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x4740N ,
@x4740N@lemmy.world avatar

No wonder why YouTube got weird for me

jigsaw250 ,

I was wondering the same. Thought it was something on my end.

Monument ,

I’ve been noticing a lot of ‘interesting’ behavior with data-hungry websites when I use more privacy-focused measures lately.

Gmail logs me out of Safari at least weekly now for no apparent reason, other than to inconvenience me.
Gmail also refuses to deliver any emails forwarded through hide my email. They simply do not arrive, not even to spam. I had to start using another email service for hide my email. (Additionally, every email I get from Apple gets tagged with a phishing warning, which is just petty and funny.)
Facebook sends an email every time I log in (once or twice a month) to tell me that Firefox is suspicious because I use ad-blockers and private windows.

SheDiceToday ,
  • >says he has a privacy focus
  • >uses facebook

Press ‘F’ to suspect…

PleasantAura ,

In certain parts of the world, you quite literally do not have a choice. For example: I’m in a rural community on an island. No one uses any other website to post anything, from local classified ads to events to important city/community stuff. The choice isn’t to use a better alternative but whether a person here has social contact with anyone locally at all.

No, moving is not a realistic option, especially not moving as far as we’d have to move; even the biggest city in the province doesn’t use anything else.

Monument ,

I wasn’t sure if the first boring, low-effort comment was going to call me an Apple fanboy, or comment on the Facebook account I haven’t posted to since 2016, but it looks like Facebook won.

Your combative, yet somehow insubstantial comment reminds me of the same hollow, thoughtless comments that made Reddit so easy to abandon once they’d shown their hand.

But I didn’t have friends on Reddit. When I got to know people there, we moved our interaction off the site, to other services, or we became IRL friends. (One of them even moved across the country and married me!)

And that’s sort of the difference, right? What made Reddit easy to walk away from doesn’t hold for Facebook. The friends I’ve added on Facebook are still on the platform. They still share tidbits about their life that they may not want to individually message every single person they know, they still send me messages, and they still invite me to gatherings. I’ll deign to log in with email accounts that are not tied to my identity for them. I get significantly more satisfaction out of those interactions than I do from sparring with people who write as if their entire ability to relate to others is restricted to cheap jabs.

penquin ,

Does changing the user agent fix this? Anyone tried? I keep forgetting to try it myself.

Aatube ,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Spoofing = setting user agent

penquin ,

Thank you. I’m an idiot today. Sorry about that.

Limitless_screaming ,
@Limitless_screaming@kbin.social avatar

The title says so, and the video shows it.

penquin ,

Yup, I can’t read. My bad.

FartsWithAnAccent ,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t be evil.

agent_flounder ,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t be evil

umbraroze ,
@umbraroze@kbin.social avatar

If Chrome is known for one thing, it's absurd User-Agent strings. Why not make it even more absurd???

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 (Ahahaha; Fuck you Google; This is actually) Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0

_number8_ ,

imagine sitting down to code this and thinking you’re doing the right thing

you should be able to whisteblow clearly evil technology and have some sort of economic safety net

Karyoplasma ,

Counter point: the code monkeys just do what they are being paid for. The fact it’s so easy to circumvent is a testimony on how the people implementing this shit disagree with the corporation.

zalgotext ,

Hi, code monkey here - I don’t work for a large company like Google, am paid less than a Google code monkey, and the products I work on are used by orders of magnitude less people. But even still, if my lead came to me and said “hey, I need the frontend to detect when a user is using ‘XYZ Browser’ and then introduce an artificial 5 second latency whenever they try to load a page”, I’d look at him with incredulity and tell him “no, I’m not doing that. That’s stupid and you should feel bad for suggesting it.”

Code monkeys aren’t paid to simply follow instructions given to them by someone else like some sort of robot - were paid to create applications and programs that people can use, and are usually given enough creative room to do that in a way we see as the best way.

Hossenfeffer ,
@Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk avatar

I… am paid less than a Google code monkey… I’d… tell him"That’s stupid and you should feel bad for suggesting it.”

I feel like these things are connected.

zalgotext ,

Maybe it was unclear. If I get fired for insubordination or whatever, I would be in much more pain than a Google code monkey, because I’m paid much less.

Are you thinking about it another way, where because I’m paid less, I wouldn’t care if I got fired, which makes me more emboldened to push back on my higher ups?

Karyoplasma ,

Sadly, salary and loyalty to the corporation are often proportional is what they meant.

zalgotext ,

Right, gotcha. In my experience, software developers are a bit more principled (maybe fickle is a better word lol) than that. Sure there are some dedicated “company man” types, but for the most part software devs are more loyal to the work/end product than the company

Of course my experience doesn’t speak for anyone else’s, take all this with a grain of salt, etc, etc

histic ,

I mean they need money to live

erwan ,

Google developers can easily find a job elsewhere. If they stay at Google the chose to.

FontMasterFlex ,

Isn’t it one of Google’s ‘creeds’ to “Don’t be evil”?

