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I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next (2020)
- tpoacher 4y agoThe real solution is at the end of the article: mirror your content to non-youtube services. This is simply another case of "if you put all your eggs in one googlebasket, you deserve what's coming to you".
- cachvico 4y agoGoogle's most excellent customer service at play.
- judge2020 4y agoPaying for customer service would result in less overall money than their current system of "you get nothing, we only respond if you have enough followers to generate a PR buzz". The people that aren't affected by the unjust terminations and bans obviously don't care enough to stop using the product, so they tend to not lose any money when it happens.
- ziddoap 4y ago>Paying for customer service would result in less overall money than their current system of "you get nothing, we only respond if you have enough followers to generate a PR buzz" Agree. >The people that aren't affected by the unjust terminations and bans obviously don't care enough to stop using the product, so they tend to not lose any money when it happens. Hard disagree. A good portion of the world turns because of these companies, and you have to spend an absolutely extraordinary amount of effort to avoid using the big services like Google/Amazon. And even more often, you aren't given a choice at all. Find me a workplace that doesn't use any of the FAANG (or whatever the acronym is now) companies at some level.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rasz 4y agoIt is. Customers dont want to advertise on risky pages and videos, Google automagically pre-filters those out minimizing potential future issues. Google cattl^^product might not like it, but customers are being kept happy.
- _gabe_ 4y agoYouTube has no product without the creators. It would be a better idea to withhold advertisements on a flagged video instead of taking it down. But honestly, that's still crap. They should (and probably do) keep records of a creator's history with confirmed copyright violations. If the creator has repeatedly violated copyright, then the auto filter can kick in. Otherwise, if it's a channel that regularly gets hundreds of thousands of views and does not get copyright violations regularly, they should give the creator time to respond. Finally, they should keep records of people filing copyright claims. If the people are repeatedly filing false copyright claims, they should have some sort of action taken against them. I don't know, maybe if you file more than 5 bad copyright claims, if you file another invalid copyright claim you have to pay the withheld revenue to the creator. Maybe that would make people think a little before filing baseless claims.
- h4t 4y agoWhat exactly are they doing to take down the videos?
- tagawa 4y agoSomeone is repeatedly filing “Circumvention of Technological Measures” claims, then asking for bitcoin and Twitter promotion in return for stopping the claims.
- pooper 4y agoWhat is to stop them once they get paid? Why wouldn't they just keep asking every month?
- voakbasda 4y agoNothing. This is why you don't negotiate with these kinds of people.
- wnevets 4y agoThe same thing that stops every other form of blackmail, their word. If someone is willing to blackmail you, their word is probably not worth much.
- worthless-trash 4y agoyet ransomware exists and is profitable.
- wnevets 4y agoAnd those gangs have also been caught releasing stolen data after being paid not to. There is no honor among thieves.
- samatman 4y agoTo spare everyone the confusion, the author was extorted, not blackmailed. "Any YouTuber" isn't vulnerable to blackmail unless the bad actor has specific compromising information about the YouTuber to threaten with.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- White_Wolf 4y agoAny youtuber that uploads comment/react/compilation/commentary videos are good targets. This is not a new thing. It's been going on for at least 4-5 years if not more. Blackmail is also a thing. "take down video x or I'll strike your account" and such.
- savanaly 4y ago>Blackmail is also a thing. "take down video x or I'll strike your account" and such. That's still not blackmail. Blackmail is when you threaten to divulge information about someone unless they pay you.
- sshine 4y agoJust repeating the logic for my own OCD: Blackmail is when someone threatens to release your nudes unless you pay them. Extortion is when someone threatens to get you banned on YouTube unless you pay them. Maybe that's because of trolling, because they don't like your content, or simply because they can get paid.
- DarylZero 4y agoBlackmail is a specific type of extortion, but people often use the word "blackmail" when they mean extortion in general.
- Jensson 4y agoBut they threaten to send information to YouTube unless you pay them. That information will likely get you banned. They don't got the power to ban you, all they can do is reveal information about you.
- version_five 4y agoIf I'm understanding the attack correctly, its surprising there is not more along these lines - specifically the "trigger big tech company's automate banning against someone" attack. It wouldn't be surprising if this is fairly easy across a variety of "services"
- heavyset_go 4y agoIt's been done as a trolling technique for ages.
