Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.
Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.
https://files.catbox.moe/a6111d.png / https://nitter.poast.org/LinusTech/status/1825956050685800834
If you go the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsjHMzGl-VY. You will see it's gone. So Youtube being Youtube.
Here's a Odysee mirror of the video, https://odysee.com/@jopec:7/linus-tech-tips-degoogle-your-life-part-2-adfree-youtube:0.
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Funny, considering in the past he's gone on big rants about how adblocking is no different from piracy, and is theft.
But then again, its Linus we're talking about, its not like he has a particularly big issue with theft anymore.
He did address this in the video
I don't understand why people are all pro-piracy but then get offended when someone accuses them of piracy....
He never went on any "big rants". He's mentioned it a few times, and he's right. You're bypassing payment (in the form of watching ads) to watch the video. LTT doesn't really care because AdSense only makes up a small portion of their income, which is why he's shown many different times, many different ways to block/bypass advertising. I could make an argument about how he's "pulling up the ladder behind him" but I digress.
Regardless "piracy" is a fairly convoluted term with no concrete definition and it's a dumb argument for anyone to have.
If they want payment, they can require registration, agreement to payment and authentication. Nothing's stopping them. If they put something on the open web and try to monetize it, nobody owes them a living. If I put a display in a shop window, and include wording that says that looking at the display means you're obligated to also hear a sales pitch, everyone will rightly tell me to fuck off.
Choosing not to load potential spyware, malware and bloatware while looking at free content is no more piracy than is crossing the street while shopping to avoid a tout.
Choosing not to load potential spyware, malware and bloatware while looking at free content is no more piracy
It is not free content. You're just spreading disinformation. Just like the movies you download when pirating are not free content. The payment is watching ads. You're utilizing software to forego that payment (just like piracy).
Its not piracy though... its the same as if you recorded television and then... skip over the ads. TiVo was doing that 25 years ago. You have no obligation to watch ads.
If content relies purely on ad revenue and viewer ship disappears, perhaps its time to rethink the revenue stream.
We all fucking know what 'piracy' means in terms of software piracy and copyright infringement.
People like you are just being pedantic for the sake of derailing the argument.
Just admit you are a fucking leech and move on.
Except you do not know what copyright infringement is. One must be depriving the owner their rights, such as distributing copyright material. The real loser here is youtube. By not watching ads, youre costing them bandwidth and violates theyre ToS. But theyre a multi billion dollar tech giant that has no quams about fucking society over. So fuckem.
Me: stop being a pedantic twat, we all know what everyone means by piracy in this case
You: let me be even more pedantic
It's ok bro just admit you're a leech and move on.
You literally do not have to use YouTube.
This is correct, he both explained how ad blocking hurts creators, and how ultimately he doesn't mind because purchasing merch is way more beneficial to them then the adsense money.
All he was saying is do what you want to do but don't pretend your actions don't impact other people. Do it with open eyes if you're going to do it.
To be clear, blocking ads isn't directly denying anyone money. YouTube decides how video creators are paid and they choose to not pay if ads are blocked. You can agree or disagree with that decision, but the user has no role in it.
Personally I think it's shitty that YouTube can just refuse to pay for the content people create for them.
The implied use of the platform is that you agreed to view ads as an exchange for goods and services. stop being a dumbass.
I did not agree to anything. When I open the site they just start serving videos to me (even autoplay is activated by default). If they don't want me to watch their videos without ads they should stop serving them to me (ie, put them behind a paywall)
Ownership implies a device should be controlled by the user. I don't just mean not playing adverts but how about not recording my voice (or other data) to send it to Google servers for them to keep and exploit? You're free to believe in this implied agreement but I doubt that's in your best interests.
YouTube decides how video creators are paid and they choose to not pay if ads are blocked.
So...this is YouTube's fault because they chose not to be a charity? LOL that's some gold-winning mental gymnastics right there.
You’re bypassing payment (in the form of watching ads)
By this argument going to the bathroom during a commercial break is piracy.
