4 ms·

Google stifles YouTube competitor LBRY, banning it for pedantic reasons

131 points by kauffj 6y ago

dybber 6y ago
Here are the content policies: https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy/ https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy/ Perhaps someone should try and report apps from big national public service broadcasting stations (BBC, DR, NRK, SVT, etc). It shouldn't be hard to find some TV programmes on there that contains "sexual content and profanity". Reporting is done here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/contact/takedown https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/cont...
- voxic11 6y ago
  They also reserve the right to selectively enforce those provisions so don't expect any of those to actually be banned. Maybe your reports can be used as evidence in some future anti-trust trial though.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Report the apps then report your reports to the Attorney General in your state? Might help. Even some Democratic AGs are signing onto antitrust suits against google.
- erk__ 6y ago
  Not long ago they had removed the childrens TV app from DR because of similar reasons. I think some of the reasons were that there was a character who "smokes" a licorice pipes, and another who is a pirate that fights with ninjas. DR got the app back on there after its removal being condemned by MPs and ministers. It is annoyingly hard to find any good English articles about it but here is a Danish one https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/google-slettede-drs-app-til-boern-nu-boejer-techgiganten-sig https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/google-slettede-drs-app-til...
- vinay427 6y ago
  > big national public service broadcasting stations (BBC, DR, NRK, SVT, etc) Found the Scandinavian, I think! Because it's Google, NPR/PBS or even just Netflix would probably work even more efficiently.
mc32 6y ago
Really, because of spoof "nudity"? I mean, YT is full of actual nudity and more. So, when are they going to suspend themselves? Unlike Apple they can't even feign not being anti-competitive.
- dybber 6y ago
  Nudity can be allowed, if it's for educational purposes, there's a difference between content containing nudity and sexually gratifying content. Details are here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9878810 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... My guess is that some user reported it, and send in that screenshot, which has led to the ban. It's very hard to make decisions on stuff like this just from a single screenshot.
rvz 6y ago
At this point, Google is beyond reason and is openly hypocritical. Open source? Yes. Open platforms? No. Even if they are competing against YouTube. Netflix and Youtube has disgusting content if not the former is now worse than LBRY and Google still gave Netflix a pass. If LBRY had the same content as Netflix and YouTube, Google would choose to ban LBRY 10,000 over, with the same reason.
- eatbitseveryday 6y ago
  > Netflix and Youtube has disgusting content What?
  - fuzxi 6y ago
    Cuties.
    - charia 6y ago
      A tangent about Cuties, but felt like airing my thoughts on this somewhere. The outrage over Cuties is some of the weirdest situations of political/cultural toxoplasma I've seen. The movie has nothing that's considered abnormal to what pre-teens and teens are exposed and engage in modern western culture. Girls are exposed to the dances/ect that sexualize them everywhere from social media platforms (tiktok, ect) and in person (regular middle school/high school stuff). The dances in cuties are very meh in by those measurements. The movie tries to take a look at this, "norm," and displays something that's somewhat normal in a movie format. It's especially weird that the movie got it's backlash from conservatives b/c the message is arguably somewhat conservative. The story is a girl coming from a extremely conservative background embracing the supposedly pro-women modern liberal western culture. By showing this the character and the viewers question if modern western cultural attitudes to women and their sexualization is actually better than the treatment of women in conservative cultures. SPOILERS: It ends with the character embracing some sort of middle path that leaves you asking if that's even possible. Like if you believe in the backlash against Cuties and the sexualization of the kids in modern society, that backlash should be more directed a backlash against places like tiktok/ect that encourage pre-teens/teens to copy/perform sexualized dances for money/street cred.
mikecoles 6y ago
I'm hoping the 120KB/s speed I'm getting while downloading the client is because they're getting swamped by new users.
phendrenad2 6y ago
Not sure what all of the cellphone vendors who have forked Android "just in case Google become anti-competitive" are waiting for... this is clearly the moment.
- gostsamo 6y ago
  Well, check the Android licensing model. All Google services included or Huawei who are currently struggling.
karmakaze 6y ago
