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At least 50% of the YouTube promoted videos I get are crypto currency scams where some paid actor walks you though deploying an eth contract that empties your w

by cjonas 11mo ago

At least 50% of the YouTube promoted videos I get are crypto currency scams where some paid actor walks you though deploying an eth contract that empties your wallet. I report every one and nothing changes :(

Kelteseth 11mo ago
Same. About half of Youtube ads that I get on my AppleTV (no adblock there sadly) are now AI generated scam products.
- iso1631 11mo ago
  My TV has ad block for youtube. I pay 20 minutes salary per month and see no adverts at all, on TV, on phone, on computer. I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment. On the web at large, sure use an ad blocker, there's no choice there. There is on youtube though.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ruszki 11mo ago
    I think it really depends on how much you use it. For example, there is no way that I would pay for Facebook. It annoys me greatly that I’m forced to use it a few times per year, and I have to sell all of my data for it, but unfortunately I don’t pay just to avoid data gathering about me, because it happens anyway, no matter what I do. But I pay happily for YouTube, because I use it daily, and my home country’s propaganda was annoying enough to make it worth.
  - phantasmish 11mo ago
    Paying Google to not attempt to scam me is... not something I plan to do.
  - grayhatter 11mo ago
    > I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment. People don't want to pay (help) people they don't like. YouTube ads do not feel fair, they feel manipulative and unethical. It's expected that most people wouldn't want to willingly engage with that kind of asshattery. Contrast that with platforms like twitch. I'd say the average twitch viewer (that interacts with streams/chats) has a slightly negative view of Twitch. But many will still willingly donate dozens of subs to streamers they like. This removes ads for other people, not themselves. People think YouTube is greedy and untrustworthy. Why would you willingly feed that machine?
    - ryandrake 11mo ago
      I don't pay because it feels like paying protection money to the mafia. "Here's an annoyance/danger we created for you. If you pay us, we'll stop doing it."
      - HeWhoLurksLate 11mo ago
        on the other hand, it's how their business model is able to work? People get wayyyy more views on YouTube than they do on Patreon or federated platforms or Nebula or Floatplane or or or or or or or
      - iso1631 11mo ago
        You don't see any adverts on youtube if you don't watch youtube. My local cinema charges me to watch a film. Sure I could sneak in through the fire escape. That's not paying protection money. If they say "you can watch for free if you attend our timeshare presentation first", then that's still not paying protection money. If I want a magician to entertain me at a party, it's not paying protection money. If they say "you can watch for free but only if you listen to me drivel on about some cause first" that doesn't either. People on HN are unwiling to pay people to entertain them. Its astounding.
        comprev 11mo ago
        Does your local cinema have pre-film adverts?
- r0fl 11mo ago
  It’s crazy how bad it has gotten and some channels have like 10 ads if it’s a long enough video YouTube premium lite has been a game changer. Otherwise I would have given up on watching on Apple TV
  - gchamonlive 11mo ago
    Signs of collapse
- FinnKuhn 11mo ago
  For some reason all the YouTube ads on my TV are very very normal ads for well known companies and products. As soon as I disable my adblocker on my PC though I only get fake scam ads.
- cryptoegorophy 11mo ago
  And sadly I have to compete with them trying to sell physical products on YouTube. Just no way
- topkai22 11mo ago
  Just checked my ad history (https://www.clrn.org/how-to-see-recently-viewed-ads-on-youtube/ https://www.clrn.org/how-to-see-recently-viewed-ads-on-youtu...); Google YouTube TV for NFL Sunday ticket Robinhood Some dog tracker thing Detergent Peloton Liberty mutual Some truck brand Foam insulation Other than how to buy gold ads and sandy hook promise, my ads are very mild. YMMV
jasonlotito 11mo ago
For what it's worth, I see no crypto videos. YouTube recommends stuff I find enjoyable (lots of sketch comedy, TTRPG videos, interesting documentary style stuff, BTS on video game development, etc). I really have to wonder if your tastes align with crypto currency scams. That being said, I am paying for Premium, so I wonder if you are, and if you are blocking ads.
- infecto 11mo ago
  We are talking about ads and promoted videos. Nothing to do with what it is recommending unless I am entirely conflating the root of this subject. If that is true, then of course you would never have seen these as a premium user. Scam videos are the chum box ads of the video world. Usually the lowest cost ads and so if you block tracking or are viewing a video in a private session you will have the highest chance of hitting these ads.
  - mavhc 11mo ago
    Only see ads when watching youtube via chromecast, but they're all from real brands, holiday companies, cars, google pixel, etc
    - infecto 11mo ago
      And? YouTube web absolutely has ads and if they have not built a model on your user you will absolutely get the chum ads like scams. I am not sure what you’re trying to tell us.
      - jasonlotito 11mo ago
        > I am not sure what you’re trying to tell us Gotcha. So you are ignorant of why people are commenting. The OP was talking about seeing 50% scam crypto ads. Our responses were to provide a comparison. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but that 50% scam crypto ads are not the norm for everyone. It's helpful to have that comparison when providing anecdotal information. No one is saying those ads don't happen, only that it's probably not normal. Next time, instead of being unnecessarily antagonistic, admit to being ignorant and ask.
timpera 11mo ago
Same for me, and the worst thing is that they always take 3 days to review my report and delete the scam.
- BLKNSLVR 11mo ago
  Ironically, one of the potentially greatest uses of AI, and it doesn't seem to be getting applied at all.
JohnConnorX99 11mo ago
Why do you provide free labor to Google by reporting those ads? Just block the adds...
- stronglikedan 11mo ago
  Even better, block them and click them all with the Adnauseam extension.
lm28469 11mo ago
I get 50% AI generated tai chi promising strength gain, weight loss and enlightenment, the other 50% israel sponsored ads assuring me people in gaza are not starving at all and completely healthy
- ben_w 11mo ago