This isnt "someone being offended when accused of piracy"
This is " People getting upset when an idiot tries to blame end users, instead of holding the people who created the problem accountable"
Cause adblock isnt a user problem.
Its an ad service problem. They created a hostile environment where people had to run adblockers to protect themselves against unmoderated and unpoliced content and malicious/infected advertising.
If you have issues, blame the people who caused it, not the end users trying to protect themselves.
This is " People getting upset when an idiot tries to blame end users, instead of holding the people who created the problem accountable"
Did Linus blame anyone though?
No. He simply stated a fact.By this argument going to the bathroom during a commercial break is piracy.
Only you didn't go to the bathroom. The ad just never appeared.
Chances of you getting up and leaving the room every time an ad comes on: 10%.
Chances of you blocking an ad with an ad-blocker: 100%.
This isnt "someone being offended when accused of piracy"
I think it very clearly is.
This is " People getting upset when an idiot tries to blame end users, instead of holding the people who created the problem accountable"
Whether it is piracy or not has nothing to do with blame or responsibility. You're still just taking personal offense to being called a pirate and conjuring up nonsense arguments to combat it.
Chances of you getting up and leaving the room every time an ad comes on: 10%.
Actually I have a track record of 100% getting up to do stuff when ads happen
Like what are you even doing in your life bro?
Using ad blockers. What are you doing?
Ad blocker on a tv broadcast, sure.
I haven't watched TV since 2007...
Yeah, him calling it piracy or not doesn't matter, it's just a stupid semantic argument that doesn't matter at all to his overall point. And while I think it's a stupid take of him, it's also the reason people are still bringing up his opinion on the matter, so good job of him spreading his message I guess?
I think he mentioned that ad-blocking is priacy, but I don't recall he said piracy is theft or piracy is inheritly unethical.
He mentioned many time that he pirates stuff, except he would pay for them first.
It's a little bit more nuanced than that. Yes you're denying ad revenue but it's not a bad thing.
They are being paid by third parties to shove something in your face that you didn't come to see in the first place. They're not entitled to earn a cent from that, regardless of what bait they choose to place in the trap.
Who elected them and who consented to this manipulative, intrusive arrangement?
That's exactly the reasoning why it's not wrong to block ads. I do it on every device I have. Screw ad companies.
Do you have a source? I've watched his videos for awhile but I don't remember hearing this take from him.
It was on an episode of the WAN show a while back (I don't know which, I stopped watching a while ago). He said if you're not paying for the service or watching the Ads, it's the same as Piracy because your not paying what's owed.
Which is incorrect, because Google itself went like 15 years without showing any ads at all to like 5% of their users.
If some hawker comes up to me and pushes a bunch of flowers in my face while I'm out walking, I'm not obligated to pay for smelling them. And if they're sufficiently aggressive, they're committing assault.
It was in the streams with Luke. I dont remember the exact ones, I'm sorry. I can say that the last time I saw it was years ago, though, but thats because I stopped watching his content years ago.
edit
actually found a clip embedded in another site, i'm shocked.
He talks about it in this video (the video this thread is about)
No, because that isn’t Linus’s take.
I think he’s referencing a stream once upon a time where Linus discussed the arguments around streaming and it’s impact on creators, from a creator’s perspective .
But because he uttered something in favor of ads on his videos-which is how they got paid-he’s now considered ultra pro invasive ads by the user above, who professes to not actually watching Linus
No, it was most definitely Linus's take. Louis Rossman covered this a couple of years ago. Direct Linus quote from that Twitter thread:
Ad blocking is the exact same thing as piracy. Literally the exact same thing.
Linus himself covers those Twitter comments, and defends them further, in this video.
I really don't get the hate he got for that take.
Circumventing the method of payment could be argued as being a form of piracy. From that point of view, adblock is piracy.
Like them or not, YouTube is not a charity and requires the serving of ads to continue funding the service. You could argue about how they go about it, but it's a fact they need some sort of income to continue to exist.
