youtube? the place with free quality documentaries, free knowledge in the easiest to digest video form about a huge variety of topics? the spot where you can learn life skills, cooking, hobbies, maths, physics, programming, among many others, with visualised tutorials showing every part of every step with explenations?
what on earth is happening to the internet these days? absolute insanity
social media is shit and i get restricting twitter or tiktok, but youtube? it seems so bizarre to me
While all of that might be true, YouTube is also a for-profit cesspool of trash content, hate speech, and misinformation. An entire generation of gen z manosphere Nazi bootlickers got where they are watching “gaming videos” on YouTube.
It auto plays by default and their algorithms are dogshit, so you might start watching an educational video with your kid, but end up on a flat earth video fifteen minutes later, or much much worse.
When my son was younger, we severely limited his YouTube time and closely monitored what he was watching on it. Most parents don’t do that.
I dislike legislation like this too, but we’re not talking about PBS or a library here. Kids truly shouldn’t be on YouTube unattended.
What’s the deal with gaming videos? Do game streamers tend to be Nazis? Seems like a strange place to push right-wing propaganda.
Look up gamergate and Steve Bannon. The gamer to Nazi pipeline is, unfortunately, very real.
Seems like a strange place to push right-wing propaganda.
Gamers are easy to rile up, already have exposure to a lot of counter culture language in VC, and generally young or ignorant enough that they can’t see the obvious propaganda they’re being fed. Add into that content creators that intermix rightwing talking points and you can slowly poison their minds into becoming Nazi shitbags.
As the other commenter mentioned, gamergate is where all this shit first came up, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t there with the people who fell for the poison. I was just aware enough of what I was seeing to pull away from that culture before it really poisoned my mind.
I think there’s not much Nazi gamer shit out there because it’s incredibly rare for any to slip into my recommendations.
But if I let YouTube go it would probably take me from normal people like anyaustin to hype people like xQc. And then from there all the popular people can show up, including asmonmold. And people like him are legit brain rot.
Edit: for overwhelming Nazi content in your feed, try gun YouTubers. I binged gun Jesus and nothing. Watched Brandon Herrera (spelling?) build aks and look at cursed weapon memes and somehow that means I’m a flaming Trumper.
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The degree to which some of you stick your heads in the sand is stunning. How do you even reply to this in good faith? Between the algorithms, mis/disinformation, propaganda, hate speech, bullying, and general bullshit, I don’t understand how someone can either be this naive or this fucking dishonest.
I have struggled to filter with YouTube Kids what is allowed. The setup is default allow with channel denies (opposite of a good firewall), so I have taken to yt-dlp and Jellyfin to get around it. I don’t agree with the law as written, but I get the intent. Parents should be more active in their kids’s lives versus the state.
There is tons of useless and polarizing stuff on YouTube.
Youtube is the second largest Social Network
I never saw it that way I till I saw a report on what the preferred social media platforms for teens… and it was the number one slot at that time. Apparently teens (and others) have entire conversations in the comments, share videos with friends, and doom scroll YouTube.
And I don’t know if you’ve read YouTube comment threads (I don’t usually) but they can get pretty toxic, even on tame content. Not to mention all the FUD and propaganda being distributed there.
Elsagate
All this child safety is just because they don’t want to do proper moderation. What about user safety? Scams and hate speech don’t belong for adults either
Sure, but adults should make their own decisions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a nanny state.
Oh boy, it’s Online Safety Act 2: Electic Boogaloo! Get ready for:
- Teens downloading Dodgy VPNS.
- YOTI and other ID apps taking out personal info and eventually getting fuckin’ hacked.
- Fake ID Apps appearing and just skipping the “Hack YOTI” Stage.
- VPN subs and Tor use to skyrocket.
- The monopolisation of out internet lives into the hands of a few social media companies.
…and much more!
Wonderful. It’s already banned in my household.
Good. YouTube is a contributor to increasing massive societal polarisation. We don’t want kids these days turning to Nazis. Some of the kids and people I grew up with became extremist.
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Good, social media is a bane on growth
