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Videos until now were thought to be immutable. If someone removes a point of controversy from a video, a person linking to it as proof of that controversy sudde

Videos until now were thought to be immutable. If someone removes a point of controversy from a video, a person linking to it as proof of that controversy suddenly looks like a liar.

Crosseye_Jack 7y ago
Video has never been immutable. Video has been able to be edited long before YouTube. Same happened in traditional media where an inaccurate slide shown on lunchtime news would be corrected on the evening news. You want a more immutable source, archive the video and link to that. Same reason people archive other websites when wanting to link to something as “proof”. Because we know that the web server is not write once.
- ergothus 7y ago
  > Because we know that the web server is not write once. You know that. People don't. I dont particularly care if YouTube allows people to edit videos, but on anything with comments, allowing someone to know it was edited seems like good information management, and in this case, helps inform people not in tech that it is editable. The more obvious the indicator that it was edited, the more people will understand that it is an option.
- reificator 7y ago
  > Video has never been immutable. Video has been able to be edited long before YouTube. I think they're talking about the actual content hosted at a specific url, not just video editing in general.
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    Even that isn't immutable. e.g. the video of the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch was modified after the livestream while still claiming that it was a livestream from the original date
    - Fellshard 7y ago
      The /expectation/ of viewers and sharers of the content is that it is immutable. I think the argument is that the /expectation/ will need to shift unless proactive steps are taken to make certain guarantees about the nature of shared content. One compromise, for example, would be to force edited videos to be a new resource, instead of replacing the original.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Video on YouTube. Not video in general, of course. Sure, YouTube can do what they want, but if they do, it destroys something that is valuable about YouTube, which is that you can trust that the ratings and comments are about the video you are watching.
- _nalply 7y ago
  It's not the same. If I watch a video I know it might been have edited or deep-faked before it was uploaded. However it's somewhat surprising for me that it still can be edited after the upload. Good to know now.
mschuster91 7y ago
which is why it is sensible practice to download the youtube video in question, the original author could simply delete it anyways and you'd have the same problem. Maybe youtube could embed something like a signature in the video metadata so that a video file could be inspected for tampering?
- zamadatix 7y ago
  No need for a signature, just compare the hash.
  - ldjb 7y ago
    Firstly, YouTube don't tend to support downloading videos as raw video files. So it wouldn't really make sense for YouTube to provide a signature when you're not really supposed to be able to access a video file in the first place. This also wouldn't really work because a YouTube video isn't a single file. Videos are available in different qualities and formats. The video component tends to be separated from the audio component. If you want to combine them into a single file, you have to mux them. However, this process is not deterministic, so the resulting hash would differ depending on a multitude of factors.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > No need for a signature, just compare the hash. Then Youtube would have to publish the hashes for each and every file that they encode the source material to. Practically impossible and especially unverifiable if YouTube ever disappears (or the source gets deleted). A digital signature of the hash, embedded in the metadata and computed similarly to Reproducible Builds... doesn't take much space and especially only requires knowledge of the public key for verification.
- autoexec 7y ago
  > which is why it is sensible practice to download the youtube video in question this practice is quickly becoming a legal nightmare. Sites that let you download youtube videos are being taken down left and right these days with RIAA lawyers going after many of them for cash settlements. How soon before they go after projects like youtube-dl and other similar programs?
shawnz 7y ago
Then in this small window where people are unaware that it's possible to edit videos, they might have to take the time to explain that if they find themselves in such a situation. What's the big deal about that?
sytelus 7y ago
I would argue that immutability is a separate service. You can change a web page all you want that someone has linked to. Immutability is provided by services like the Internet Archive. It should be decoupled. YouTube's immutability had been very troublesome to me. For example, we create video for a research paper demo. Then we want to enhance it, add some more content but now we have to create entirely new link. But the old link is popular in social media and therefore people keep watching old version. For each new revision, link is outdated. How many times you have to keep telling people to update their bookmarks?
jolmg 7y ago
Same thing with websites in general.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
"Hi there! Lately, I've been speaking to $deity, and he told me the temperatures in Lissabon for the month of March, 2025, and I figured it might be fun to record that now, and if youtube is still around then, to see if this is real prophecy. So, on March 1st, at noon, it will be [-10][-9][-8][..][35][36][37][38][39][40] degrees Celsius, on March 2nd it will be [-10][-9][-8]..." Make it private to make sure the views stay below 100k, then edit as needed out anything but the correct temperatures, and spam it all over social media when the time comes. I couldn't think of good examples to do it with words, but there isn't much you couldn't do, given that videos can be 10 hours long. It's not like anyone would mind the jump cuts much, just put those everywhere else, too.
- Crosseye_Jack 7y ago
  When you change a YouTube video from private / unlisted to public it changes the published date. That is how people who release their videos early on patreon handle it and keep their comment sections from splintering, though sometimes they will keep the original private and upload a new video if the early birds on patreon spot a blinding mistake or suggest a better intro for example. It’s also how people can upload a video, let YouTube render it in all resolutions, check the video in private mode for encoding errors and then push the video public at a set time / date to fit in with their schedule. Jump cuts. Esp if you are filming yourself speaking into camera. If you are doing audio only it would work better. The reason it works with removing a segment is because you are removing content from an existing cut to another existing cut so it will feel much more seem less. Now if it wasn’t for the date changing when the privacy state of the video changes, why not record 100 takes, upload each and release the correct one and discard the rest. It would give a much more convincing video with no way to detect splices in the audio (a common way fake speed runs are detected) and no need to deal with YouTube’s video editor. What I mean is if you are going to have jump cuts right at the important part of the video people are going to call you out, if you have jump cuts throughout people are going to call you out. Something like this would just shine light on the video and people will start picking it apart like a badly knitted jumper. Also one of the first comments would be something along the lines of “nifty trick, now do it again?”.
  - 7y ago
64738 7y ago
The immutability illusion was busted for me when SpaceX edited one of their video live-streams. Their intent was harmless in that they corrected a split-screen that was showing the same camera feed in both windows, IIRC. However, when you visit that video's youtube page, the video date was listed as something like "Live-streamed on ...", with no note of it being edited. You are given the impression that what you are about to view is what was streamed, when it's not. The edited version is a better video, but don't tell me I'm watching the same thing as those who saw it live during the stream.
zapzupnz 7y ago
You have a lot of people giving you technical responses as to why immutability was always an illusion on the internet. They make good arguments. But that's just indicative of the HN bubble, being satisfied technically correct reasoning rather than examining the issue more holistically — that is, this question isn't about what is or was technically capable of being achieved but how regular people interpret these things. It is generally assumed that if something was updated, people should be made aware. Updated comments, updated news articles, updated anything, there is always some indication of an edit or update. Why should video be any different?