  Had a few of those too. Mostly, I'm getting things like German ads for my local German supermarket (that I would've gone to anyway without the ad) dubbed badly into English with an AI that can't tell how to pronounce the "." in a price, plus a Berlin-specific "pay less rent" company that I couldn't use even if I wanted to because I don't rent. But when I get 30 seconds of ads a minute into a video that had 30 seconds of ads before I could start watching… I don't care what the rest of the video was going to be about, I don't want to waste my life with a 30:60:30:… pattern of adverts and "content" whose sole real purpose is now to keep me engaged with the adverts. (This is also half of why I don't bother going to Facebook, every third post is an ad, although those ads can't even tell if I'm a boy or a girl, which language I speak, nor what my nationality is, and the first-party suggested groups are just as bad but grosser as they recently suggested I join groups for granny dating, zit popping, and Elon Musk).
- bluedino 11mo ago
  Remember broadcast TV, early in the morning or late at night? Infomercials for all kinds of scams from buying real estate with zero down, crap products that didn't work...
  - RajT88 11mo ago
    It's still like that! Late Night Broadcast TV still exists and is as weird as it ever was! Arguably weirder, since stuff like this is on sometimes: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15737708/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15737708/ It's a low-budget horror host show which was made for streaming, and coincidentally ended up on the air late on Friday nights.
  - asadotzler 11mo ago
    None of those scams were intermixed with popular legitimate content. If Facebook had a tab at the top called "Scams and Other Nonsense" and you clicked on that and it had a bunch of scammy content, that would be an equivalent to late night infomercials. But Meta doesn't do that. It mixes the scams in with all of its popular and non-scam content so you cannot easily tell it's scammy. Worse, it targets people vulnerable to those scams by tapping directly into their interests and sentiments in a way TV never could. You are making a silly argument here. There's no equivalence at all.
r0fl 11mo ago
YouTube on Apple TV was one of the last places I saw ads. Ad blockers on browser and iPhone and all other streaming providers I pay for have no ads Paying for YouTube premium lite (I think it’s new) has been the best thing in ages! The toxic ads are finally gone!
- piva00 11mo ago
  YouTube Premium Lite used to exist years ago, then they discontinued it in 2024 (I know because I used to be a very happy subscriber), now they brought it back but only in a few selected markets[0]. Google products' bullshit as usual, I never needed/wanted YouTube Music and the other bloat they wanted to force me to pay for, I was happily paying to not have ads... [0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?sjid=9386013739793809405-EU#zippy=%2Cpremium-lite-memberships-available-locations https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?sjid=93860...
  - r0fl 11mo ago
    I currently have YouTube premium lite in Canada
    - piva00 11mo ago
      Well, Canada is on the list I posted.
koakuma-chan 11mo ago
What if you take YouTube to court
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
  Ideally this but Section 230 guarantees that you will lose. The laws need to be changed.
  - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    I don't know if ads count as content posted by users.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
      It does. Advertisers are also users and ads are generated by them.
      - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
        Then yeah it's a stupid law.
  - vkou 11mo ago
    Changed to what? Should dang become legally responsible for any of the bad legal advice I've been giving people on this forum? Should Murdoch go to prison for the lies in the paid advertising that Fox anchors and opinion wonks are doing every day? Let me take things back a step - it's nearly impossible to hold people who are lying accountable. Surely the platform bears less responsibility than the liars on it?
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
      I don't know but I think there is a room for compromise. If you post illegal things online and the site cannot identify you so that you can be held accountable then the site should be held accountable. As it stands people are harmed and nobody is liable so we end up in this situation.
Workaccount2 11mo ago
It's because google has no profile on you, likely because you block all tracking. Which is fine, but at least understand that it's not the norm. Normal non-tech users (from watching youtube at friends houses or at my parents), mostly get ads for fabric softener and cat litter.
- jeffbee 11mo ago
  Yeah, it's wild how poorly the hackernewses understand this. If the ad platform has few signals for targeting, but it does have the available signals of you're using a weird VPN or tor, and a weird user agent on an uncommon platform, then it's just going to assume you're a crypto loser like the other people sharing those traits.
  - deathanatos 11mo ago
    … I'll bite, then. I not only accept cookies in this case, I'm logged in. I get these same cryptocurrency scam ads.
    - jiggawatts 11mo ago
      The metadata for ads comes from external sources, such as Google AdWords embedded in millions of websites.
- reaperducer 11mo ago
  If Google doesn't know what ad to show me, why not show no ad, instead of a scam? Does trillion-dollar Google desperately need the 3½¢ of revenue the scam ad generates?
  - Workaccount2 11mo ago
    It's not that Google doesn't know what to show you, it's that no advertiser outbids the scam ad for your 30 seconds of attention. To put it another way, you have next to no value, and it's only by the goodwill of Google that they even let you on the platform.
arnaudsm 11mo ago
Most FAANG executive and engineers use premium plans or AdBlockers, they probably don't care or even notice how dangerous their products are getting.
yard2010 11mo ago
I dunno,I saw a video of mister Elon Musk himself telling me without twitching a muscle in his face except his lips to put all my money on his new crypto venture. Seems pretty legit to me.
- jrmg 11mo ago
  I’m buying his new heater that will heat my house in minutes with virtually no electricity usage! Home Depot doesn’t want me to know about it, but I saw the ad!
- Hammershaft 11mo ago
  I've seen many variants of this, often with deepfake Elon sharing his new crypto project with "10% returns per day"
cuu508 11mo ago
protip, install uBlock Origin - no more ads in Youtube
rozab 11mo ago
The recent YouTube updates made me disabled my adblocker for a bit. Almost every ad I got was a scam. I reported one to YouTube, a deepfake investment scam. They actually got back to me and said they had removed the ad. 2 days later, I got the same ad again.

