Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
I think that Chandra has a point - media platforms do often devolve into ad companies, once they rely on advertisement money to survive. Because once someone is paying for a platform’s continued existence, they can dictate the terms, by simply threatening to stop paying for it.
And, granted, Odysee is a Nazi and crypto bro haven, but the point still stands - let us not be fools saying “Hitler ate bread so bread bad”, and ignore a message that also applies to environments that [correctly] tell the Nazi to fuck off.
Nobody here is saying that ads are good. We’re saying this disingenuous fascist is only saying these things because he can’t make any money from ads. If he was making ad money he’d be saying exactly the opposite of all this. Fascists don’t have any morals but power for power’s sake. That’s what fascism IS.
Regardless of why he’s saying that ads fuck up media platforms, the reasoning itself is sensible. And, while nobody in this thread is saying “ads good”, plenty people across Lemmy see advertisement as some sort of necessary evil when it comes to supporting online platforms, and they’re willing to compromise, even if that would be a bloody mistake.
If he was making ad money he’d be saying exactly the opposite of all this.
Then he would be saying something idiotic. (It wouldn’t be noteworthy.)
Fascists don’t have any morals but power for power’s sake. That’s what fascism IS.
It’s actually worse than simple lack of morals: they have fucked up moral premises, that are immoral for anyone with a shred of dignity.
And even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, since Chandra got no financial support from ads, he stumbled upon a decent reasoning, regardless of doing so for moral or immoral reasons.
As a youtube premium member i wish youtube could cut out all ads for everyone and just keep the premium advantages for members. But i’m sure it’s not that easy to keep the boat afloat. Hopefully they can get to a healthy balance of income for watch time and reduce ads for free viewers. But we all know they just want to see the line go up for the greed and would never reduce ads if people still watch with as many ads as possible.
But we all know they just want to see the line go up for the greed and would never reduce ads if people still watch with as many ads as possible.
Exactly - there’s no such thing as “we got enough income, so maybe we should be kinder to our users”, when it comes to Alphabet/Google/YouTube.
Alphabet?
Google’s parent company.
Damn (thank you)
You’re welcome!
The parent company is little known, because it’s relatively recent (from 2015) and keeps low profile, so I’m not surprised that you didn’t hear about it. I think that its main goal is to make it harder to sue Google for enforcement of vertical monopolies, given that other subsidiaries deal with AI and with broadband internet.
I’ve had a YouTube premium subscription for a long time as well, what advantages are there besides no ads that are actually worth having?
Youtube music comes with youtube premium wich i use a lot, listening with the screen turned off wich i use a lot for music and asmr, i saw that they added some kind of upscaling on some videos that i think are under 1080p to 1080p with increased bitrate or something like that, they added games recently wich i could not care less about. There might be other stuff but i’m not sure what else could be premium.
Yeah, I use YouTube music a lot. In terms of YouTube itself though, it’s basically no ads, and the creators you do watch get a bit more coin than thru otherwise would.
I just noticed a new premium feature. I had a button pop up on screen to skip a sponsored segment in a video XD
Ooh, neato.
Adding to what has already been said, offline viewing in the mobile app, while still synchronizing the status of watched videos when you go back online. Already existed with new pipe, but now the creators get rewarded.
Most such attempts fail when not enough people subscribe to paying tiers. Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
If anyone does want to support them, even by a small amount, and don’t have much money, I personally recommend subscribing for a month or two to the Premium+ subsciption, which is only $2.99/month. It’s all I can afford atm personally, so that’s what I’m going to be doing. They deserve support just for this action alone.
I don’t understand how that’s much different than YouTube. If you pay for YouTube then you don’t get ads either.
The point of the post is that Odysee no longer has ads. I’m not trying to say you needed the subscription to remove ads. That’s how it was previously, until today. Free users don’t see ads anymore.
The difference between YouTube Premium and Odysee Premium is mainly in it’s reason for existing. YouTube Premium exists for the sole purpose of providing features that used to be free, with some extra things that most people don’t givea hoot about and never use; and, you know… to make themselves richer. It exists so that people buy it for the value it specifically brings them.
So essentially; people buy YouTube premium for the features, while people buy Odysee Premium to support the growth of the platform, help fund the platform, and support free speech. The extra features they get are just a little bonus as thanks. Not only that, but the features Odysee provides are “Early-Access” features, which means that most, if not all of those features will become available for free users eventually. At that point, I’m not sure what Odysee Premium will provide if all the features become free; they’ll have to figure something else out to give it more incentive. But as it currently stands, Odysee Premium is more like a donation than a service; which gives you extra features as thanks.
