26 ms·

I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

655 points by AlexeyBrin 6y ago

hysan 6y ago
Not surprising given what other creators have said about YouTube’s “moderation” system. I watch this channel regularly and am posting in hopes that this gets enough publicity that someone from Google steps in. It’s sadly the only way for these issues to get resolved.
Findeton 6y ago
I keep reading these horror stories about YouTube. It must really suck, as there are alternatives, but they just don't have the audience YouTube has. I guess there just isn't much we can do about this apart from hosting elsewhere when necessary?
- probably_wrong 6y ago
  My personal, non-Toutuber theory is that people should use YouTube as a promotion channel, but have your main presence elsewhere: make your own website your hub, use Patreon as your main income, and post copies to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitch, pretty much wherever you can. That way, if you lose one channel you don't lose your followers, and you can take your time to deal with getting your channel back. And you still get the benefits of YouTube's reach.
  - dx87 6y ago
    I've started to notice a lot of youtube channels I watch do that. They'll put 5-10 minute videos on youtube, and the full length version of those videos are on their personal websites, and more in-depth videos are exclusive to patreon subscribers.
    - vb6sp6 6y ago
      I'm hoping this will improve the quality of videos too. So many videos are just filler trying to hit that 10 minute mark.
  - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
    Unfortunately, if you want to monetize your Youtube, Twitch, or other videos, the partner agreements on those platforms explicitly forbid uploading the same content to other video sites within certain time periods or posting videos on one platform to send users to your preferred platform. In particular, I know that you have to wait at least 24 hours after a Twitch stream to upload the VOD to Youtube, you can't co-stream simultaneously or upload immediately after streaming and retain your Twitch partnership, and Youtube has killed channels for posting 30-second "I'm going live on Twitch in 5 minutes" notifications (Twitch notifications are notoriously broken). If your income is through advertisements monetizing video views that won't work. I agree, though, that a website with merchandise (depending on the channel) or a Patreon, distributing your video hosting across platforms, is probably the safest way to go.
    - sildur 6y ago
      They could post a free teaser in YouTube with a link to their main platform.
      - rasz 6y ago
        Against YT tos, Linustechtips got channel blocked for it once.
        xingyzt 6y ago
        How would that apply to movie trailers?
        throw_m239339 6y ago
        There is obviously different rules for big Hollywood players vs small youtubers, since YouTube also sells their movies in VOD, if you know what I mean. I mean that's already the case regarding copyright strikes where big corps, music labels and Hollywood can abuse the YouTube copyright system without any repercussion whatsoever. All YouTube channels aren't equal.
        6y ago
- StreamBright 6y ago
  I guess it is changing after Joe Rogan is moving to Spotify. He has a point.
  - elicash 6y ago
    Weirdly enough, Spotify's goal is to scoop up all the money that's currently going directly to podcasters by making the advertising market more efficient. They want to enjoy the type of monopoly that Facebook/Google/Amazon currently have online, except in the podcast space.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Oh well, podcasts had a good run.
      - bencollier49 6y ago
        Switch to Napster. I did, for this reason, and I'm very happy I did.
        throwanem 6y ago
        How does that help prevent podcasts going Spotify-exclusive and ceasing to be podcasts?
        bencollier49 6y ago
        By ceasing to give Spotify the money they're using to buy them out, and declining to allow them to be a central platform monopolist.
        throwanem 6y ago
        It never gets old, seeing people assume I must necessarily use the same monopolistic platforms I despise for their constant encroachment upon and enclosure of what were once cultural commons, or that uncoordinated individual action can possibly suffice to counterbalance such concentrations of power. As long as it remains useful to preserve the appearance of competition in the streaming audio market, Napster will continue to exist. Enjoy it while it lasts.
- abledon 6y ago
  well, it seemed like it was due to abuse w/ a botnet making a bunch of community guideline claims. I'm sure youtube will patch their codebase better.
- int_19h 6y ago
  We could give teeth back to our anti-trust enforcement, for starters. That would ensure that there's more viable alternatives. Notice that I'm saying "give back". That's because it was deliberately gutted: https://promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathered-the-new-gilded-age/ https://promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathered-th... Imagine, instead, if we applied the same norms to establish "market dominance" as the court did in this case from 1961: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/294/#tab-opinion-1943877 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/294/#tab-opi...
- sergiotapia 6y ago
  https://lbry.tv/ https://lbry.tv/ - they also recently launched paid videos, so you can get paid if you make premium content.
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    Why lbry instead of peertube?
scottlawson 6y ago
I think this is called extortion, not blackmail.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  You are correct. Blackmail would involve threatening to expose some sort of negative info about the YouTuber.
- dificilis 6y ago
  The official Hacker News headline-fixing person needs to fix this right now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Freeboots 6y ago
  Right?! This annoyed the hell out of me when i saw the vid on youtube. It sucks his videos are getting taken down, but to my mind he loses intergity by playing it up as blackmail. Extortion is bad enough, why not call it like it is?
  - catalogia 6y ago