by cjonas 11mo ago

Kelteseth 11mo ago

Same. About half of Youtube ads that I get on my AppleTV (no adblock there sadly) are now AI generated scam products.

iso1631 11mo ago
My TV has ad block for youtube. I pay 20 minutes salary per month and see no adverts at all, on TV, on phone, on computer. I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment. On the web at large, sure use an ad blocker, there's no choice there. There is on youtube though.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- ruszki 11mo ago
  I think it really depends on how much you use it. For example, there is no way that I would pay for Facebook. It annoys me greatly that I’m forced to use it a few times per year, and I have to sell all of my data for it, but unfortunately I don’t pay just to avoid data gathering about me, because it happens anyway, no matter what I do. But I pay happily for YouTube, because I use it daily, and my home country’s propaganda was annoying enough to make it worth.
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  Paying Google to not attempt to scam me is... not something I plan to do.
- grayhatter 11mo ago
  > I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment. People don't want to pay (help) people they don't like. YouTube ads do not feel fair, they feel manipulative and unethical. It's expected that most people wouldn't want to willingly engage with that kind of asshattery. Contrast that with platforms like twitch. I'd say the average twitch viewer (that interacts with streams/chats) has a slightly negative view of Twitch. But many will still willingly donate dozens of subs to streamers they like. This removes ads for other people, not themselves. People think YouTube is greedy and untrustworthy. Why would you willingly feed that machine?
  - ryandrake 11mo ago
    I don't pay because it feels like paying protection money to the mafia. "Here's an annoyance/danger we created for you. If you pay us, we'll stop doing it."
    - HeWhoLurksLate 11mo ago
      on the other hand, it's how their business model is able to work? People get wayyyy more views on YouTube than they do on Patreon or federated platforms or Nebula or Floatplane or or or or or or or
    - iso1631 11mo ago
      You don't see any adverts on youtube if you don't watch youtube. My local cinema charges me to watch a film. Sure I could sneak in through the fire escape. That's not paying protection money. If they say "you can watch for free if you attend our timeshare presentation first", then that's still not paying protection money. If I want a magician to entertain me at a party, it's not paying protection money. If they say "you can watch for free but only if you listen to me drivel on about some cause first" that doesn't either. People on HN are unwiling to pay people to entertain them. Its astounding.
      - comprev 11mo ago
        Does your local cinema have pre-film adverts?
r0fl 11mo ago
It’s crazy how bad it has gotten and some channels have like 10 ads if it’s a long enough video YouTube premium lite has been a game changer. Otherwise I would have given up on watching on Apple TV
- gchamonlive 11mo ago
  Signs of collapse
FinnKuhn 11mo ago
For some reason all the YouTube ads on my TV are very very normal ads for well known companies and products. As soon as I disable my adblocker on my PC though I only get fake scam ads.
cryptoegorophy 11mo ago
And sadly I have to compete with them trying to sell physical products on YouTube. Just no way
topkai22 11mo ago
Just checked my ad history (https://www.clrn.org/how-to-see-recently-viewed-ads-on-youtube/ https://www.clrn.org/how-to-see-recently-viewed-ads-on-youtu...); Google YouTube TV for NFL Sunday ticket Robinhood Some dog tracker thing Detergent Peloton Liberty mutual Some truck brand Foam insulation Other than how to buy gold ads and sandy hook promise, my ads are very mild. YMMV