You’re reading obnoxious levels of goodwill into the actions of a company that doesn’t deserve it. This is just the video platform equivalent of “critical support to Russia.”
The difference is your favorite channel won’t be destroyed by a corporate abusing copyright strike, they won’t have to self-censor themselves from saying fuck or shit. A platform making money from ads means every content creator on that platform is a slave to the advertisers
they won’t have to self-censor themselves from saying fuck or shit
…or “non-white people are degenerate inferiors”.
Fuck Odysee.
My favorite channel wouldn’t have millions of subscribers and a somewhat steady recurring income because of this.
It’s a classic catch 22: Without viewers, no content creators. Without content creators, no viewers.
I think it’s great that they try to get rid of what makes YouTube suck but I don’t see that content creators are leaving YouTube anywhere soon.
They don’t need to leave YouTube at all. That’s because Odysee provides a YouTube sync feature, that syncs every upload from YouTube with the Odysee channel. They can set the sync and never touch Odysee again if they want to. Plus, if we collectively ask our favourite YouTubers to join Odysee, and actually make them realise that Odysee exists, more of them will eventually join. Once more have joined, it will be easier to convince even more YouTubers to join again. The cycle continues, and Odysee grows.
I’m sorry to be the guy that tried to ruin your party, but “if we collectively…”… How many people are you talking about?
100, 1000, 10000, 100000 ?
This is business. We’re talking about someone’s livelihood. Peace on earth is nice but it doesn’t guarantee food on your table.
Syncing is an alternative as long as it doesn’t mean that a view pays less on Odyssee than on YouTube. If it does, then the creator would not gain anything, just kidding income.
What is your selling argument for a YouTube creator with 100000 views on average to move to Odyssee?
I’m sorry to be the guy that tried to ruin your party, but “if we collectively…”… How many people are you talking about?
100, 1000, 10000, 100000 ?
As many people as are willing to do it. If you’re not; that’s fine; I’m not telling anyone they have to; it’s just an encouragement.
Syncing is an alternative as long as it doesn’t mean that a view pays less on Odyssee than on YouTube. If it does, then the creator would not gain anything, just kidding income.
Syncing is up to the YouTuber, it’s not hard to do, and requires no channel management after initially set up. They may not have a reason, depending on who they are, but it’s better to get some people on board with it than none.
What is your selling argument for a YouTube creator with 100000 views on average to move to Odyssee?
There is no “selling” point other than that it’s easy to set up and may earn them some extra cash, even if it’s not much in comparison to their YouTube pay. Other than that, there’s the fact that YouTube false copyright claims videos all the time, and if the YouTuber can’t get their video back up, their viewers can still at least view it through Odysee where the synced video did not get removed. If the channel is automatically taken down by false copyright issues, as has happened before, the video’s aren’t suddenly lost forever. Not all YouTubers keep a backup of all their videos on their own drives, and if their channel is taken down completely, “bye bye content”. I’m not trying to say that these reasons are much for most YouTubers, but with dozens of millions of YouTubers out there making good money, there are bound to be at least hundreds of thousands of them who would sync with Odysee if they knew about it.
Profits for big tech is never enough, and they will raise prices and introduce more ads forever. This is because in modern economy, having a quarter where the profits don’t grow is punished severely on the stock market.
Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
Personally, I hope the platform that welcomes Nazis crashes and burns.
Reading your comments is Nazis Nazis Nazis. I think you need some help.
Alright snowflake
Let the hate flow through you.
Freedom goes both ways. I hate nazis, but it’s better to have their bullshit out in the open to be criticized, than have them group up on shady underground places that would only make it worse.
I agree with you but so few people think so today. They think censorship is the answer because if they don’t see it, they feel better and can forget it exists.
deleted by creator
Absolutely fucking not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The Nazis already put their ideas out on the open, and we saw what happened.
The opposite is “the illusion of safety because of moderated platforms”. One might think a platform that removes fake news would only have real news, but that’s obviously not the case and creates an even worse landscape.
Just because moderating platforms to eliminate Nazis only drives them to build their own spaces doesn’t make deplatforming them the wrong move. I prefer them existing in the fringes rather than being accepted into the mainstream.
Tolerance for Nazis is only possible if you are ignorant of history, or if you are actively evil. “Stupid or Evil?” Isn’t a great place to exist, but I have to conclude one way or the other every time I run into this “why don’t we just hear the Nazis out?” narrative…
We know enough about Nazis already to tell them to go fuck themselves before they even open their mouths. Giving them a voice is an act of violence.