Same goes for YouTubers. They get a percentage of that ad revenue. And they also need some form of income.But just because he said so doesn't mean he doesn't understand why adblock is used. He didn't say "don't use adblock." He's shown how to use adblock before and since. He's also mentioned that buying something from their webshop gives them a lot more money than turning off adblock.
Saying "watching movies for free is pirating" isn't the same as saying "you shouldn't pirate movies".
Using adblock isn't engaging with YouTube on YouTube's terms.Adblocking isnt piracy, from any point of view.
Its protection. Protection from sudden loud noises and visual diarrhea. Protection from malware and viruses from random website ads, and protection from Right Wing Extremist Propaganda like PragerU videos detailing how the black man should be grateful for the history of slavery and oppression (which has had a documented, factual effect on driving people into right wing extremist behavior, and the violent rhetoric and actions that inevitably follow)
As long as all of that exists, Adblocking will never be piracy. Adblocking is, and will be, mandatory protection.
And if Linus, or anyone else, wants to clutch pearls and cry about adblocking.. They can take their complaints to Google/Facebook/Other Ad services, because their lack of moderation and inability to policing content on their services are directly responsible for creating the necessity for adblocking.
Found the Liberal
Adblocking isnt piracy...Its protection...from sudden loud noises and visual diarrhea.
I don't understand how these are mutually exclusive? It's both.
To tack onto your list, ad blocking also deprives a source from an intended revenue stream associated with the content, which is probably why it's being compared to piracy.
I'm all on board with ad blockers, let's just at least acknowledge the economic reality surrounding their use.
The economic reality is that I have to use adblocking because ad services refuse to police and moderate their system. Thats the economic reality that they created.
Having a problem with the end user protecting themselves from what the advertisers and their ad services created is just trying to shift blame.
But that doesn't mean it isn't piracy?
Downloading old Nintendo ROMs because the company refuses to redistribute them is also piracy, even though I would say it's morally justified.
This has been argued in courts ad nauseum. It is not piracy. Just downloading is not piracy. If you download a ROM from a site, the site is guilty of piracy. You are not. If you download from a torrent though, you're guilty because you're also participating in the distribution. There's also nuance with profit depending on the jurisdiction. But, just like throwing away a pamphlet is not piracy, refusing to download and ad is not piracy.
Roms arent adblocking.
Not the point I was making.
That's where Youtube premium comes in. To protect you from ads with a cost per month.
you do realize that ads appear in more places than just youtube, right?
You....really don't have to.
Again, I'm all for ad blockers, I use Firefox, I've ran my own pihole instance, etc.
I'm just going to be frank, you're being a little melodramatic. Do you just get vaporized when you use someone else's computer and an ad blocker isn't installed? Likely not.
Ironically, by framing what is just a quality of life thing as a mandatory reaction to content providers actions, it sounds like you're the one trying to shift blame onto them. Your entire argument has very strong "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO" energy.
All I'm saying is call a spade a spade. I acknowledge that by using an ad blocker, I'm economically negatively affecting the content provider. I'm okay with that. On some websites I'll disable the ad blocker, if it's one I use a lot with reasonable constraints.
Your entire post is trying to frame end users for the responsibility of what the advertising companies have done (or more like failed to do) and caused as a result.
You're trying to hold a fork up and demand everyone acknowledge as a spade, and ridicule anyone who doesnt agree with a very dismissive attitude.
Do you agree that "What the advertising companies have done" was in agreement with the providers of the content you're consuming?
Meaning, the providers of the content you're consuming intended for the advertising to be a revenue stream?
Meaning it's not "the big bad advertisers" - it's really the providers of the content you're voluntarily consuming who you're trying to frame as the bad guys?
Its protection.
From your point of view, yeah. Not from the point of view of the creator and the platform.
Linus isn't clutching his pearls nor is he crying, he's just pointing out you are circumventing the method of payment to the platform. It is detrimental to both the platform and the creator. That is a fact. Your choice has an impact and you should be aware of that.
But at no point did he say "you're a bad person if you use adblock".What has got you so worried?