Videos until now were thought to be immutable. If someone removes a point of controversy from a video, a person linking to it as proof of that controversy suddenly looks like a liar.

Crosseye_Jack 7y ago

Video has never been immutable. Video has been able to be edited long before YouTube. Same happened in traditional media where an inaccurate slide shown on lunchtime news would be corrected on the evening news. You want a more immutable source, archive the video and link to that. Same reason people archive other websites when wanting to link to something as “proof”. Because we know that the web server is not write once.

ergothus 7y ago
> Because we know that the web server is not write once. You know that. People don't. I dont particularly care if YouTube allows people to edit videos, but on anything with comments, allowing someone to know it was edited seems like good information management, and in this case, helps inform people not in tech that it is editable. The more obvious the indicator that it was edited, the more people will understand that it is an option.
reificator 7y ago
> Video has never been immutable. Video has been able to be edited long before YouTube. I think they're talking about the actual content hosted at a specific url, not just video editing in general.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  Even that isn't immutable. e.g. the video of the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch was modified after the livestream while still claiming that it was a livestream from the original date
  - Fellshard 7y ago
    The /expectation/ of viewers and sharers of the content is that it is immutable. I think the argument is that the /expectation/ will need to shift unless proactive steps are taken to make certain guarantees about the nature of shared content. One compromise, for example, would be to force edited videos to be a new resource, instead of replacing the original.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
robbrown451 7y ago
Video on YouTube. Not video in general, of course. Sure, YouTube can do what they want, but if they do, it destroys something that is valuable about YouTube, which is that you can trust that the ratings and comments are about the video you are watching.
_nalply 7y ago
It's not the same. If I watch a video I know it might been have edited or deep-faked before it was uploaded. However it's somewhat surprising for me that it still can be edited after the upload. Good to know now.

mschuster91 7y ago

which is why it is sensible practice to download the youtube video in question, the original author could simply delete it anyways and you'd have the same problem. Maybe youtube could embed something like a signature in the video metadata so that a video file could be inspected for tampering?