Thank you Google for giving this story life and thus letting me know about LBRY.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Utterly despicable and unacceptable. I can’t tell if this is an anti-competitive move (since one successful decentralized service might threaten the entire ecosystem of centralized platforms) or if it is some sort of Google internal political activism (since decentralization avoids the censorship and deplatforming performed by centralized providers like Google). Or maybe it’s both. But regardless it is unacceptable and I am happy to have discovered LBRY. More about it at https://itsfoss.com/lbry/ https://itsfoss.com/lbry/ What other decentralized services are worth checking out?
- torresjrjr 6y ago
  > What other decentralized services are worth checking out? You should definitely take a look into the Fediverse and PeerTube in particular. I personally wrote some articles to answer this particular question. I hope it helps :) https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fediverse https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fedive... BRIEF https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediverse https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediv... LENGTHY
ilaksh 6y ago
There is obviously a structural problem with them owning the marketplace that they are competing in. I think people believe there is no alternative. I always write on these types of cases that distributed protocols are an alternative. I just get buried with no explanation.
occamrazor 6y ago
ReclaimTheNet is an extremely biased source. Google’s decision looks unfair based on the information in this article, but I would rather suspend my judgment until other sources corroborate the content.
SCLeo 6y ago
I am aware that in this case, it is just Google wrongly classify something that does not have explicit nudity as porn. However, my question is, why are all major platforms banning pornographic content (video, novel, illustrations, etc.)? Or, why do we even sometimes view them as degenerating? Isn't the fact that PornHub is so successful a proof that we, as humans, do enjoy porn? Also, this might not be true since I didn't do a research, but I really felt that almost everyone reading this comment have at least enjoyed some form of porn in their lives. If they are so prevalent, why are we banning them? Edit: Although I do believe YouTube should allow porn and GitHub should allow open source erotic games, but I am mainly talking about Apple App Store or Google Play Store not allowing sexually explicit apps.
- noxer 6y ago
  Its because google wants to give the apps to kids which they can not do if the apps show porn. Its should however not include user generated content that has to be searched on these apps. Else a browser would have to be removed too.
  - SCLeo 6y ago
    Pardon my ignorance but I really don't know why kids should not be allowed to watch porn. I tried to look it up, but all results I looked at either claim it is ok for children to watch porn or just jump to teach you how to prevent your children from watching porn while assuming you already know why porn is harmful. Honestly, I doubt that there will be significant damage, especially if the people watching are already 16 or 17 years old. However, that is not my expertise, so I can't say for sure that it is completely ok for teenager to watch porn. Nevertheless, for the sake of this conversation, let's say, it is indeed really harmful for underage people to watch porn. Then, why don't Google or Apple just make a toggle? Or, since you already need an account to use Google Play or iOS App Store, just filter out all the porn apps when the users are deemed to be too young to properly enjoy porn. The fact that it is dangerous for a 6-year-old to drive a car does not mean cars should be banned for the entire humanity. On the other hand, if watching porn for young people is indeed that harmful (enough for justifying banning them altogether on the largest 2 mobile app distribution platform), the future of humanity is already doomed, because they can already open up Google and search "porn" and start watching them.
jgowdy 6y ago
Someone should point out how much pornography is viewed through Chrome and Safari.
ilaksh 6y ago
I am actually unable to install the raw apk. After changing the allowed source setting and getting through the warnings, it says it is installing but at the end just says "App not installed". This is why we need to support open source hardware and mobile operating systems. But the large companies work together to close the existing networks. So we also need things like mesh networks and alternative service providers. But ultimately there has to be some democratic push to reclaim some long distance internet links for the people. Or build new ones.
- meibo 6y ago
  This means that your device architecture or Android version wasn't compatible, and not that Google is censoring your free speech. If you look into the logs you'll see why it was the case. The only way Google polices APK installs is via Play Protect which warns you of APKs that aren't commonly installed/marked as harmful, with an option to bypass the warning. You can also disable that.
qtplatypus 6y ago
I note that dailymotion, liveleak And niconico all have apps on android. So I don’t think they are deliberately blocking all competitors to YouTube.

