsgrass.jpg

    Meanwhile: The video guy keeps talking about what he can't talk about, but what has actually happened to him is that he has been "demonetized" - his stuff no longer earns money from ads, which means pretty soon it won't be recommended. He can still talk, all his videos are still up, just not get paid or acquire a large audience by browser link. And he's correct - further restrictions seem likely, including slowing down the delivery speed of his videos and ease of access to his website and so forth.

    But he has had many chances to join with the other libertarian minded folk in resisting this trend of so many years building - the Young Turks he despises, say, and guys like Lee Camp on Redacted Tonight who have been inveighing against exactly this for so long ( , say) and the libertarian Left in general. But he didn't.

    From the long decades of left libertarian battle, one word: Karma. It's pronounced: "Ha ha ha ha ha"
     
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  5. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Well, they can take their platform in the direction of their choice. It may open opportunities for future visionaries. Google started out as something small and grew on its unique offerings. We loved it because it was relatively neutral in the conversation, but now it has drawn a line. I will miss YouTube. I will probably still use it if I need information on fixing my faucet or something of that nature. It reminds of Yahoo and their apparent success back in the day. Simply said, Google is no longer cool.
     
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  7. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    Funny thing happen the other day when using Google. In the UK two of the major double glazing companies are Anglian windows and Everest windows. I only typed in ''Anglian windows'' and the the first link was Everest windows?? Can't repeat it now, very strange. Perhaps Google was helping me save money?? And nothing to do with paying advertisers.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2017
  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You sure that wasn't a sponsored link?
     
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  9. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, Google knows what you want before you know it yourself.
     
  10. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Except they don't.

    I keep getting YouTube recommendations for things like applying makeup, in Hindi. I keep getting recommendations from many different channel names that all have the same content, and I'm just not interested in Fox or CNN.

    I click on the offensive stuff and tell them why I don't want to see any videos from those channels, and an hour later I have the same bullshit in my "recommended" panel. Either their AI is as stupid as most news readers are, or Google wants me to read what they promote. Fuck that.
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    This is also part of the point of that weird argument-by-video thing so many hardline rightists do. It's crude SEO, and if you watch any of those videos, use a private window to keep it out of your cookies, else YouTube just can't stop recommending more of it. I eventually cleared my Google history and shut off my search history, and, generally speaking, I don't get that stuff much, anymore.

    The whole point of that behavior is to normalize supremacism.

    (In truth, I started feeling a little better about the private-sector surveillance state when Facebook couldn't figure out I was gay, and then, after I dismissed a bunch of adverts for paid access to women—and publicly cussed them out, repeatedly—they started advertising products they already knew I used. Like WordPress; yeah, FB, I know, since I listed three WordPress blogs in my profile. Turns out they're not as good at it as people think, just really, really stubborn assholes. But it also cracks me up how so many people, like these hardline rightists, bawl about government surveillance but are just fine with the private sector surveilling them in a manner that allows the State to use that information if It wants or feels It needs. Many of the rest of us have long wondered about Google's evil, compared to their old slogan about doing no evil. They finally get around to doing something necessary, dealing with what should have been addressed years ago, and I'm not at all surprised at who's pissed off or disappointed, or whatever—e.g., topic post.)
     
  12. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    The issue is that I watch some left, some right, but mostly I watch tradesmen-type stuff, like machining and tree work, gun reviews and tips. I don't want "news" from YouTube from channels I have expressly said I'm not interested in.

    I have deleted cookies and used private windows, but then all I get is Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. For God's sakes.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    It was top of the left side list, not under the right side sponsored links. Although I always thought the top few on the left side were also sponsored links.
    I would have thought both window companies have sponsored links, and as such, Anglian windows should have been first?
    http://www.wordstream.com/sponsored-links-google
     
  14. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Well, I've learned a few things in my search for alternatives...
    duckduckgo.com is a promising search engine that doesn't track your activity
    Brave browser might be a good alternative to Chrome, though I haven't figured out how to run it on my Mint machine
    ProtonMail looks good. I did switch to another mail service, but am getting spam already from sights I never visited
    Vid.me is where many youtubers are drifting at this time.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Meanwhile, the problem you have just now become aware of has bitten down and expanded - your choice of search engine and browser is going to mean very little if the internet is censored at the ISP level, or even more insidiously at the security and protection services level (consider what happened to Daily Stormer at Dream Host this past week).

    Your allies here are going to be the liberals, left libertarians, folks like that, who have been talking about this for - literally - decades. People like these: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...s-internet-policing-content-free-speech.shtml
     
  16. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, that's a concern. I've been hearing about the Daily Stormer and Rebel Media the past couple of days. It is frightening. Any site can be excluded from the web by those who hold the keys. The time has come to make the service a utility.
     
  17. river

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    Media , most anyway , has become controlled .

    We are in deep , deep , deep trouble people .
     

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