Okami_No_Rei ,
@Okami_No_Rei@lemmy.world avatar

I heard they quietly dropped that as their motto several years ago.

Rustmilian ,
@Rustmilian@lemmy.world avatar

Doesn’t this break competition laws?
Couldn’t Google/YouTube be sued over this?

Burn_The_Right ,

Not in the U.S. Not as long as conservatives (incl. neo-liberals) have the power to protect them.

Our conservative politicians are bought and paid for by large anti-competitive corporations.

remus989 ,

Bought and paid for with a pittance.

mycatiskai ,

They are bribed for so little that it would be almost easier to make a dystopian sounding PAC with money raised by small dollar donations to bribe them to do what the people want instead of them doing what rich donors want.

remus989 ,

Only if that PAC could somehow guarantee a cushy job post politics.

umbraroze ,
@umbraroze@kbin.social avatar

Microsoft got repeatedly hit over this kind of shenanigans in MSIE during and after the anti-trust lawsuit.

Sadly, that was 20 years ago. I'm not having much faith in American justice system doing anything about this nowadays.

Sendbeer ,

They really weren’t that effective with Microsoft then either. The antitrust was far too late for Netscape and allowed Microsoft to hold a dominate market share with IE until they allowed the browser to deprecate and Google came in with a much better browser and took over the browser market (and are now doing the same bullshit).

As long as we keep giving these companies meaningless fines or wait until the damage is irreversible companies are going to always push the limit and look at any repercussions as just a cost of doing business.

So yeah, not much faith in anything changing.

SapphironZA ,

That is why I am in favour of the financial death penalty. Fines should be 10x the damage done. If a company cannot pay it, they are required to become a non profit.

WldFyre ,

Fines should be 10x the damage done

What are your monetary damages for this?

Instigate ,

I think a better solution is one year of global revenue (not profit) as it’s really hard to determine damages in cases like this. That way, it’s legitimately a death sentence regardless of the size or scale of the company. If you set the fines at an amount not linked to profit or revenue, all you’re doing is making it extremely hard for the little guy but less hard for the big corporations - the ones you really want to go after.

SapphironZA ,

I like it, much more practical.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah stuff like this really needs to be percentual and fined to the CEOs and the board, not the company as an entity.

Oh, Microsoft valued at 200 bil for shareholders? Well sorry C’s and boardies, you gotta scrunge up 2 bil each now, personally. Those are fines they’d at least notice.

(edit)
Come to think of it, the fined-personally-to-the-decisionmaker might really be the big thing here on its own. The company did this shit under you, CEO. It was your corporate policy and hiring practices that allowed this to happen, even if you did not press the button. You pay up. You take the blame, not the people under you just following orders.

uid0gid0 ,

This just ignores the reason that corporations exist in the first place, to shield people from personal liability. There is a mechanism by which you can go after that called “piercing the corporate veil” but it is an extremely high bar to hit.

Emma_Gold_Man ,

the reason that corporations exist in the first place, to shield people from personal liability

Which is the problem. As parent rightly pointed out, lack of personal liability is exactly why corporations pull this kind of bullshit. The solution is to lower the bar for holding individuals, particularly executives, personally responsible for the actions of the organizations they control.

LWD , (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    A_Random_Idiot ,

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline

    axios.com/…/shifting-baselines-syndrome-climate-c…

    Ensign_Crab ,

    Microsoft got repeatedly hit over this kind of shenanigans in MSIE during and after the anti-trust lawsuit.

    And all they had to do was drag the trial out until a favorable administration took office.

    locuester ,

    Well they also dragged out the trial so long that time and costs rendered the plaintiff (Netscape) hopeless.

    themurphy ,

    EU anthem intensifies

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    malicious slowdowns like this are why microsoft abandoned (non chrome) edge, too. Cause they couldnt keep up with fixing the constant fuckery google was doing, and users are idiots and blamed edge for all the problems.

    Sendbeer ,

    Microsoft was kind of getting their comeuppance there. They did the exact same billshit when they dominated the market with IE.

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    You’re right.

    Lets let google get away with murder because Microsoft did bad a decade+ ago.

    Sendbeer ,

    I don’t think that’s what I said? At least it’s not how I meant it.

    Voroxpete ,

    You should look into all of the anti-monopoly actions that Lina Khan has been pursuing as head of the FTC. Under her tenure the watchdogs have had more teeth than ever before. It takes time for this stuff to make a difference, but they are most decidedly doing the work (Cory Doctorow has some excellent write ups on this if you check his blog).

    tetris11 ,
    @tetris11@lemmy.ml avatar

    He lionizes her a bit much, but yes she has done far more than her predecessor.

    creditCrazy ,
    @creditCrazy@lemmy.world avatar

    You can always count on lobbiests to enshitifiy the laws

    agent_flounder ,
    @agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes. And you can submit your complaint here

    www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-center

    Rustmilian ,
    @Rustmilian@lemmy.world avatar

    Well, can’t hurt to try.