- olliej 4y agoYeah, if I'm understanding this isn't remotely new or novel? It's been a standard script kiddy attack since basically there were publication services where you could be banned/blocked/whatever by automated systems. Early blogs were frequent victims, surely earlier stuff was as well? Probably even basic BBSs had similar nonsense.
- rectang 4y agoBut now it seems like there's more criminal profit potential in extortion, as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. A growth industry!
- q-big 4y ago> as creators are ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services. as creators decided to make themselves ever more dependent on ever-more-centralized services.
- lmm 4y agoAs a creator you've got to meet the audience where they are. The problem is the monopoly position of those services, and the anticompetitive practices they're able to follow as a result (e.g. banning creators from broadcasting the same content through multiple channels).
- 4y ago
- jrm4 4y agoYup. Make Youtube a "common carrier" or something similar.
- ziddoap 4y agoI would encourage anyone who thinks along these lines to read the following posts on Techdirt, which explain why this is not the solution people think it is. https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/26/this-is-really-really-dumb-ohio-court-says-google-may-be-a-common-carrier/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/26/this-is-really-really-du... https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/23/11th-circuit-disagrees-with-the-5th-circuit-but-actually-explains-its-work-floridas-social-media-bill-still-mostly-unconstitutional/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/23/11th-circuit-disagrees-w... https://www.techdirt.com/2021/06/08/conservatives-want-common-carriage-theyre-not-going-to-like-it/ https://www.techdirt.com/2021/06/08/conservatives-want-commo... Something should be done to ward off the Kafkaesque future we are heading for, but declaring websites as common carriers is a poor way to do it.
- jka 4y agoStrange; what I get from those articles is roughly: - Google tailors results to users, so it shouldn't be considered a common carrier - Google doesn't charge users for access, so it shouldn't be considered a common carrier - Internet search isn't a vital public service, so Google shouldn't be considered a common carrier I totally believe you that there may be reasons not to consider common carrier a magic solution, but... I disagree with all three of those points. (in other words: I think two people searching for the same terms at the same time should see the same results, and I don't think it matters that the service is funded based on indirect (advertising / tax) revenue, and I do think that many people -- in all kinds of environments -- can reasonably expect Internet access and web search to the point where we should consider it a public necessity)
- ziddoap 4y ago>I think two people searching for the same terms should see the same results I agree, but that's not the point being stated. The point is that the entire concept of Google is about ranking (a form of discrimination) the relevancy of websites to the search query. Common carrier status means that a search for "Microsoft official website" would not be able to prioritize Microsoft's official website, because that would be discriminating against all other websites that claim to be Microsoft's official website (and, by extension, discrimination against the people hosting those websites, who would then be able to sue Google for that discrimination). Common carrier status also throws a giant wrench into the already problematic issue of content moderation. The 11th Circuit's ruling explains the concept much more eloquently and with much greater detail than I can hope to (the full ruling is available via the 2nd link in my post).
- can16358p 4y agoWhile I definitely do sympathize, these might be alarm bells telling that we've given too much to these faceless corps. Maybe it's time to reimagine content sharing that has full uncensorable control of the creator and reach of today's centralized platforms, with a fair way to monetize.
- etherael 4y agoThis is exactly what lbry/odysee is.
- zaphar 4y agoTrade one extreme with it's failure modes for another extreme with different failure modes. Not sure that counts as progress.
- can16358p 4y agoWhat do you think the failure modes for the alternative are?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adamrezich 4y agono man think of all the Wrong Kinds of Speech that such a thing would facilitate the mass transmission of!! that's not what the Internet is for! the Internet is only for safe, advertiser-friendly walled gardens of corporate-moderated content, algorithmically distributed to users based on their best interests (even if they don't know it yet)—nothing more—and it has always been this way, of course
- Zak 4y agoWhat do you think that looks like? Youtube was initially successful because hosting video for playback in a browser was difficult and expensive. It's not difficult anymore, but it's still expensive at scale. It was not profitable and only managed to keep operating because Google bought it early on and absorbed losses for a decade. Youtube only became profitable when it started running lots of ads and using a recommendation engine that's prone to amplify misinformation and political extremism. That's not the only thing the recommendation engine does of course, but everyone running a massively popular service with user-generated content and a recommendation engine seems to have the same issues. Of course, advertisers are nervous about having their ads run next to controversial content, so these kinds of services tend to remove first and ask questions later. Those are the reach and monetization bits. What's a better way to solve those problems than ads and a recommendation algorithm?