    You perceive one to be dramatically worse than the other? I don't.. I don't think he's using incorrect terminology to play up the severity of what happened. It's more likely he simply made a mistake.
  - meowface 6y ago
    Extortion is a worse crime than blackmail generally, in my opinion, ethically speaking. Extortion is using one's power and force to threaten harm to someone in some way if not paid, while blackmail is using knowledge of information to do the same. Extortion is the more "violent" and violating act. Either way, they're pretty similar, though Your post is extremely confusing and bizarre to me.
jimbob45 6y ago
Yeah, our copyright laws are absurd but how do you change them when we spent the tariff wars forcing other countries to adopt US copyright laws? How could we go back now?
- newacct583 6y ago
  There's no copyright claim involved here. The complaint process being abused was an anticircumvention thing. Now, you can argue that those anticircumvention laws exist in service to the existing copyright regime, sure. But those aren't the laws we forced other countries to adopt.
- wmf 6y ago
  Many of YouTube's policies aren't required by law.
gkoberger 6y ago
This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge porn is left up. YouTube is doing it's best to blend automation (fast but inaccurate) with human curation (more thoughtful but slower), and sometimes it gets it wrong. I feel like most of the time I see posts like this, the situation is resolved favorably and relatively quickly. YouTube is dealing with two opposing issues, and is constantly doing its best to find a fair middle ground. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316660
- bsder 6y ago
  > This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. Of their own making. It's solvable. You throw humans at it. If Google can't deal with this then they shouldn't be allowed to collect money by running ads. Problem solved. And other sites will spring up that might actually be willing to deal with the problem correctly because now YouTube isn't a monopoly anymore. Google (and others) are going to continue to be shit until we hit them with anti-trust actions and big fines. Until then, this is all just a cost of doing business and they will laugh all the way to the bank.
  - elicash 6y ago
    I favor splitting up tech companies (see my comment above). The one counter-argument I do find interesting, however, is that YouTube BECAUSE of their monopoly status is able to throw far more resources into this than others sites do. We don't notice it on those other sites because (a) far fewer people are making a living there, and (b) they aren't targeted the way YouTube is targeted. But that nevertheless, that monopoly is the only reason they are able to do as good a job as they do. And even if there was tons of competition and you lowered the stakes of getting booted, starting at zero followers on another site isn't exactly lowering the stakes to a point where it doesn't matter that you got the boot. I still say split up tech companies. That said, so many industries have monopoly issues and rather than getting 90% of the attention tech companies should probably get more like 10%.
jandrese 6y ago
It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button. Even if 90% of the moderators would get it right eventually your video is going to be down for good. Even humans make mistakes sometimes, so human-in-the-loop isn't a perfect solution. The thing that really doesn't make sense to me is that when a moderator marks a claim as invalid it doesn't switch the automod system to requiring the moderator to review the claim before taking the video down. Ideally you'd like that to be the case for all videos, but presumably that would anger the media cartels that dictated the requirements for the system and just want a way to do mass takedowns that doesn't cost them lawyer hours or have the potential of consequences for them.
- the_af 6y ago
  > It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button. This is exactly what happens. At least, with Facebook. It's not that pranksters or trolls can flag your post/account/page and have it automatically blocked or banned; it's that eventually one of the human reviewers will make a mistake. I've seen it happen more than once and the only way to appeal was through back channels (i.e. via a friend working for Facebook).
- pxtail 6y ago
  Would be pretty interesting if some moderators (who are probably residents of low wage countries) not just simply "guess wrong" but are part of the scheme and mark some videos on purpose.
  - donkeyd 6y ago
    I feel like this is too deep into the conspiracy domain. There are so many videos and moderators, that, of course, there's assholes in there. But the chance that this one specific video ends up on the task queue of the fraudulent moderator just seems too low to be a feasible strategy.
- bcoates 6y ago
CryoLogic 6y ago
DevFactor (https://youtube.com/devfactor https://youtube.com/devfactor) was shut down several years ago due to a similar issue with automated copyright trolling that took YouTube about 3 months to fix per time it happened.
panzagl 6y ago
Is there a legitimate, distinct, unique use case for cryptocurrency to weigh against it's use as an enabler for extortion??
- ericflo 6y ago
  It's in the post - the author was able to put the taken-down video back up on lbry.tv, which is a cryptocurrency-based decentralized media platform.
  - panzagl 6y ago
    But he could have put it on Vimeo as well.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Ew.
    - Tepix 6y ago
      Perhaps he liked the monetization on libry more.
  - nikanj 6y ago
    How does that even work? I think just the payment system on that media platform is crypto based. I've never heard of content-hosting on the block chain?
    - boomlinde 6y ago
      I assume something like IPFS pinning in exchange for crypto money
- vageli 6y ago
  The ability to transact anonymously online shouldn't be understated.
  - 6y ago
whotheffknows 6y ago
Hi so this is illegal. Call the FBI. Extortion and coercion are felonies in all 50 states.
- WantonQuantum 6y ago
  Can the FBI do anything if the culprit is not in the US?
  - Natsu 6y ago