You’re doing the same as what others are trying to do to any open platform. You’re claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out. And as long as you believe that is the same, I’d rather not waste time discussing this.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely. If a platform is too heavily moderated and hides stuff like this, not only does it create the illusion that it does not exist, it also sets a precedent for abuse by the platform owners. The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
Filter bubbles are a very new concept and are much worse than coming across people spreading hatred and being able to tell them to suck it.
claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out.
On privately operated online social spaces, that’s exactly what you’re asking.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely.
That’s why free speech absolutism is a stupid idea that doesn’t make sense.
The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
You think the biggest threat to free speech is Elon Musk moderating Twitter like an idiot? You and I are clearly not worried about the same things in regards to suppression of speech…
Fuck no.
I just synced my youtube channel with odysee… Yeah a bunch of alt right trash is floating around but the only way to change that is to drown it out with actual content. The more normal content uploaded the less breathing room for the outrageous bullshit in feeds. Hopefully my library helps.
Awesome! What’s your channel?
Unfortunately I can’t share it on this account but it’s a channel for the maker community and related tools :P
How… How are they gonna pay for bandwidth if there aren’t any ads?
They also earn money from the optional premium subscriptions, the 5% cut from channel donations, and 100% of the donations sent directly to them. The way the direct donations work is by going to a video, and just below it, clicking the “$ Support” button and making the donation either via cash or LBC. That’s an option for all channels on the platform.
Otherwise, I don’t know the ins-and-outs of how the decentralised blockchain system works, but they do not have to host all of the sites content themselves, as it is also voluntarily hosted by other users. I’m not sure how this works at the moment; it previously worked by being a user of the LBRY Desktop app, but after the LBRY company shut down, and the LBRY app went away, I’m not sure how other people host the pieces of that content anymore. They are moving away from the LBRY blockchain protocol, over to the Arweave protocol, so I imagine they will bring out an Arweave app that may replace the LBRY app which that was used previously.
- Install watch on odysee extension.
- Make a odysee account
- Continue your normal habits of watching YouTube but being redirected to odysee when creators have posted there.
- hurt YouTube just a little bit.
I’m so sick of hearing that odysee is only a nazi crypto scam. That content exists on every platform but by shitting all over every option that comes out and then whining when YouTube does more anti user crap is just ridiculous.
You don’t need to just use odysee. You can use YouTube for your recommendations then be redirected for the content. Eventually when recommendations are there it will be an easy transition for the majority of people but until then, at the very least don’t step on the face of a working competitor that has good intentions.
P.s. You don’t need to use the token, it was mostly just given to viewers and creators for free.
I’m so sick of hearing that odysee is only a nazi crypto scam.
It’s like 98% uncontrolled extremist garbage. I can take or leave the crypto but the actual content is just so awful. We have better options.
Odysee is is one of the few alternative platforms with a decent left wing audience. The only other majority progressive platforms are Mastodon and Lemmy, though Lemmy has a lot of neo-progressive tankies and angry conservative tankies.
- Read stuff like this and love the idea.
- Never share this information anywhere.
- Check out the site but feel like creating an account is too much. I’m busy.
- Continue to never share information online.
- Complain about minor things on the site that I’d like improved.
- Hate that cool ideas never spread.
❤️
Exactly. Another awesome thing the extension provides is the ability to migrate all your YouTube subscriptions over to Odysee. You also have two options with the Watch on Odysee extension. You can 1: Make YouTube links immediately redirect to Odysee (default option), or 2: Have a “Watch on Odysee” button appear to the left of the subscribe button on every YouTube video that also exists on Odysee (Example screenshot). Choosing the latter option means you don’t need to disable the extension every time you want to comment on a YouTube video.
Another thing people keep doing is acting like Odysee is a free speech absolutist platform, in that they allow you to say and post absolutely anything. This is not true, because they have community guidelines which do not allow hate speech and promotion of violence (two examples). It’s just less strict and more fair in it’s moderation practices than YouTube.
Some Links: Firefox extension (can’t find it for Chrome, for some reason); Community Guidelines
Edit: If you want the extension on Chrome, you can get it directly from GitHub. You may need to view a guide if you don’t know how to install extensions manually.
I was a big fan of odysee but once LBRY lost to the SEC I figured it would die or change horribly. Im not sure who owns odysee now, how hosting works on it now that LBRY has been dissolved, or whos mining rigs are running the decentralized lbry blockchain that still presumably powers odysee. I need to know the details in clear detail before I trust it again on a technical level. I am more skeptical of crypto now and think a paid patreon membership peertube instance may be the best way to go. Peertubes biggest issue is scaling hosting cost as it gets bigger and donations can’t keep up as well as lifetime of an instance. If I host my videos on your site and a year later it goes dark or they were deleted because the server maintainer just didn’t want them taking up space, thats kind fustrating.
r they were deleted because the server maintainer just didn’t want them taking up space, thats kind frustrating.