- pvg 4y agoDiscussed at length at the time (in 2020, 354 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23314937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23314937
- dERtuTOR 4y agoThank you very much. I've noticed that a number of different YN posts are duplicates of previous entries[1]. Metadat makes a reference to 2019 and 2020. Is this typical? Are we looking at the same post again and again? [1] “WTF Happened in 1971? | Hacker News.” Accessed May 26, 2022. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31471602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31471602.
- benwilber0 4y agoI released Boltstream [0] for exactly this kind of thing. It's not a Youtube replacement. It's a self-hosted replacement for Youtube Live, Facebook Live, Twitch.tv, and alike. [0] https://github.com/benwilber/boltstream https://github.com/benwilber/boltstream
- kringo 4y agoUse of bots to flag and block content is getting from bad to worse. We had a YouTube video that we manually recorded and uploaded. Some random guy no way related to it claimed copyright without any proof and YT immediate removed from listing. The appeal process is so complicated and probably have to deal with another bot, it was not worth the process so we just ignored. What i've learned is, if anybody want to blackmail or jealous of your channel, all they have to do is submit a request and your video will be out with an endless and almost impossible appeal process.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jazzythom 4y ago
- kadoban 4y agoThere mostly is no line to cut. This _is_ the line. You post somewhere and hope someone who cares sees it. Not really the user's fault that Google sucks.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ozten 4y agoMaybe these blog posts are the real support queue. Queue is prioritized by creativity, publicity, and connections to employees. It feels like the official support queue points to /dev/null with a couple chat bots for plausible deniability.
- jhomedall 4y agoThere is no line. If Google decides to ban you, your only recourse is to post online and hope your story gets enough traction for it to become a PR issue for them.
- ineedasername 4y agoThe author doesn't indicate what the supposed violation was. Does Google not even say which part of the content was alleged to be the problem?
- jetbalsa 4y agoMost of the time, no. This is common to prevent people from abusing the system more by trying to find edge cases.
- gaius_baltar 4y agoAlso allows for selective enforcement of the rules, which can be welcome for "not noticing" a particular account that generates a lot of profit for the platform.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoSelective enforcement is actually literally tyrany - every tyranical organisation createa rules that are vague and ambiguous, so that anyone could be guilty, and undesierable people could be charged at any time convenient. Someone protesting? Charge them for brwaking the law fuve years ago that noone understands. Employee speaking out? Fire them for breaking company policy on something random, company policy that no-one follows.
- tehwebguy 4y agoYou are correct, but also all enforcement everywhere is selective. Even mindless speed / red light cameras (they are selected to be at certain corners and not others).
- misterkrabs 4y agoProbably cheaper too.
- betwixthewires 4y agoTrying to figure out exactly what the rules are is abusing the system now?
- tag2103 4y ago"hopefully if we yell loud enough, YouTube will here and fix this!" Truly love Google's customer service!!!!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- notforsaleldn 4y ago[flagged]
- grapescheesee 4y agoCustomers as a Service. CaaS
- josephcsible 4y agoMaybe the DMCA should be changed so that takedowns only count if they're handwritten and snail mailed.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chmod775 4y agoThat's what I do to people who send me lots of invalid DMCA notices. They get put on my SPAM filter and get a notification that they can snailmail me their removal requests in the future. Most of them don't notice because it's DMCA bots anyways. The way I see it I have no obligation to read your mail if you have a history of just wasting my time. I'm not in the US and probably wouldn't recommend anyone to do the same, unless they're themselves absolutely sure their legal system will have their back.