    Sort of... sometimes they will lure them to the USA or catch them while they're here if the victim has enough clout. Some here may remember when the FBI arrested Dmitry Sklyarov, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      Not for an individual, they won't. They don't work for you.
- philpem 6y ago
  "Hello, FBI? This random guy on the Internet is extorting me." FBI: 'Go away and come back when you have a name and address, and can prove the guy is under our jurisdiction.'
  - sircastor 6y ago
    Fortunately the FBI doesn't dismiss illegal activities of you lack this kind of information. They will investigate and can arrest individuals on US soil as well as consenting countries. Additionally a country's own law enforcement may cooperate and the perpetrators can be extradited for trial.
damm 6y ago
YouTube isn't even trying to protect the creators here. You could make excuses about how they have to review each claim to ensure it's valid bases on the DMCA or some interpretation of the DMCA. Having said this I have watched prominent channels get hacked and spread Binance (bitcoin) videos all their content deleted. After 90 days YouTube finally stepped in and stopped the hacker and very slowly restored some of the content. Kind of super thankful I am not a YouTube Creator because having my channel hacked and my content deleted would be very hard to deal with.
causality0 6y ago
Google has an absolute fetish for making the ratio of profit to employees as large as possible. They will do it at any cost. There is no Google service without horrific customer support. Youtube, Google Fiber, Google Fi, doesn't matter. They refuse to accept that having 2x as many customers requires 2x as many support personnel.
- op00to 6y ago
  Support scales linearly only if you don’t do anything to work smarter. Maybe your product sucks so much that every customer needs to interact with support to get things to work. Maybe you don’t have the right resources for customers to self solve. Hiring your way out of a support problem rarely ends well.
  - causality0 6y ago
    Funny thing is, support scales nonlinearly only while you're fixing those problems. At both ends of the spectrum it goes linear again. If you've done nothing it's linear, and after you've done everything possible it's also linear. Google is convinced the number of required personnel is zero and in any situation it isn't zero it isn't their problem.
- downerending 6y ago
  Hard to convince a company to provide good service when they can make more money by not doing so.
  - xmprt 6y ago
    I'm not sure about that. It's pretty common knowledge that YouTube isn't the endgame for a lot of content creators. If instead, YouTube supported their users more (especially the larger ones) they would have potential to be in the loop for other services like livestreaming, merch, and donations instead of having creators resort to using services like Twitch, Squarespace, and Patreon.
    - 6y ago
unexaminedlife 6y ago
It seems an obvious solution would be to incorporate historical data into future decisions on whether to take down immediately vs take down after manual verification. If someone has been hit with these takedown requests over and over where the resolution was always to put it back up, what likelihood is there that future resolutions will be different? By standing by your content creators with a history of improper takedown requests you'll build brand loyalty. By making it just as difficult on content creators the 100th time as the first time makes me think YouTube isn't going to be the "platform of the future" for content creators.
- Andrex 6y ago
  This is how I naively assumed it worked back in the day and was constantly perplexed by how much trouble TeamFourStar would get into with seemingly every new upload.
ykevinator 6y ago
Oh no, not another youtuber, what if they have to get jobs?
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
Some comments/ideas/takeaways: 1) According to this video, it is very easy for some troll living in another country, who has a bot network, to extort money from YouTube creators by gaming YouTube's takedown request system: "I'll get your video taken down unless you pay me" (Sounds a whole lot like patent trolls -- but applied to videos). 2) YouTube (or any other video sharing site, present or future), should conduct a thorough investigation as to how their system for user requested takedowns -- could be gamed by bot networks / multiple phony user accounts requesting takedowns -- and what could be done about it, using what happened here as a baseline for that investigation. Note that this also applies to non-video sharing sites where user takedowns can be requested, i.e., craigslist -- if that process is automated in any way, it should be thought about from the perspective of "how do we protect against swarms of automated bots / fake user accounts, requesting takedowns?" 3) Any ML/AI algorithm that is used in the takedown determination process should consider the reputation of the user whose videos are being requested to be taken down. This includes such things as 'how long has the user been a user', how many other videos have they uploaded, how many likes they've received over the years, how many video views, and how many real legitimate complaints, verified by an actual YouTube human staffer -- have occurred on that account over the years (feeding that data in only after human YouTube staffer review, etc.) 4) It wouldn't be a bad idea (if YouTube is short of staff), to create another tier of users, "review users", that is, these users would be / could be called upon to review content that was flagged for removal/deletion for one reason or another. If enough "review users" (randomly selected) collectively vote that the content should be removed, THEN and only then it gets queued for a human being staffer at YouTube for final review... otherwise it's not banned, and sticks around... but this would hopefully save a lot of work for human YouTube staffers -- much in the same way automated voice assistants do for human telephone operators or receptionists... any AI/ML algorithms could be the gatekeeper for this tier of users; if the AI/ML has a problem with the content -- escalate it to this tier of users for further review... 5) To implement #4, User accounts, agreements, and YouTube's suggestion algorithm -- would have to be modified (basically you're adding another user account type and another agreement type) to support the functionality. 6) No matter how great YouTube is, it's a human created system like all others, and as such, subject to failure. As the old expression, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket" goes, similarly: Don't host all of your videos on one and only one video hosting site. Just like you wouldn't store your important files in one location only, without making/having backups...