Yeah, the onus is on us to keep the backups and perhaps reseed if necessary. The whole part where Youtube is a massive free unlimited hosting library is not sustainable eventually. Crypto has always been a grift with a variable lifespan, it just funds the services while it’s in it’s bubble.
Odysee was owned by LBRY before the LBRY company was dissolved. They were founded by the same team of people who created the LBRY company, and the LBRY network/protocol (the decentralised part), but are not themselves the same company. So the LBRY company going away was never going to dissolve Odysee also, which is why they still exist today. LBRY (the company) dissolving did not affect the content on Odysee because the LBRY network/protocol itself is open-source and decentralised; and LBRY being sued and dying does not somehow make the LBRY network/protocol illegal for Odysee (or anyone) to use. If Odysee had gone away, anyone else could have jumped in and made a new replacement frontend for the LBRY network/protocol (Odysee is a frontend for LBRY, after all).
About a month ago, Odysee announced that they would be moving away from the LBRY network over to the Arweave network. Now, I’m not sure when they are going to do this, but it appears that at the minute they are still using the LBRY network/protocol for content uploads. The reason I think they are still using LBRY at this very minute, is that when I uploaded a video to my Odysee channel yesterday, I noticed in my personal uploads page that it was still using the lbry:// at the beginning of it’s address on the network.
Sure looks full of MAGA garbage. Conceptually it’s a good idea, but I’ll be passing since I don’t need that trash in my life.
I completely understand not wanting to see that there, and you don’t have to see it, and besides, I see that all over YouTube too when I’m not signed in receiving good recommendations based on what I like.
I suggest reading my comment response to YTG123 (which is the other person who just replied to you), since you probably weren’t notified of it. Sorry to not reply directly, but I understandably don’t want to write another few hundred words, and the comment is relevant to you.
Thank you for this reasonable response.
Perhaps when things mature, I’ll give it another look. YouTube for me, when not signed in, does not have the sheer plethora of MAGA nonsense like this site does. Maybe it’s some regional algorithm, I don’t know, though I live in the south where MAGA idiocy runs rampant.
I take the path of least resistance when it comes to filtering out lies and garbage from my life. For now it’s simpler for me to just not browse the site than to weed out such content.
Internet is full of MAGA garbage. Bittorrent DHT is full of MAGA garbage. What’s your point? There are ways to filter out what you don’t want to see.
If you can’t see the point, then I cannot help you.
The point of course is that if you don’t want to see it, you refuse to use any platform that allows others to see it. Which must make it awfully hard to use the internet. Surprised you manage to even use Lemmy.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance. I was also alive well before the MAGA weirdos decided to spread their fascist Nazi propaganda all over the place. There was once a world war about that – and they lost. I guess they don’t like being losers.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it. Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance.
This appears to be an argument against a position I wasn’t taking. You just appear to be upset that alternative video streaming sites don’t ban people you disagree with. Good luck with that.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it.
Hey, you may been around longer than I have. Only had the internet since the mid 90s. So it depends on how you define “a few”. It was a very different beast back then, and I for one miss the relative lack of concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness.
Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
I chalk that up to said concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness, but then I don’t think it’s become a shithole because people I disagree with also have a voice, but because of aggressive monetization and the enshittification that that inevitably entails.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
No, you are well understood. You are opposed to alternative video platforms (and apparently some other unnamed Lemmy instance) because those things do not necessarily reinforce your echo chamber, and you consider that reinforcement a vital feature. I’m waaay over on the far end of the spectrum, and chose my instance specifically because they do not defederate, they keep everything available and leave it up to the user to decide what they do or do not wish to see (and I to date have nothing blocked - no users, no communities, no servers).
I can see it, I just want you to spell it out that you are a fascist douchebag (everyone who wants to censor other opinions is that).
So…being anti-MAGA makes me fascist. Got it. And I never once said I wanted to censor opinions. Stop making shit up, you sound like a MAGA moron.
Good lord, they’re everywhere. Literal morons, everywhere.
If you can’t see the point, then I cannot help you.
That’s you.
Which other point can be made then?
If there’s a system containing MAGA stuff, but you won’t see it if you don’t want to, it’s as fine for any situation as a system without MAGA stuff for any goal which is not censorship of MAGA stuff.
Good lord, they’re everywhere. Literal morons, everywhere.