    Blackmist ,

    Wait for it to become equally shitty in all browsers, and then you can only watch in a special Youtube Windows app.

    JigglySackles ,

    Yeah, the fines just aren’t big enough for Google to care.

    JohnDClay ,

    Any extensions you’d recommend for having Firefox spoof chrome?

    ililiililiililiilili ,

    addons.mozilla.org/…/user-agent-string-switcher/

    This is what I use and it’s worked great so far.

    pastaPersona ,

    Sometimes I get curious about chromium based browsers and consider giving them a shot for a while.

    Then Google does shit like this and I keep mainlining Firefox out of spite. Half the reasons people experience “issues” with Firefox are just dumb garbage like this (see sites / web content being developed with Chrome-based in mind)

    _number8_ ,

    the website DRM thing is one of the most blackpilled and evil uses of technology i’ve ever seen

    the people in charge of developing that should be put in a padded room and never allowed to see sunlight again. fucking god.

    FartsWithAnAccent ,
    @FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

    Woah, woah, woah, slow down: Why do they get to have padding in their room?

    Jiggs ,

    I would assume so they cant easily hurt themself and have to live and suffer through it for as long as possible

    Draconic_NEO ,
    @Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

    But then they’ll be comfortable in there, because it’s soft and padded as opposed to cold and hard.

    ImFresh3x ,

    I mean this in the least condescending way:

    as far as I’m aware, even after looking it up, I think you are misusing the term blackpill.

    Blackpill usually refers to a manosphere/Incel or Qanon type who has given up completely and lost all hope. In the the case of an Incel it’s that there’s no hope in ever escaping Inceldom. In the case of q anon it’s that none of the predictions about the “storm” will ever arise or come true.

    I looked around and couldn’t find any other contexts that it’s used.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pill?wprov=sfti1#

    I am willing to accept that I could be wrong. But I looked all over search results etc.

    Sheeple ,
    @Sheeple@lemmy.world avatar

    Heck I use god damn duckduckgo out of spite nowadays

    Amends1782 ,

    DDG is legit great and even sometimes better than Google search now. I also am a SearXNG enjoyer

    phoenixz ,

    DDG, even though apparently a Bing front end, gives legit better results than google

    Sheeple ,
    @Sheeple@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s honestly good. It misses that “Algorithm profile” that Google has where it starts to “understand” what you mean but it’s still pretty good.

    (Example. If I type in “genocide” in Google, it knows I often look for Undertale related things and pushes “Undertale genocide route” related content. For DDG I need to be clearer about what I mean)

    It took a bit getting used to but I prefer it this way now.

    Tattorack ,
    @Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

    I have never had a reason to switch from Firefox. I used Chrome once out of curiosity, but I didn’t like it.

    Katana314 ,

    I think it’s still possible to ethically use Chromium browsers, so long as it’s one of them that’s been reviewing and removing anything ludicrous Google adds. I don’t even mind MS Edge on most of my computers for the most part. Firefox doesn’t load well on my tablet.

    Reverendender ,

    Does not happen for me Safari or Firefox.

    db0 OP ,
    @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    They may not be deploying this to all users

    Imgonnatrythis ,

    What does that mean? If you logout and go anonymous do you still have the issue?

    db0 OP ,
    @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It’s probably limited to regions rather than user accounts.

    Imgonnatrythis ,

    This is testable with vpn

    Nawor3565 ,

    Possibly. It’s impossible to know how they keep track of who to roll it out to. It could be IP-based, or they could put a cookie on your browser that could stick around even after you log out.

    PrincessLeiasCat ,

    Ignoring all the other obvious reasons, FF is always superior to Chrome for YT because of its simple PIP.

    This is a must have, especially if I’m at work and want to keep up with any myriad of live events.

    phillaholic ,

    Reading the comments, It looks to be ad related, and maybe Firefox’s built in privacy tools are the root of the problem?

    Fafner ,
    @Fafner@yiffit.net avatar

    It’s a Google problem, Firfox’s built in privacy tools are working as intended.

    phillaholic ,

    🙄 and they sometimes break sites by accident. I’m not saying it’s Firefox’s fault to fix. If you read the comments on the reddit post, there are several users looking at the code and finding what’s happening and it’s not tied to user agent.

    db0 OP ,
    @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    If that was the case, then a user-agent switch wouldn’t fix it

    phillaholic ,

    old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/…/ka0myef/

    Quacksalber ,

    I really hope they try this in the EU. The EU regulatory agencies have been on a roll lately.

    DepressedCoconut ,

    They are doing it here to.

    Infiltrated_ad8271 , (edited )
    @Infiltrated_ad8271@kbin.social avatar

    I didn't see it, I guess ublock again saved my ass before I could realize it.

    alphapuggle ,

    Holy fuck I hope they get the pants sued off of them

    refurbishedrefurbisher ,

    Best we can do is 0.001% of their profit from last fiscal year and no prison time.

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