nineparts 6y ago
With every new "takedown" please refer back to past reinstatements by Youtube. That's all I can contribute from my experience. Good luck!
Animats 6y ago
This is extortion. Did Google disclose to you the identity of the party who sent the takedown notice. If not, a lawyer might be able to help here. You have a good case against the other party for extortion, and a weak case against Google for assisting them. There's a strong legal incentive here for Google to disclose the name of the other party, if they are being difficult about doing so. DMCA notices can't be anonymous.
- bencollier49 6y ago
  Is a circumvention of technology claim part of the DMCA?
  - Animats 6y ago
    Yes. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A).
    - bencollier49 6y ago
      Thanks
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  >You have a good case against the other party for extortion Doesn't really help when the other party is clearly a child with no money.
madsbuch 6y ago
It seems like we are seeing the limit of "infinitely scaling business models". It is definitely going to be interesting to see what the future of content distribution / monetization brings!
qqj 6y ago
It used to be that everyone on the internet were a Dog, nowadays it seems like the internet became a cesspool of stagnant hyper centralized services catering to the lowest common denominator (twitter, youtube, linkedin, facebook) with morally bankrupt somali-pirate types circling around them like vultures. In the old days griefing was done for the lulz. Today it's done out of malice, or worse, out of greed.
Tepix 6y ago
Perhaps takedown requests should be accompanied by a fee: If the request is successfully appealed, the fee is kept. If not, it is returned.
- unnouinceput 6y ago
  Same problem only this time you'll leverage rich vs. poor while Internet is suppose to be the great equalizer.
trianx 6y ago
Just want to stress, that the root of the problem is the evil extortionist, not Google. Google can and will try to do a better job, but as long as such people are around (i.e. forever) those problems will persist.
Simon_says 6y ago
I'm sorry. I didn't really understand what was happening. What's the mechanism by which the attacker convinces Youtube to take down this guy's video?
jschuur 6y ago
I'm not discounting that this was an annoying ordeal for this channel to go through, but if this is so easy, why don't professional criminals go after huge channels and take them down as easily? There might be some subscriber count threshold or partner status that, once crossed, flags extra steps that mean a new violation is escalated for a closer look first?
- slightwinder 6y ago
  How do you know they are not doing that already?
  - jschuur 6y ago
    Because MKBHD isn’t tweeting about this all the time.
Communitivity 6y ago
You can also mirror on PeerTube, https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/. PeerTube is a more distributed clone of YouTube, and this site explains what it is well: https://framablog.org/2019/11/12/peertube-has-worked-twice-as-hard-to-free-your-videos-from-youtube/ https://framablog.org/2019/11/12/peertube-has-worked-twice-a.... Technology used includes a HLS video player, and WebTorrent. Like Mastodon it also uses the ActivityPub protocol.
- XCSme 6y ago
  PeerTube sounds interesting, but going to their website I am lost. Why all those promotional videos and descriptions and confusing links? I expected to just see the videos in their directory and be able to search for videos, something like the YouTube interface. And I'm a technical user, I imagine the average user would close the page instantly.
  - LockAndLol 6y ago
    Think of it as email: Peertube = email software In order to have an email account you don't go to "email.com", you have to go to an email service provider. Peertube works in the same way so they have a list of providers: https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances If you can understand email, you can understand peertube.
    - XCSme 6y ago
      So the site is mostly promoting the technology, right? Is there any popular platform that uses PeerTube and actually has interesting or exclusive content?
      - LockAndLol 6y ago
        If you want to think of it as promotion, yeah. You check out the promoted content. It actually has a list of instances too where you can watch videos. I'd suggest picking one and simply having a look.
chamakits 6y ago
More incredible is that they don’t seem to have a system for “this account is being actively targeted” because even after this somewhat public attack and “fix”, the same creator just got attacked again with the same thing on another video. Tweet 4 hours ago from that creator: https://mobile.twitter.com/gamefromscratch/status/1265579494217265153 https://mobile.twitter.com/gamefromscratch/status/1265579494...
kelvin0 6y ago
In case of a popular channel: maybe the subscribers to a channel could be 'polled' in order to vet a channel's content? If the majority of subscriber's vote confirms the content then the channel owner could be given a 2nd chance? Just an idea off the top of my bald head.
savingGrace 6y ago
What are the reasons the creator could not just re-upload the video as a new video? I don't use Youtube as a creator, so I can only guess. Links to it from outside of Youtube? 'Millions of views' type of stuff? Ad revenue? Getting their account perma-banned?
unethical_ban 6y ago
After a video has been reviewed by a moderator on appeal, why isn't a block on new reports put on it? If, say, they can tell that a video hasn't been altered since the last time it was looked at, why aren't things disabled after initial flagging and review? "Malicious actors reports, and Youtube bots autoremoved, my video four times" should not be possible.