Its worse than that, maga are literal terrorists at this point, and supporting a convicted criminal trying to elect him king so he can get away with all those crimes, makes them partially culpable for all his crimes
It definitely is, but it doesn’t try to force recommendations on you like YouTube. You can mostly just subscribe to channels you like and view their content.
It doesn’t force recommendations on you, and channels you don’t like can be muted or blocked. I’ve only blocked a handful of channels (Most of them were synced from YT too). Than there are sections: if you only want to see content you like to see, use the respective sections. If you want to see technology content, you aren’t going to click on the spirituality section.
Furthermore, recommendations aren’t actually a free feature (yet), as it’s still in early access and comes with Premium. 99.99% of the people who are upset about the “recommended content” being stuff they strongly dislike aren’t actually even being recommended anything to begin with. The videos that appear on the side are “Related” videos. Their system for determining related videos isn’t extremely comprehensive yet, so some other random content can slip through the cracks. For example, I was listening to a no-copyright music track called Icelanding Arpeggios, and I was shown a “Related” video along the side; a video synced from YouTube, which was of a man’s voice reading aloud Psalm 4 of the Old Testament with Icelanding Arpeggios playing in the background. The reason it was classified as “Related” wasn’t because some system was able to listen to the music in the video, but because the exact words “Icelanding Arpeggios” appeared in the description of said video about that Psalm. Here’s an example of “Related” suggestions. In this case they are working well and as intended, showing more video’s related to Solid-State batteries.
So the current unfortunate reality is that a video about, for example, how gravity works, occasionally may suggest “Related” content on the side about gravity not being real, that the earth is flat, and that the sun is 3,000 miles in the sky. Because, you know, it’s about the sun and gravity. The video’s are technically related in some way, but most people who are learning about the universe don’t want to see that, because it has no real scientific basis, is not widely accepted, and gravity and the ball earth has already been proven to be true.
After all, Odysee is still being developed, and their system’s for suggested “Related” content is still not fully matured.
Not familiar with Odysse, how’s they’re content moderation? We don’t need another fascist platform.
I started digging into Odyssey some time ago when I found electro boom and big Clive were posting there. Immediately there was a lot of trash, like mostly trash. I went ahead and created an account where I could actually block content makers. I started off just blocking the wheel offensive ones anyone spouting libtards and woke. Moved into blocking clinate deniers and anti-vaxs, flat earthers. I just sit there and block 40 or 50 every time I logged in. Slowly, the content became less offensive overall. But you start running into the problem where they’re all just videos from the same 30 preppers showing you how to make eggs in a $5,000 freeze dryer. I eventually started blocking the annoying and repetitive stuff. I haven’t checked recently, but in its heyday the content just wasn’t there even if you got rid of all the other crap you didn’t want to see
Yeah, I find that since so many people watch such different content from each other, it means that whether or not the content on a smaller platform like Odysee is actually interesting to people, tends to be hit or miss. It still needs more growth fix that issue. I still watch a lot of YouTube though, and Odysee has their own official extension which allows you to choose to either redirect YouTube links to Odysee (if the same video officially exists there), or show a “Watch on Odysee” button right YouTube’s “Subscribe” button.
I noticed there wasn’t enough gameplay videos of the games that I like, and hardly any game soundtracks uploaded, so I started uploading my full game playthrough’s and game OST’s to a couple of channels for the people who also have my taste in videos. Oh yeah, fun fact: You can also have multiple channels on the same account and quickly switch between them. It’s pretty cool. The extension even lets you transfer your subs over from YT.
You had me at the ability to block content creators. The fact that YouTube doesn’t have this is insane.
YouTube has a “Don’t recommend this channel” option. Which, as far as I can tell, does actually get them to stop recommending the channel on the main recommended feed. If you’re subscribed they’ll still show up in your subscriptions and will still show up in search if you look for them (to the extent that anything relevant shows up in search).
The option isn’t prominent, it’s in the “3-dot” menu next to a video on the recommended feed and I’ve been unable to find a way to view or manage the list of blocked channels, but it’s there.
Edit: a word - “able” to “unable”
Yeah, this is an option on YouTube.
On Odysee, there’s both the option to “Block” channels, or seperately “Mute” channels. You can also manage your blocked and muted channels separately under Profile > Settings > Content Settings > Blocked and muted channels. According to this page in the official Help Hub:
Blocking: “When you block a user, the blocked user can no longer comment on any of your content, channel, or comment threads. In addition to this, all comments and reactions left by the blocked user on your content, channel, or in the comments section, will be filtered for everyone.”
Muting: “When you mute a user, you will no longer see them in any comment sections, replies, search results, homepage, related content, or anywhere else. They’re hidden from your experience on Odysee.”