131 points by kauffj 6y ago

Here are the content policies: https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy/ https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy/ Perhaps someone should try and report apps from big national public service broadcasting stations (BBC, DR, NRK, SVT, etc). It shouldn't be hard to find some TV programmes on there that contains "sexual content and profanity". Reporting is done here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/contact/takedown https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/cont...

voxic11 6y ago
They also reserve the right to selectively enforce those provisions so don't expect any of those to actually be banned. Maybe your reports can be used as evidence in some future anti-trust trial though.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Report the apps then report your reports to the Attorney General in your state? Might help. Even some Democratic AGs are signing onto antitrust suits against google.
erk__ 6y ago
Not long ago they had removed the childrens TV app from DR because of similar reasons. I think some of the reasons were that there was a character who "smokes" a licorice pipes, and another who is a pirate that fights with ninjas. DR got the app back on there after its removal being condemned by MPs and ministers. It is annoyingly hard to find any good English articles about it but here is a Danish one https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/google-slettede-drs-app-til-boern-nu-boejer-techgiganten-sig https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/google-slettede-drs-app-til...
vinay427 6y ago
> big national public service broadcasting stations (BBC, DR, NRK, SVT, etc) Found the Scandinavian, I think! Because it's Google, NPR/PBS or even just Netflix would probably work even more efficiently.

mc32 6y ago

Really, because of spoof "nudity"? I mean, YT is full of actual nudity and more. So, when are they going to suspend themselves? Unlike Apple they can't even feign not being anti-competitive.

dybber 6y ago
Nudity can be allowed, if it's for educational purposes, there's a difference between content containing nudity and sexually gratifying content. Details are here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9878810 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... My guess is that some user reported it, and send in that screenshot, which has led to the ban. It's very hard to make decisions on stuff like this just from a single screenshot.

rvz 6y ago

At this point, Google is beyond reason and is openly hypocritical. Open source? Yes. Open platforms? No. Even if they are competing against YouTube. Netflix and Youtube has disgusting content if not the former is now worse than LBRY and Google still gave Netflix a pass. If LBRY had the same content as Netflix and YouTube, Google would choose to ban LBRY 10,000 over, with the same reason.

eatbitseveryday 6y ago
> Netflix and Youtube has disgusting content What?
- fuzxi 6y ago
  Cuties.
  - charia 6y ago
    A tangent about Cuties, but felt like airing my thoughts on this somewhere. The outrage over Cuties is some of the weirdest situations of political/cultural toxoplasma I've seen. The movie has nothing that's considered abnormal to what pre-teens and teens are exposed and engage in modern western culture. Girls are exposed to the dances/ect that sexualize them everywhere from social media platforms (tiktok, ect) and in person (regular middle school/high school stuff). The dances in cuties are very meh in by those measurements. The movie tries to take a look at this, "norm," and displays something that's somewhat normal in a movie format. It's especially weird that the movie got it's backlash from conservatives b/c the message is arguably somewhat conservative. The story is a girl coming from a extremely conservative background embracing the supposedly pro-women modern liberal western culture. By showing this the character and the viewers question if modern western cultural attitudes to women and their sexualization is actually better than the treatment of women in conservative cultures. SPOILERS: It ends with the character embracing some sort of middle path that leaves you asking if that's even possible. Like if you believe in the backlash against Cuties and the sexualization of the kids in modern society, that backlash should be more directed a backlash against places like tiktok/ect that encourage pre-teens/teens to copy/perform sexualized dances for money/street cred.

mikecoles 6y ago

I'm hoping the 120KB/s speed I'm getting while downloading the client is because they're getting swamped by new users.

phendrenad2 6y ago

Not sure what all of the cellphone vendors who have forked Android "just in case Google become anti-competitive" are waiting for... this is clearly the moment.

gostsamo 6y ago
Well, check the Android licensing model. All Google services included or Huawei who are currently struggling.