655 points by AlexeyBrin 6y ago

Not surprising given what other creators have said about YouTube’s “moderation” system. I watch this channel regularly and am posting in hopes that this gets enough publicity that someone from Google steps in. It’s sadly the only way for these issues to get resolved.

Findeton 6y ago

I keep reading these horror stories about YouTube. It must really suck, as there are alternatives, but they just don't have the audience YouTube has. I guess there just isn't much we can do about this apart from hosting elsewhere when necessary?

probably_wrong 6y ago
My personal, non-Toutuber theory is that people should use YouTube as a promotion channel, but have your main presence elsewhere: make your own website your hub, use Patreon as your main income, and post copies to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitch, pretty much wherever you can. That way, if you lose one channel you don't lose your followers, and you can take your time to deal with getting your channel back. And you still get the benefits of YouTube's reach.
- dx87 6y ago
  I've started to notice a lot of youtube channels I watch do that. They'll put 5-10 minute videos on youtube, and the full length version of those videos are on their personal websites, and more in-depth videos are exclusive to patreon subscribers.
  - vb6sp6 6y ago
    I'm hoping this will improve the quality of videos too. So many videos are just filler trying to hit that 10 minute mark.
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  Unfortunately, if you want to monetize your Youtube, Twitch, or other videos, the partner agreements on those platforms explicitly forbid uploading the same content to other video sites within certain time periods or posting videos on one platform to send users to your preferred platform. In particular, I know that you have to wait at least 24 hours after a Twitch stream to upload the VOD to Youtube, you can't co-stream simultaneously or upload immediately after streaming and retain your Twitch partnership, and Youtube has killed channels for posting 30-second "I'm going live on Twitch in 5 minutes" notifications (Twitch notifications are notoriously broken). If your income is through advertisements monetizing video views that won't work. I agree, though, that a website with merchandise (depending on the channel) or a Patreon, distributing your video hosting across platforms, is probably the safest way to go.
  - sildur 6y ago
    They could post a free teaser in YouTube with a link to their main platform.
    - rasz 6y ago
      Against YT tos, Linustechtips got channel blocked for it once.
      - xingyzt 6y ago
        How would that apply to movie trailers?
        throw_m239339 6y ago
        There is obviously different rules for big Hollywood players vs small youtubers, since YouTube also sells their movies in VOD, if you know what I mean. I mean that's already the case regarding copyright strikes where big corps, music labels and Hollywood can abuse the YouTube copyright system without any repercussion whatsoever. All YouTube channels aren't equal.
      - 6y ago
StreamBright 6y ago
I guess it is changing after Joe Rogan is moving to Spotify. He has a point.
- elicash 6y ago
  Weirdly enough, Spotify's goal is to scoop up all the money that's currently going directly to podcasters by making the advertising market more efficient. They want to enjoy the type of monopoly that Facebook/Google/Amazon currently have online, except in the podcast space.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Oh well, podcasts had a good run.
    - bencollier49 6y ago
      Switch to Napster. I did, for this reason, and I'm very happy I did.
      - throwanem 6y ago
        How does that help prevent podcasts going Spotify-exclusive and ceasing to be podcasts?
        bencollier49 6y ago
        By ceasing to give Spotify the money they're using to buy them out, and declining to allow them to be a central platform monopolist.
        throwanem 6y ago
        It never gets old, seeing people assume I must necessarily use the same monopolistic platforms I despise for their constant encroachment upon and enclosure of what were once cultural commons, or that uncoordinated individual action can possibly suffice to counterbalance such concentrations of power. As long as it remains useful to preserve the appearance of competition in the streaming audio market, Napster will continue to exist. Enjoy it while it lasts.
abledon 6y ago
well, it seemed like it was due to abuse w/ a botnet making a bunch of community guideline claims. I'm sure youtube will patch their codebase better.
int_19h 6y ago
We could give teeth back to our anti-trust enforcement, for starters. That would ensure that there's more viable alternatives. Notice that I'm saying "give back". That's because it was deliberately gutted: https://promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathered-the-new-gilded-age/ https://promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathered-th... Imagine, instead, if we applied the same norms to establish "market dominance" as the court did in this case from 1961: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/294/#tab-opinion-1943877 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/294/#tab-opi...
sergiotapia 6y ago
https://lbry.tv/ https://lbry.tv/ - they also recently launched paid videos, so you can get paid if you make premium content.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  Why lbry instead of peertube?

scottlawson 6y ago

I think this is called extortion, not blackmail.

jaywalk 6y ago
You are correct. Blackmail would involve threatening to expose some sort of negative info about the YouTuber.
dificilis 6y ago
The official Hacker News headline-fixing person needs to fix this right now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Freeboots 6y ago
Right?! This annoyed the hell out of me when i saw the vid on youtube. It sucks his videos are getting taken down, but to my mind he loses intergity by playing it up as blackmail. Extortion is bad enough, why not call it like it is?
- catalogia 6y ago
  You perceive one to be dramatically worse than the other? I don't.. I don't think he's using incorrect terminology to play up the severity of what happened. It's more likely he simply made a mistake.
- meowface 6y ago
  Extortion is a worse crime than blackmail generally, in my opinion, ethically speaking. Extortion is using one's power and force to threaten harm to someone in some way if not paid, while blackmail is using knowledge of information to do the same. Extortion is the more "violent" and violating act. Either way, they're pretty similar, though Your post is extremely confusing and bizarre to me.