So basically, if you don’t want to see their content (including comments); mute them. If you don’t want them to talk to you or be seen in your own channels’ comment sections by both yourself or others; block them. If you want absolutely nothing to do with them, you can both block and mute them simultaneously. Note: The article shows how to block/mute them from within the comments section. You can also block/mute them from the channel page itself or by clicking the 3-dots beside their video thumnail.
u don’t want them to talk to you or be seen in your own channels’ comment sections by both yourself or others; block them. If you want absolutely nothing to do with them, you can both block and mute them simultaneously. Note: The article shows how to block/mute them from within the comments section. You can also block/mute them from the channel page itself or by clicking the 3-dots beside their video thumnail.
I did that, took me a couple weeks. There were a handful of content creators left.
how’s they’re content moderation
go there, you’ll se it immediately… loads of maga terrorist garbage
Good luck to them
And how will they support themselves? Another crypto scheme to battle out with SEC?
Focused on “free speech”?
When I see that used multiple times by a platform operator it invariably means they’re right-wing wingnuts and/or the platform will devolve into right wing drivel while silencing dissent.
Looks like you care zilch for free speech. If you and others with this opinion cared for free speech, you would promote your own alternative ideas on those platforms to even things out, instead of whining that there’s more opposing views to yours on the platform than not.
Did you specifically skip past the past where I said they silence dissent?
But thanks for telling me what I believe.
Do they? Do you have evidence?
Because I’m interested in YT alternatives. I pay for Nebula, and I’m interested in other platforms as well, especially if they champion free speech (like, actual free speech, not whatever Musk means by “free speech”).
Sure. Me. I’ve had comments deleted by admins when I criticized things like Russia feeding arms to Iran, operating misinformation campaigns, and generally trying to destabilize democracies.
That’s lame. Was that before or after LBRY’s bankruptcy? I’m wondering if they’ve changed their admins.
Dunno? It was about a half year ago.
“If you really cared about free speech you wouldn’t be using your free speech to call out Nazis”
Link to an example where the platform in question has silenced dissent?
I didn’t say it did.
I said it’s a behavior that platforms like this have a habit of doing so.
It remains to be seen.
The only way free speech can survive is with decentralized platforms like email and lemmy. Any time there is central control free speech isn’t.
You think Lemmy has free speech? Some major mods here are quite liberal in controlling exactly what speech and ideas they allow their uses to be exposed to, and that is how it will always be by those desiring power over others.
Yes, Lemmy is 100% free speech.
We can make lemmy.spacepope.org and nobody can silence us. It doesn’t prevent other instances from refusing to listen to the truth of space, but those who want to participate can.
eyeroll
This isn’t even a true statement. Mods are human and can silence views they don’t like.
Go post some progressive and democratic views or criticize authoritarian support over on the grad.ml side. See how long it is before you’re shut down, blocked or even banned. There’s no free speech rule just because the platform is decentralized.
The only mitigating factors are that you can have a platform for opposing views, but even that isn’t a guarantee here because the instance can be defederated and effectively silenced.
It’s free speech in a federated environment because someone can’t remove your voice.
It doesn’t obligate anyone to listen to you. So federated instances having opinions about who they talk to doesn’t contradict free speech.
People who want to talk about The Second Coming of the Space Pope are free to do so and don’t require any third party to let them do so.
Couldn’t that argument of different instances and their opinions be said about different centralised companies as well?
That’s what I said regarding starting your own instance to say what you want. I’m not sure why you felt the need to reiterate that.
And you also repeated what I said that nobody is obligated to listen to you - the instance can be defederated or admins can ban you.
So you essentially agree?
I disagree with you saying my statement isn’t true.
Any system that is centralized, and requires a third party to “allow” speech will tend to not have free speech.
My argument is regarding the idea that the fediverse faces the same issues with control of who gets to see what you say because people are people and instances controlled by people that may not like what you say can ban you or defederate.
You want to narrow the argument to centralized control, but imo that isn’t relevant to the overall premise that people tend to equate “free speech” not just to saying what you want but also people’s ability to hear it, and the fact is that even on the fediverse people are still silenced whether or not you agree with what they’re saying.
The fediverse is a thousand little moderators on a thousand little hills, its distributed decision making.
Free speech is not having anyone stopping you from having your soap box, it has nothing to do with guaranteeing you a audience, as long as those who want to listen can get to your soap box then the speech is free.
Yup. And on descriptive grounds, the whole thing falls into a false dichotomy: treating free speech as an all-or-nothing matter, instead treating freedom of speech as a scale. And that giving someone complete freedom of speech always means restricting the freedom of speech of someone else.