- notforsaleldn 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- formvoltron 4y agoDude you can't expect Youtube staff to help you out. The food bar is too good! Oh the massage. Oh the yoga classes. OK, yes I'm a somewhat bitter when I hear about stories like this. Brings me back to the iPhone App store "early" days. "early" because these problems persisted for more than 4 or 5 years... when anyone with a little bit of try could raise their app up in the rankings and send yours down in the rankings just by spamming the app reviews.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bigiain 4y ago> Dude you can't expect Youtube staff to help you out. The food bar is too good! Oh the massage. Oh the yoga classes. I suspect the YouTube _complaints_ staff are much more likely to be contractor micromanaged call centre staff with 90 resolutions per hour targets and stopwatches on their bathroom breaks, instead of the sort of staff slurping down barista-made solent green smoothies while getting Reiki hot stone massages during work hours...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThis is only an issue because YouTube doesn't implement a low friction counternotice procedure like the DMCA allows. If they had that then the scammers would have to file a lawsuit.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Animats 4y agoFirst step, if you get a demand like that, file a police report. Extortion, and attempted extortion, are crimes. You can also file with the FBI online, which will at least result in your complaint being accumulated with other similar complaints. Not much may happen, but now it's on record. Now you have paperwork establishing a crime. If you're willing to spend legal fees, talk to a lawyer. You can potentially sue the extortionist as an unknown "John Doe", and Google as collaborating with the extortionist to extract money from you. Google is in a touchy position here, because they really did cooperate with an extortionist to extract money. Google can claim the cooperation was unwitting, but that can fall apart if an ongoing pattern of similar behavior can be shown, and if Google can be shown to have been negligent in determining whether takedown requests were valid. This is routine in fleet auto accidents. Uber gets this all the time. They want to pass the buck to the driver, but they have to be able to identify the driver to do that. So they are very helpful about identifying the driver. Because this arises from a criminal offense, Google's terms of service may be irrelevant. You cannot contract away liability for a crime. So there's stuff you can do. This sort of thing usually settles out of court. But when you file a lawsuit, you're dealing with people well above the level of the customer service staff. Talk to a lawyer. Might even be able to find one willing to take this on a contingency fee basis. This is an area where Google might not want extensive pre-trial discovery looking into exactly what level of cooperation they provide extortionists. If someone is extorting small dollar amounts, they're doing this more than once.
- hyperpape 4y agoThis sounds interesting, but are you aware of anyone who has used this strategy with a major social network/content distribution platform and had success? Reading, I wonder if it's the sort of thing where Google’s lawyers could brush you off because companies that large are effectively immune.
- duxup 4y agoI’m wondering the same. Is this just a legal hypothetical that is nice to believe it would work? Has anyone actually done this/ been successful? How much did it cost?
- jrochkind1 4y agoWhat is a "Circumvention of Technology claim"?
- Mathnerd314 4y agohttps://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6156383?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6156383?hl=en
- andrewstuart 4y agoProbably everyone who can write code should write something to trigger the auto ban functions of all the big tech companies. Maybe if we trigger that stuff enough they'll realise what a terrible idea auto banning is. Or probably not, no they won't.
- sergiotapia 4y agoI recommend https://odysee.com/ https://odysee.com/ as an alternative. They have a great frontend and it feels nice to use. Just make sure you mute/hide the stuff you don't want to see (like overtly political bullshit).
- ykevinator2 4y ago
- shaoye 4y ago
- account-5 4y agoAt this point I'm surprised any Google platform is being used at all. Google in every sense don't care about their users, only the data their users generate. You just cannot trust any Google service, and should use any service as if it won't be there tomorrow.
- lamontcg 4y agoTry hiring a porn star to sleep with employees to get your videos back.
- darepublic 4y agoMaybe it would be good if this became so widespread that YouTube had to fix it's broken process
- topynate 4y agoA video taken down, then found on review – twice – to have been taken down in error, then on the third review to have been taken down correctly, where the video in question is definitely not violating the policy it's under review for. I'm curious what sort of review procedure could lead to this sequence of events. Why would Youtube invest enough resources to evaluate a video four times, but do it so poorly? It seems to indicate a lack of communication in each review of how thoroughly the video was evaluated. By the third time round, there should have been a note attached saying something along the lines of "I watched this entire video looking for keygens, patchers, or anything that might be a circumvention. There are none. This is a legitimate review of the product in question and nothing more."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]