jimbob45 6y ago

Yeah, our copyright laws are absurd but how do you change them when we spent the tariff wars forcing other countries to adopt US copyright laws? How could we go back now?

newacct583 6y ago
There's no copyright claim involved here. The complaint process being abused was an anticircumvention thing. Now, you can argue that those anticircumvention laws exist in service to the existing copyright regime, sure. But those aren't the laws we forced other countries to adopt.
wmf 6y ago
Many of YouTube's policies aren't required by law.

gkoberger 6y ago

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge porn is left up. YouTube is doing it's best to blend automation (fast but inaccurate) with human curation (more thoughtful but slower), and sometimes it gets it wrong. I feel like most of the time I see posts like this, the situation is resolved favorably and relatively quickly. YouTube is dealing with two opposing issues, and is constantly doing its best to find a fair middle ground. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316660

bsder 6y ago
> This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. Of their own making. It's solvable. You throw humans at it. If Google can't deal with this then they shouldn't be allowed to collect money by running ads. Problem solved. And other sites will spring up that might actually be willing to deal with the problem correctly because now YouTube isn't a monopoly anymore. Google (and others) are going to continue to be shit until we hit them with anti-trust actions and big fines. Until then, this is all just a cost of doing business and they will laugh all the way to the bank.
- elicash 6y ago
  I favor splitting up tech companies (see my comment above). The one counter-argument I do find interesting, however, is that YouTube BECAUSE of their monopoly status is able to throw far more resources into this than others sites do. We don't notice it on those other sites because (a) far fewer people are making a living there, and (b) they aren't targeted the way YouTube is targeted. But that nevertheless, that monopoly is the only reason they are able to do as good a job as they do. And even if there was tons of competition and you lowered the stakes of getting booted, starting at zero followers on another site isn't exactly lowering the stakes to a point where it doesn't matter that you got the boot. I still say split up tech companies. That said, so many industries have monopoly issues and rather than getting 90% of the attention tech companies should probably get more like 10%.

jandrese 6y ago

It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button. Even if 90% of the moderators would get it right eventually your video is going to be down for good. Even humans make mistakes sometimes, so human-in-the-loop isn't a perfect solution. The thing that really doesn't make sense to me is that when a moderator marks a claim as invalid it doesn't switch the automod system to requiring the moderator to review the claim before taking the video down. Ideally you'd like that to be the case for all videos, but presumably that would anger the media cartels that dictated the requirements for the system and just want a way to do mass takedowns that doesn't cost them lawyer hours or have the potential of consequences for them.

the_af 6y ago
> It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button. This is exactly what happens. At least, with Facebook. It's not that pranksters or trolls can flag your post/account/page and have it automatically blocked or banned; it's that eventually one of the human reviewers will make a mistake. I've seen it happen more than once and the only way to appeal was through back channels (i.e. via a friend working for Facebook).
pxtail 6y ago
Would be pretty interesting if some moderators (who are probably residents of low wage countries) not just simply "guess wrong" but are part of the scheme and mark some videos on purpose.
- donkeyd 6y ago
  I feel like this is too deep into the conspiracy domain. There are so many videos and moderators, that, of course, there's assholes in there. But the chance that this one specific video ends up on the task queue of the fraudulent moderator just seems too low to be a feasible strategy.
bcoates 6y ago

CryoLogic 6y ago

DevFactor (https://youtube.com/devfactor https://youtube.com/devfactor) was shut down several years ago due to a similar issue with automated copyright trolling that took YouTube about 3 months to fix per time it happened.

panzagl 6y ago

Is there a legitimate, distinct, unique use case for cryptocurrency to weigh against it's use as an enabler for extortion??

ericflo 6y ago
It's in the post - the author was able to put the taken-down video back up on lbry.tv, which is a cryptocurrency-based decentralized media platform.
- panzagl 6y ago
  But he could have put it on Vimeo as well.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Ew.
  - Tepix 6y ago
    Perhaps he liked the monetization on libry more.
- nikanj 6y ago
  How does that even work? I think just the payment system on that media platform is crypto based. I've never heard of content-hosting on the block chain?
  - boomlinde 6y ago
    I assume something like IPFS pinning in exchange for crypto money
vageli 6y ago
The ability to transact anonymously online shouldn't be understated.
- 6y ago

whotheffknows 6y ago

Hi so this is illegal. Call the FBI. Extortion and coercion are felonies in all 50 states.