jasonlotito 11mo ago

For what it's worth, I see no crypto videos. YouTube recommends stuff I find enjoyable (lots of sketch comedy, TTRPG videos, interesting documentary style stuff, BTS on video game development, etc). I really have to wonder if your tastes align with crypto currency scams. That being said, I am paying for Premium, so I wonder if you are, and if you are blocking ads.

infecto 11mo ago
We are talking about ads and promoted videos. Nothing to do with what it is recommending unless I am entirely conflating the root of this subject. If that is true, then of course you would never have seen these as a premium user. Scam videos are the chum box ads of the video world. Usually the lowest cost ads and so if you block tracking or are viewing a video in a private session you will have the highest chance of hitting these ads.
- mavhc 11mo ago
  Only see ads when watching youtube via chromecast, but they're all from real brands, holiday companies, cars, google pixel, etc
  - infecto 11mo ago
    And? YouTube web absolutely has ads and if they have not built a model on your user you will absolutely get the chum ads like scams. I am not sure what you’re trying to tell us.
    - jasonlotito 11mo ago
      > I am not sure what you’re trying to tell us Gotcha. So you are ignorant of why people are commenting. The OP was talking about seeing 50% scam crypto ads. Our responses were to provide a comparison. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but that 50% scam crypto ads are not the norm for everyone. It's helpful to have that comparison when providing anecdotal information. No one is saying those ads don't happen, only that it's probably not normal. Next time, instead of being unnecessarily antagonistic, admit to being ignorant and ask.

timpera 11mo ago

Same for me, and the worst thing is that they always take 3 days to review my report and delete the scam.

BLKNSLVR 11mo ago
Ironically, one of the potentially greatest uses of AI, and it doesn't seem to be getting applied at all.

JohnConnorX99 11mo ago

Why do you provide free labor to Google by reporting those ads? Just block the adds...

stronglikedan 11mo ago
Even better, block them and click them all with the Adnauseam extension.

lm28469 11mo ago

I get 50% AI generated tai chi promising strength gain, weight loss and enlightenment, the other 50% israel sponsored ads assuring me people in gaza are not starving at all and completely healthy

ben_w 11mo ago
Had a few of those too. Mostly, I'm getting things like German ads for my local German supermarket (that I would've gone to anyway without the ad) dubbed badly into English with an AI that can't tell how to pronounce the "." in a price, plus a Berlin-specific "pay less rent" company that I couldn't use even if I wanted to because I don't rent. But when I get 30 seconds of ads a minute into a video that had 30 seconds of ads before I could start watching… I don't care what the rest of the video was going to be about, I don't want to waste my life with a 30:60:30:… pattern of adverts and "content" whose sole real purpose is now to keep me engaged with the adverts. (This is also half of why I don't bother going to Facebook, every third post is an ad, although those ads can't even tell if I'm a boy or a girl, which language I speak, nor what my nationality is, and the first-party suggested groups are just as bad but grosser as they recently suggested I join groups for granny dating, zit popping, and Elon Musk).
bluedino 11mo ago
Remember broadcast TV, early in the morning or late at night? Infomercials for all kinds of scams from buying real estate with zero down, crap products that didn't work...
- RajT88 11mo ago
  It's still like that! Late Night Broadcast TV still exists and is as weird as it ever was! Arguably weirder, since stuff like this is on sometimes: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15737708/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15737708/ It's a low-budget horror host show which was made for streaming, and coincidentally ended up on the air late on Friday nights.
- asadotzler 11mo ago
  None of those scams were intermixed with popular legitimate content. If Facebook had a tab at the top called "Scams and Other Nonsense" and you clicked on that and it had a bunch of scammy content, that would be an equivalent to late night infomercials. But Meta doesn't do that. It mixes the scams in with all of its popular and non-scam content so you cannot easily tell it's scammy. Worse, it targets people vulnerable to those scams by tapping directly into their interests and sentiments in a way TV never could. You are making a silly argument here. There's no equivalence at all.