(I typically exemplify this through a guy with a megaphone in an offline plaza. Telling him to drop off the megaphone reduces his ability to reach willing listeners, thus his freedom of speech; but if you leave him alone nobody else can be heard, so their freedom of speech is lowered.)
Yes, your megaphone example is a special case of the paradox of tolerance. In this instance, tolerance of loud voices means quiet voices are drowned out.
It’s related - Popper’s paradox highlights that you can’t compromise with some people, while my focus is that you need to impose some limits.
It’s easy to tweak the example though, to be more like the paradox - if the megaphone guy is telling people to kick off the plaza some people, or saying stuff to make them leave.
Yes, or if multiple people get into a megaphone arms race and are all noise blasting each other so hard that no one can hear anything anymore.
Thank you, you put it better than I could. It’s not binary, it’s not all or nothing. You can have some freedom of speech and yet still not really have freedom of speech if you’re silenced by those who disagree.
How do creators generate income? Is it just Patreon type stuff? YouTube is probably one of the few services I actually don’t hate using other than its terrible algorithm.
It’s depressing that bleating “free speech” has become a shibboleth, betraying the speaker’s tedious far right contrarianism and a wish to express it without consequence. Racists, Nazis, x-phobes, bigots of all stripes; these are your target audience when your primary objective for your platform is supposedly “free speech”, especially when it’s in opposition to the censorship of your users’ bigotry on other platforms. I wish it weren’t so, but it fucking is, 100% of the time.
It’s like on reddit, when you discover a splinter sub called r/FunSubReborn or something, where they post the same content as r/FunSub, but in this “reborn” sub you can also be an unmitigated cunt in the comments and make racist or phobic remarks without getting banned.
Tedious, tiresome, clueless wankers.
Yeah it really does seem this way.
I’ve never been a “free speech absolutist”. I acknowledge that censorship is problematic, but it seems much less so than the alternative.
r/TrueUnpopularOpinion, r/TrueOffMyChest, r/GoodAnimemes (that sub was made after r/Animemes mods stated that “trap” was a slur, which made a bunch of manchildren angry who went to go make their own sub, so you can immediately guess how much of a misogynistic porn-oriented hellhole it is)
The mods are still wrong.
Trap is a slur, especially used often by weebs. Describing gender non-conforming characters who look feminine as “traps”, including many canonically non-binary and woman characters, is pretty fucked up when you think about it. To them, “traps” and genderqueer people in general are sex objects, not characters with respectable identities. Most of the weebs that throw that word around are also the ones to do trans erasure, like denying that a character is transgender or otherwise gender non-conforming, instead treating any character implied not to be AFAB as a man; and then often ironically going crazy defending it as “not gay” because that’d be bad – there’s a reason “traps aren’t gay” is a meme, and it’s an unironically defended position by these people. They convince themselves it’s not gay by reducing queer people & characters down to sex objects, things to masturbate to, rather than people. If you don’t see them as an equal person, it’s not gay or immoral, is how they process it. Obviously they won’t say that explicitly if you ask them though, they’ll just say it’s not gay because being attracted to things that look like women is straight or something.
That’s why it’s used a shit ton in, you know, porn. Not just hentai, but actual real porn. Usually in place of “bitch”, “whore”, or some other word used to dehumanize women. They’re used in the same derogatory manner. It’s pretty disturbing when men use “bitch” or “whore” to refer to women and female characters, it’s dehumanizing. And it’d be pretty disturbing to well-adjusted people if someone described anyone feminine genderqueer as “a trap”, but this is a slur that weebs are fine using amongst themselves.
This problem is made worse by the fact that generic animes started to play into this, that is, they created “trap” tropes (with a lot of objectified/token otokonoko or josoko characters popping up because weebs like it).
You would think those people wouldn’t equate anime characters with real people, but this mentality transfers between fiction and nonfiction unfortunately. Often times the way you feel about character identities in media is representative of the way you feel about the identities of real people – just look at the backlash of the gamergate people about the woke “ruining games and movies” by putting minorities and women in them.
Now, I’m not saying everyone who’s ever used the word “trap” is a bigot or anything. People use words without realizing the way others see it, and the impact it has. I used it in my weeb phase. But undeniably, “trap” is a derogatory word and a slur used to objectify queer people, and it always has been – it originated in 4channers & internet weirdos getting mad over trans people being at gaming events, posting pictures and labelling them “traps” (“they’re trying to trick you into thinking they’re a woman to trap you into having sex with them, when they’re really not a woman”). It’s no different than other slurs for queer people (like “fag” or “sodomite”). It’s harmful and shouldn’t be used. Persistence on using it shows a lack of respect for (or just plain ignorance of) genderqueer people and their identities.