karmakaze 6y ago

Thank you Google for giving this story life and thus letting me know about LBRY.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Utterly despicable and unacceptable. I can’t tell if this is an anti-competitive move (since one successful decentralized service might threaten the entire ecosystem of centralized platforms) or if it is some sort of Google internal political activism (since decentralization avoids the censorship and deplatforming performed by centralized providers like Google). Or maybe it’s both. But regardless it is unacceptable and I am happy to have discovered LBRY. More about it at https://itsfoss.com/lbry/ https://itsfoss.com/lbry/ What other decentralized services are worth checking out?

torresjrjr 6y ago
> What other decentralized services are worth checking out? You should definitely take a look into the Fediverse and PeerTube in particular. I personally wrote some articles to answer this particular question. I hope it helps :) https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fediverse https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-20-what-is-the-fedive... BRIEF https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediverse https://torresjrjr.com/archive/2020-07-19-guide-to-the-fediv... LENGTHY

ilaksh 6y ago

There is obviously a structural problem with them owning the marketplace that they are competing in. I think people believe there is no alternative. I always write on these types of cases that distributed protocols are an alternative. I just get buried with no explanation.

occamrazor 6y ago

ReclaimTheNet is an extremely biased source. Google’s decision looks unfair based on the information in this article, but I would rather suspend my judgment until other sources corroborate the content.

SCLeo 6y ago

I am aware that in this case, it is just Google wrongly classify something that does not have explicit nudity as porn. However, my question is, why are all major platforms banning pornographic content (video, novel, illustrations, etc.)? Or, why do we even sometimes view them as degenerating? Isn't the fact that PornHub is so successful a proof that we, as humans, do enjoy porn? Also, this might not be true since I didn't do a research, but I really felt that almost everyone reading this comment have at least enjoyed some form of porn in their lives. If they are so prevalent, why are we banning them? Edit: Although I do believe YouTube should allow porn and GitHub should allow open source erotic games, but I am mainly talking about Apple App Store or Google Play Store not allowing sexually explicit apps.

noxer 6y ago
Its because google wants to give the apps to kids which they can not do if the apps show porn. Its should however not include user generated content that has to be searched on these apps. Else a browser would have to be removed too.
- SCLeo 6y ago
  Pardon my ignorance but I really don't know why kids should not be allowed to watch porn. I tried to look it up, but all results I looked at either claim it is ok for children to watch porn or just jump to teach you how to prevent your children from watching porn while assuming you already know why porn is harmful. Honestly, I doubt that there will be significant damage, especially if the people watching are already 16 or 17 years old. However, that is not my expertise, so I can't say for sure that it is completely ok for teenager to watch porn. Nevertheless, for the sake of this conversation, let's say, it is indeed really harmful for underage people to watch porn. Then, why don't Google or Apple just make a toggle? Or, since you already need an account to use Google Play or iOS App Store, just filter out all the porn apps when the users are deemed to be too young to properly enjoy porn. The fact that it is dangerous for a 6-year-old to drive a car does not mean cars should be banned for the entire humanity. On the other hand, if watching porn for young people is indeed that harmful (enough for justifying banning them altogether on the largest 2 mobile app distribution platform), the future of humanity is already doomed, because they can already open up Google and search "porn" and start watching them.

jgowdy 6y ago

Someone should point out how much pornography is viewed through Chrome and Safari.

ilaksh 6y ago

I am actually unable to install the raw apk. After changing the allowed source setting and getting through the warnings, it says it is installing but at the end just says "App not installed". This is why we need to support open source hardware and mobile operating systems. But the large companies work together to close the existing networks. So we also need things like mesh networks and alternative service providers. But ultimately there has to be some democratic push to reclaim some long distance internet links for the people. Or build new ones.

meibo 6y ago
This means that your device architecture or Android version wasn't compatible, and not that Google is censoring your free speech. If you look into the logs you'll see why it was the case. The only way Google polices APK installs is via Play Protect which warns you of APKs that aren't commonly installed/marked as harmful, with an option to bypass the warning. You can also disable that.

qtplatypus 6y ago

I note that dailymotion, liveleak And niconico all have apps on android. So I don’t think they are deliberately blocking all competitors to YouTube.