WantonQuantum 6y ago
Can the FBI do anything if the culprit is not in the US?
- Natsu 6y ago
  Sort of... sometimes they will lure them to the USA or catch them while they're here if the victim has enough clout. Some here may remember when the FBI arrested Dmitry Sklyarov, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    Not for an individual, they won't. They don't work for you.
philpem 6y ago
"Hello, FBI? This random guy on the Internet is extorting me." FBI: 'Go away and come back when you have a name and address, and can prove the guy is under our jurisdiction.'
- sircastor 6y ago
  Fortunately the FBI doesn't dismiss illegal activities of you lack this kind of information. They will investigate and can arrest individuals on US soil as well as consenting countries. Additionally a country's own law enforcement may cooperate and the perpetrators can be extradited for trial.

damm 6y ago

YouTube isn't even trying to protect the creators here. You could make excuses about how they have to review each claim to ensure it's valid bases on the DMCA or some interpretation of the DMCA. Having said this I have watched prominent channels get hacked and spread Binance (bitcoin) videos all their content deleted. After 90 days YouTube finally stepped in and stopped the hacker and very slowly restored some of the content. Kind of super thankful I am not a YouTube Creator because having my channel hacked and my content deleted would be very hard to deal with.

causality0 6y ago

Google has an absolute fetish for making the ratio of profit to employees as large as possible. They will do it at any cost. There is no Google service without horrific customer support. Youtube, Google Fiber, Google Fi, doesn't matter. They refuse to accept that having 2x as many customers requires 2x as many support personnel.

op00to 6y ago
Support scales linearly only if you don’t do anything to work smarter. Maybe your product sucks so much that every customer needs to interact with support to get things to work. Maybe you don’t have the right resources for customers to self solve. Hiring your way out of a support problem rarely ends well.
- causality0 6y ago
  Funny thing is, support scales nonlinearly only while you're fixing those problems. At both ends of the spectrum it goes linear again. If you've done nothing it's linear, and after you've done everything possible it's also linear. Google is convinced the number of required personnel is zero and in any situation it isn't zero it isn't their problem.
downerending 6y ago
Hard to convince a company to provide good service when they can make more money by not doing so.
- xmprt 6y ago
  I'm not sure about that. It's pretty common knowledge that YouTube isn't the endgame for a lot of content creators. If instead, YouTube supported their users more (especially the larger ones) they would have potential to be in the loop for other services like livestreaming, merch, and donations instead of having creators resort to using services like Twitch, Squarespace, and Patreon.
  - 6y ago

unexaminedlife 6y ago

It seems an obvious solution would be to incorporate historical data into future decisions on whether to take down immediately vs take down after manual verification. If someone has been hit with these takedown requests over and over where the resolution was always to put it back up, what likelihood is there that future resolutions will be different? By standing by your content creators with a history of improper takedown requests you'll build brand loyalty. By making it just as difficult on content creators the 100th time as the first time makes me think YouTube isn't going to be the "platform of the future" for content creators.

Andrex 6y ago
This is how I naively assumed it worked back in the day and was constantly perplexed by how much trouble TeamFourStar would get into with seemingly every new upload.

ykevinator 6y ago

Oh no, not another youtuber, what if they have to get jobs?

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

Some comments/ideas/takeaways: 1) According to this video, it is very easy for some troll living in another country, who has a bot network, to extort money from YouTube creators by gaming YouTube's takedown request system: "I'll get your video taken down unless you pay me" (Sounds a whole lot like patent trolls -- but applied to videos). 2) YouTube (or any other video sharing site, present or future), should conduct a thorough investigation as to how their system for user requested takedowns -- could be gamed by bot networks / multiple phony user accounts requesting takedowns -- and what could be done about it, using what happened here as a baseline for that investigation. Note that this also applies to non-video sharing sites where user takedowns can be requested, i.e., craigslist -- if that process is automated in any way, it should be thought about from the perspective of "how do we protect against swarms of automated bots / fake user accounts, requesting takedowns?" 3) Any ML/AI algorithm that is used in the takedown determination process should consider the reputation of the user whose videos are being requested to be taken down. This includes such things as 'how long has the user been a user', how many other videos have they uploaded, how many likes they've received over the years, how many video views, and how many real legitimate complaints, verified by an actual YouTube human staffer -- have occurred on that account over the years (feeding that data in only after human YouTube staffer review, etc.) 4) It wouldn't be a bad idea (if YouTube is short of staff), to create another tier of users, "review users", that is, these users would be / could be called upon to review content that was flagged for removal/deletion for one reason or another. If enough "review users" (randomly selected) collectively vote that the content should be removed, THEN and only then it gets queued for a human being staffer at YouTube for final review... otherwise it's not banned, and sticks around... but this would hopefully save a lot of work for human YouTube staffers -- much in the same way automated voice assistants do for human telephone operators or receptionists... any AI/ML algorithms could be the gatekeeper for this tier of users; if the AI/ML has a problem with the content -- escalate it to this tier of users for further review... 5) To implement #4, User accounts, agreements, and YouTube's suggestion algorithm -- would have to be modified (basically you're adding another user account type and another agreement type) to support the functionality. 6) No matter how great YouTube is, it's a human created system like all others, and as such, subject to failure. As the old expression, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket" goes, similarly: Don't host all of your videos on one and only one video hosting site. Just like you wouldn't store your important files in one location only, without making/having backups...

nineparts 6y ago

With every new "takedown" please refer back to past reinstatements by Youtube. That's all I can contribute from my experience. Good luck!