r0fl 11mo ago

YouTube on Apple TV was one of the last places I saw ads. Ad blockers on browser and iPhone and all other streaming providers I pay for have no ads Paying for YouTube premium lite (I think it’s new) has been the best thing in ages! The toxic ads are finally gone!

piva00 11mo ago
YouTube Premium Lite used to exist years ago, then they discontinued it in 2024 (I know because I used to be a very happy subscriber), now they brought it back but only in a few selected markets[0]. Google products' bullshit as usual, I never needed/wanted YouTube Music and the other bloat they wanted to force me to pay for, I was happily paying to not have ads... [0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?sjid=9386013739793809405-EU#zippy=%2Cpremium-lite-memberships-available-locations https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365?sjid=93860...
- r0fl 11mo ago
  I currently have YouTube premium lite in Canada
  - piva00 11mo ago
    Well, Canada is on the list I posted.

koakuma-chan 11mo ago

What if you take YouTube to court

2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
Ideally this but Section 230 guarantees that you will lose. The laws need to be changed.
- koakuma-chan 11mo ago
  I don't know if ads count as content posted by users.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
    It does. Advertisers are also users and ads are generated by them.
    - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
      Then yeah it's a stupid law.
- vkou 11mo ago
  Changed to what? Should dang become legally responsible for any of the bad legal advice I've been giving people on this forum? Should Murdoch go to prison for the lies in the paid advertising that Fox anchors and opinion wonks are doing every day? Let me take things back a step - it's nearly impossible to hold people who are lying accountable. Surely the platform bears less responsibility than the liars on it?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
    I don't know but I think there is a room for compromise. If you post illegal things online and the site cannot identify you so that you can be held accountable then the site should be held accountable. As it stands people are harmed and nobody is liable so we end up in this situation.

Workaccount2 11mo ago

It's because google has no profile on you, likely because you block all tracking. Which is fine, but at least understand that it's not the norm. Normal non-tech users (from watching youtube at friends houses or at my parents), mostly get ads for fabric softener and cat litter.

jeffbee 11mo ago
Yeah, it's wild how poorly the hackernewses understand this. If the ad platform has few signals for targeting, but it does have the available signals of you're using a weird VPN or tor, and a weird user agent on an uncommon platform, then it's just going to assume you're a crypto loser like the other people sharing those traits.
- deathanatos 11mo ago
  … I'll bite, then. I not only accept cookies in this case, I'm logged in. I get these same cryptocurrency scam ads.
  - jiggawatts 11mo ago
    The metadata for ads comes from external sources, such as Google AdWords embedded in millions of websites.
reaperducer 11mo ago
If Google doesn't know what ad to show me, why not show no ad, instead of a scam? Does trillion-dollar Google desperately need the 3½¢ of revenue the scam ad generates?
- Workaccount2 11mo ago
  It's not that Google doesn't know what to show you, it's that no advertiser outbids the scam ad for your 30 seconds of attention. To put it another way, you have next to no value, and it's only by the goodwill of Google that they even let you on the platform.

arnaudsm 11mo ago

Most FAANG executive and engineers use premium plans or AdBlockers, they probably don't care or even notice how dangerous their products are getting.

yard2010 11mo ago

I dunno,I saw a video of mister Elon Musk himself telling me without twitching a muscle in his face except his lips to put all my money on his new crypto venture. Seems pretty legit to me.

jrmg 11mo ago
I’m buying his new heater that will heat my house in minutes with virtually no electricity usage! Home Depot doesn’t want me to know about it, but I saw the ad!
Hammershaft 11mo ago
I've seen many variants of this, often with deepfake Elon sharing his new crypto project with "10% returns per day"

cuu508 11mo ago

protip, install uBlock Origin - no more ads in Youtube

rozab 11mo ago

The recent YouTube updates made me disabled my adblocker for a bit. Almost every ad I got was a scam. I reported one to YouTube, a deepfake investment scam. They actually got back to me and said they had removed the ad. 2 days later, I got the same ad again.