zamadatix 7y ago
No need for a signature, just compare the hash.
- ldjb 7y ago
  Firstly, YouTube don't tend to support downloading videos as raw video files. So it wouldn't really make sense for YouTube to provide a signature when you're not really supposed to be able to access a video file in the first place. This also wouldn't really work because a YouTube video isn't a single file. Videos are available in different qualities and formats. The video component tends to be separated from the audio component. If you want to combine them into a single file, you have to mux them. However, this process is not deterministic, so the resulting hash would differ depending on a multitude of factors.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > No need for a signature, just compare the hash. Then Youtube would have to publish the hashes for each and every file that they encode the source material to. Practically impossible and especially unverifiable if YouTube ever disappears (or the source gets deleted). A digital signature of the hash, embedded in the metadata and computed similarly to Reproducible Builds... doesn't take much space and especially only requires knowledge of the public key for verification.
autoexec 7y ago
> which is why it is sensible practice to download the youtube video in question this practice is quickly becoming a legal nightmare. Sites that let you download youtube videos are being taken down left and right these days with RIAA lawyers going after many of them for cash settlements. How soon before they go after projects like youtube-dl and other similar programs?

shawnz 7y ago

Then in this small window where people are unaware that it's possible to edit videos, they might have to take the time to explain that if they find themselves in such a situation. What's the big deal about that?

sytelus 7y ago

I would argue that immutability is a separate service. You can change a web page all you want that someone has linked to. Immutability is provided by services like the Internet Archive. It should be decoupled. YouTube's immutability had been very troublesome to me. For example, we create video for a research paper demo. Then we want to enhance it, add some more content but now we have to create entirely new link. But the old link is popular in social media and therefore people keep watching old version. For each new revision, link is outdated. How many times you have to keep telling people to update their bookmarks?

jolmg 7y ago

Same thing with websites in general.

PavlovsCat 7y ago

"Hi there! Lately, I've been speaking to $deity, and he told me the temperatures in Lissabon for the month of March, 2025, and I figured it might be fun to record that now, and if youtube is still around then, to see if this is real prophecy. So, on March 1st, at noon, it will be [-10][-9][-8][..][35][36][37][38][39][40] degrees Celsius, on March 2nd it will be [-10][-9][-8]..." Make it private to make sure the views stay below 100k, then edit as needed out anything but the correct temperatures, and spam it all over social media when the time comes. I couldn't think of good examples to do it with words, but there isn't much you couldn't do, given that videos can be 10 hours long. It's not like anyone would mind the jump cuts much, just put those everywhere else, too.

Crosseye_Jack 7y ago
When you change a YouTube video from private / unlisted to public it changes the published date. That is how people who release their videos early on patreon handle it and keep their comment sections from splintering, though sometimes they will keep the original private and upload a new video if the early birds on patreon spot a blinding mistake or suggest a better intro for example. It’s also how people can upload a video, let YouTube render it in all resolutions, check the video in private mode for encoding errors and then push the video public at a set time / date to fit in with their schedule. Jump cuts. Esp if you are filming yourself speaking into camera. If you are doing audio only it would work better. The reason it works with removing a segment is because you are removing content from an existing cut to another existing cut so it will feel much more seem less. Now if it wasn’t for the date changing when the privacy state of the video changes, why not record 100 takes, upload each and release the correct one and discard the rest. It would give a much more convincing video with no way to detect splices in the audio (a common way fake speed runs are detected) and no need to deal with YouTube’s video editor. What I mean is if you are going to have jump cuts right at the important part of the video people are going to call you out, if you have jump cuts throughout people are going to call you out. Something like this would just shine light on the video and people will start picking it apart like a badly knitted jumper. Also one of the first comments would be something along the lines of “nifty trick, now do it again?”.
- 7y ago

64738 7y ago

The immutability illusion was busted for me when SpaceX edited one of their video live-streams. Their intent was harmless in that they corrected a split-screen that was showing the same camera feed in both windows, IIRC. However, when you visit that video's youtube page, the video date was listed as something like "Live-streamed on ...", with no note of it being edited. You are given the impression that what you are about to view is what was streamed, when it's not. The edited version is a better video, but don't tell me I'm watching the same thing as those who saw it live during the stream.

zapzupnz 7y ago

You have a lot of people giving you technical responses as to why immutability was always an illusion on the internet. They make good arguments. But that's just indicative of the HN bubble, being satisfied technically correct reasoning rather than examining the issue more holistically — that is, this question isn't about what is or was technically capable of being achieved but how regular people interpret these things. It is generally assumed that if something was updated, people should be made aware. Updated comments, updated news articles, updated anything, there is always some indication of an edit or update. Why should video be any different?