cobalt (@cobalt.tools)
bsky.app
youtube’s been testing various ways of limiting access, both for downloaders and real users with adblockers most fucked up experiment being forced DRM for ALL videos, even those that are licensed as CC: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12563 feels like it will only get worse from now on 🫠

If rolled out widely, this would make web browsers and third-party YouTube clients without a DRM license unusable for YouTube playback, download, etc. This would include almost all open-source web browsers and almost all third-party YouTube clients. Archive link to reddit post about this

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        8 days ago

        I don’t think Peertube needs to be come as bloated as Youtube is, because Youtube is…there’s people making good stuff on Youtube, among “host this video on Youtube and then embed it on our website” and “TTS robot voice reads Tumblr post over Minecraft jumping course Zoomer crack” to “most Hollywood movies, 2 minutes at a time with the bad words censored” to…whatever. The Peertube answer to a lot of that becomes “pssh, host your own video.”

        A lot of the stuff that’s on Youtube just…doesn’t need to be hauled out of the slush pile to build something thriving.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      Oh sure, almost all of it. But that doesn’t make things any easier to operate - it leaves you with basically 2 options:

      1. Manually review every submitted video - which is literally thousands of individual video files per minute - so you need a massive staff of people who are paid to sit and watch absolute trash for their entire workday and then decide what is and isn’t worth watching for other people - which is censorship - so not only are you incurring a massive operating cost but you also have to write some standard policy to handle the ethical issues of potentially suppressing free expression, and hopefully come up with some consistent guidelines you can get all of your employees to understand and follow (vs. just using their own individual personal judgement on what videos are good or not - imagine the proverbial Karen as a YouTube censor). A lot of those people are also going to end up watching some terrible shit and require long-term support for PTSD.

      2. Automatically evaluate every submitted video with software - again thousands of videos per minute, and you want a software system that not only recognizes offensive material (within cultural context) but also can make value judgements about whether a video is “low-effort garbage” - which is such a vague concept that if you asked ten people you would get thirty different answers. Plus you also need to build an entire secondary server farm that doesn’t help you store or stream the video content, but just watches and evaluates every uploaded video, and probably runs some kind of incredibly energy-intensive AI model to do it.

      YouTube is of course implementing versions of both, and also relying on end-users to report bad content that slips through.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        8 days ago

        That’s assuming a centralized, non-federated platform like Youtube. We’re talking about Peertube and how it may have to run differently from Youtube in order to function. I think Peertube could, as an overall platform, accept less crap than Youtube kinda has to. And I think it would be done by moderating who gets to post on which instance.

        Take MakerTube for example. It’s a themed instance, they are only open to uploaders who do something arty and/or crafty. You have to apply for an account there, and if you want to post space documentaries, they’ll probably suggest you go somewhere else. That right there takes a lot of burden off of MakerTube’s admins for moderation. I’m imagining a few dozen other themed instances that operate similarly, for video game related content, science communication and infotainment, music, sports, whatever.

        Some stuff I’m pretty sure everyone will agree we can just…not do on Peertube:

        • shorts that are just 1 or 2 minute clips from movies or TV shows almost definitely not uploaded by the copyright owner. Official Fediverse answer: This is probably illegal, GTFO.
        • videos that are not intended by the uploader for public consumption. There are people who upload to Youtube and just keep videos private as a kind of cloud storage. Official Fediverse answer: Go to Best Buy and buy a hard disk you fuggin freeloader.
        • Product marketing or instructional videos. Concrete example: Dbrand (Canadian company selling vinyl wraps for phones and such) hosts their “how to install a skin on an iPhone 14” videos on Youtube. Official Fediverse answer: Host that shit on your own instance.
        • Automatically generated or AI brainrot slop, to include TTS robot reading Tumblr stories over some colorful video game footage: Official Fediverse answer: Host that shit on your own instance.
        • Already established creators with a decade of back catalog and likely a decent set of in-house infrastructure for video storage and editing: Strongly consider hosting your own instance please, or maybe contract with several friends in your specialty and go in together on an instance.
        • “Influencers” that do shit like “take a bath with 1 of every bath bomb sold by Candles N Such”: Host that shit on your own instance.
        • “Muh Free Speech” Host that shit on your own instance.
        • National propaganda, religious proselytizing or other scams: Go drown yourself in the toilet like the lump of shit you are.
        • Just a webcam pointed at something forever: Probably just don’t do that.

        At some point I think you can winnow it down to “Hey there’s a lot of good stuff on PeerTube” without allowing every shit for brains conspiracy theorist live stream in 4k until someone presses the report button.