That’s great, now remove all your bloat and spyware.
Then they would need to bring back ads
What bloat/spyware?
What bloat? And Spyware…?
The only trackers they use are onetrust geolocation cookie, which determines the country and state/city, but not exact location, based on your IP address. Than there’s googletagmanager, which I agree they should remove just for being Google.
Calling them spyware for the tiny speck of data-collection they do is petty, when you’re completely ignoring the things that prove they specifically care about privacy. For one, you can sign up completely anonymously; secondly, you can comment and post videos under the name “Anonymous”; thirdly, according to their Privacy Policy:
Third-party disclosure: We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your Personally Identifiable Information unless we provide users with advance notice. This does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving our users, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential…
Fourth: they are the only website I’ve ever known of to actually respect the “Do Not Track” setting that you can explicitly toggle in your browser settings. There is no standard way of managing “Do Not Track” signals in the industry, so 99% of websites have no systems in place to stop themselves collecting your data when this browser setting is enabled.
There’s some tracking they were doing prior to their ads removal a few days ago in regards to what ads you were clicking on. But everything related to ads will likely be removed from the policy very soon, as the policy was last updated in 2021 when they were still serving ads. Example:
We, along with third-party vendors such as Google use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions and other ad service functions as they relate to our website.
Odysee is not spyware, and nor is it bloated. Even if you could argue it has some amount of bloat (which is usually subjective, so you probably can); it still wouldn’t be anywhere near the 50x more bloat that YouTube, the very thing they are trying to be an alternative to, have themselves.
Isn’t this the crypto bro, far right haven site? No thanks.
It split from LBRY, which originally pushed a cryptocurrency system kind of like Brave’s BAT. They’re now trying to go decentralized, but it’s with a blockchain system, so I guess we’ll see where that goes (blockchain isn’t a problem, provided they’re not pushing a currency).
I’m interested to see where it goes, so I sub to a few channels I’d otherwise watch on YouTube. But I’m not giving them any of my money until they earn it. I’m currently paying for Nebula because a few of my favorite channels are there, and I’d be willing to pay for Odysee if there was a decent value proposition.
Blockchain is innately stupid. There is no scenario where it would make sense to use blockchain over another technology.
I disagree. I think it makes a lot of sense for something like a distributed authentication system. Or perhaps a distributed voting system. Basically, if you want a distributed system with some sort of consensus, blockchain is your best bet.
Why not do proper research about the platform before attacking one of the only platforms trying to create the change they want to see in the world?
Please be aware, Odysee was recently purchased by a Crypto company that also acquired an NFT company.
For more info, see my comment here: https://slrpnk.net/comment/9749921
I would not recommend investing any time or money into the platform, as it will inevitably crash and burn as the owners walk away flush with cash while everyone else is left holding the bag.
Peertube is not ideal, but it is currently the only alternative that isn’t tied to a shady crypto scheme.
Nazi NFTs you say?
Not interested.
I attack them because the change they want to create is not one I want. You can keep your Nazi and crypto trash to yourself.
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You know what’s interesting to me? People only screech “free speech!” when they are trying to say something shitty.
Freedom of persecution from the government for speech criticizing that government is a good thing.
But “freedom of speech absolutism” is only ever used as an argument by shitty people trying to say shitty things. Free speech doesn’t mean you should be free from repercussions from your peers.
Nazis don’t need a platform, and they don’t need Devil’s advocates like you.
But “freedom of speech absolutism” is only ever used as an argument by shitty people trying to say shitty things. Free speech doesn’t mean you should be free from repercussions from your peers.
Me commenting on Odysee that LibreWolf is a great browser for privacy, or that SuperTuxKart and Veloren are good open source games is me saying shitty things, is it? You don’t even know the things that are said by the people you are talking about who advocate free speech absolutism. Further, Odysee inherently does not allow an absolutist level of free speech (it legally can’t), which is the whole reason they have community guidelines that must be followed.
Edit: I accidentally seemed to be implying that I was a free speech absolutist when I am not. I do not believe that people should be allowed to promote violence or hatred of any kind; Odysee doesn’t allow this either. What I DO believe, is that those people should be allowed to express through speech what their own views are; even Nazi’s; as long as they aren’t promoting Nazism, violence, hatred or similar. So no, I am not being a devils advocate, because if the platform was completely 100% free speech to the point where it actually allows true hate speech, promotion or encouragement of violence and hatred etc., I wouldn’t be supporting the platform and defending it at all. If it were like that and I was still promoting it, than fair… calling me a devil’s advocate would make sense.