Animats 6y ago

This is extortion. Did Google disclose to you the identity of the party who sent the takedown notice. If not, a lawyer might be able to help here. You have a good case against the other party for extortion, and a weak case against Google for assisting them. There's a strong legal incentive here for Google to disclose the name of the other party, if they are being difficult about doing so. DMCA notices can't be anonymous.

bencollier49 6y ago
Is a circumvention of technology claim part of the DMCA?
- Animats 6y ago
  Yes. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A).
  - bencollier49 6y ago
    Thanks
FDSGSG 6y ago
>You have a good case against the other party for extortion Doesn't really help when the other party is clearly a child with no money.

madsbuch 6y ago

It seems like we are seeing the limit of "infinitely scaling business models". It is definitely going to be interesting to see what the future of content distribution / monetization brings!

qqj 6y ago

It used to be that everyone on the internet were a Dog, nowadays it seems like the internet became a cesspool of stagnant hyper centralized services catering to the lowest common denominator (twitter, youtube, linkedin, facebook) with morally bankrupt somali-pirate types circling around them like vultures. In the old days griefing was done for the lulz. Today it's done out of malice, or worse, out of greed.

Tepix 6y ago

Perhaps takedown requests should be accompanied by a fee: If the request is successfully appealed, the fee is kept. If not, it is returned.

unnouinceput 6y ago
Same problem only this time you'll leverage rich vs. poor while Internet is suppose to be the great equalizer.

trianx 6y ago

Just want to stress, that the root of the problem is the evil extortionist, not Google. Google can and will try to do a better job, but as long as such people are around (i.e. forever) those problems will persist.

Simon_says 6y ago

I'm sorry. I didn't really understand what was happening. What's the mechanism by which the attacker convinces Youtube to take down this guy's video?

jschuur 6y ago

I'm not discounting that this was an annoying ordeal for this channel to go through, but if this is so easy, why don't professional criminals go after huge channels and take them down as easily? There might be some subscriber count threshold or partner status that, once crossed, flags extra steps that mean a new violation is escalated for a closer look first?

slightwinder 6y ago
How do you know they are not doing that already?
- jschuur 6y ago
  Because MKBHD isn’t tweeting about this all the time.

Communitivity 6y ago

You can also mirror on PeerTube, https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/. PeerTube is a more distributed clone of YouTube, and this site explains what it is well: https://framablog.org/2019/11/12/peertube-has-worked-twice-as-hard-to-free-your-videos-from-youtube/ https://framablog.org/2019/11/12/peertube-has-worked-twice-a.... Technology used includes a HLS video player, and WebTorrent. Like Mastodon it also uses the ActivityPub protocol.

XCSme 6y ago
PeerTube sounds interesting, but going to their website I am lost. Why all those promotional videos and descriptions and confusing links? I expected to just see the videos in their directory and be able to search for videos, something like the YouTube interface. And I'm a technical user, I imagine the average user would close the page instantly.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
  Think of it as email: Peertube = email software In order to have an email account you don't go to "email.com", you have to go to an email service provider. Peertube works in the same way so they have a list of providers: https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances https://instances.joinpeertube.org/instances If you can understand email, you can understand peertube.
  - XCSme 6y ago
    So the site is mostly promoting the technology, right? Is there any popular platform that uses PeerTube and actually has interesting or exclusive content?
    - LockAndLol 6y ago
      If you want to think of it as promotion, yeah. You check out the promoted content. It actually has a list of instances too where you can watch videos. I'd suggest picking one and simply having a look.

chamakits 6y ago

More incredible is that they don’t seem to have a system for “this account is being actively targeted” because even after this somewhat public attack and “fix”, the same creator just got attacked again with the same thing on another video. Tweet 4 hours ago from that creator: https://mobile.twitter.com/gamefromscratch/status/1265579494217265153 https://mobile.twitter.com/gamefromscratch/status/1265579494...

kelvin0 6y ago

In case of a popular channel: maybe the subscribers to a channel could be 'polled' in order to vet a channel's content? If the majority of subscriber's vote confirms the content then the channel owner could be given a 2nd chance? Just an idea off the top of my bald head.

savingGrace 6y ago

What are the reasons the creator could not just re-upload the video as a new video? I don't use Youtube as a creator, so I can only guess. Links to it from outside of Youtube? 'Millions of views' type of stuff? Ad revenue? Getting their account perma-banned?

unethical_ban 6y ago

After a video has been reviewed by a moderator on appeal, why isn't a block on new reports put on it? If, say, they can tell that a video hasn't been altered since the last time it was looked at, why aren't things disabled after initial flagging and review? "Malicious actors reports, and Youtube bots autoremoved, my video four times" should not be possible.