And yet he never said not to adblock, so the only thing he claims are the categorization of adblocking.
And yet he never said not to adblock
In those tweets? Sure. But that's not an argument I was making, so this is a strawman from you that doesn't actually counter any of the evidence I have provided. Did Linus say ad-blocking was piracy? Yes. Did Linus say ad-blocking was theft? Yes.
Whether you think this is moral hypocrisy is irrelevant to me. I was only calling out the previous commenter who straight up lied about Linus's history and then attempted to frame the people who were right as uninformed and wrong.
The comment was replying to one about it being funny that Linus made a video about adblocking when he considers adblocking piracy. That would imply he is against adblocking in general, which your links does not show.
Yes, he considers it piracy, but he is not against adblocking, which is why the original point of the parent comment doesn't make sense.
Read that second paragraph from me again:
Whether you think this is moral hypocrisy is irrelevant to me. I was only calling out the previous commenter who straight up lied about Linus’s history and then attempted to frame the people who were right as uninformed and wrong.
If you want to have a debate about the parent comment, debate the person who made the parent comment. That's not me and I do not care about the point you are trying to make here.
I did read it the first time, which is why I brought up the context of the first comment, which implied that Linus is against adblocking.
The comment you claimed to be lying is talking about the actual context of why Linus compared adblocking with piracy, which is about content creators and payment of their content.
I'm only calling you out for making a point that is not in the context of the actual thread, not against the proof of what you posted in the first place, so I'm not sure we're even in disagreement here.
I brought up the context of the first comment, which implied that Linus is against adblocking.
It didn't. Read it again:
Funny, considering in the past he’s gone on big rants about how adblocking is no different from piracy, and is theft.
But then again, its Linux we’re talking about, its not like he has a particularly big issue with theft.
He literally said both of those things. I have proven this. Someone asked for a source. Another person replied with:
No, because that isn’t Linus’s take.
But because he uttered something in favor of ads on his videos-which is how they got paid-he’s now considered ultra pro invasive ads by the user above
As I have proven, Linus literally said both of those things. That was his take in 2022. At this point in the comment chain, no one has implied Linus is "against ad-bliocking". They have only stated that he believed it was no different to piracy and theft, which is true. This third person in the chain was the one who actually brought up the "he's against ad-blocking" argument as a strawman - that was never never implied in the original parent comment.
The comment you claimed to be lying is talking about the actual context of why Linus compared adblocking with piracy
No it's not. That is quite clearly not what it was in response to. Again, read the the comment chain carefully here. You are taking things that were said or implied in other comment chains (or just completely fabricated) and pretending that they were what the comment chain I was involved in was related to.
I'd argue this as well. I see it in a similar way. Linus is obviously not trying to sit on some high horse and condemn piracy, he's just calling a spade a spade.
No, he's calling a spade a backhoe. Piracy is one of two things, depending on your definition:
- sharing/accessing copyrighted material you don't have the rights for (i.e. seeding or downloading a torrent)
- circumventing technical restrictions on copyrighted content (e.g. DRM)
Blocking ads does neither of those things, it merely blocks loading of content that you don't want to see. It's basically the modern version of a DVR, where you can choose to cut out portions of a video that you don't want (e.g. the ads).
These things are technically piracy:
- using a YouTube downloader
- sharing downloaded YouTube videos
- posting a YouTube video that you don't own
- using substantial portions of a YouTube video you don't own w/o authorization in your own video (i.e. beyond Fair Use)
Blocking ads isn't one of those things, neither is skipping over parts of a video you don't want to see (i.e. the sponsor segment).
Blocking ads reduces revenue to Google and the video creator. That doesn't make it piracy, it's just being a jerk to the platform and the creator.
I watched this video before it was taken down. At the start of the YouTube section he says something along the lines of "I think ad block is theft, but you're going to do it, so I have a responsibility to make sure you do it safely."
My ass he cares if you do it safely.
He's just trying to pull views from the current controversy. Which I have no problem with, thats what youtubers do. They try to ride every wave and pull viewers from it.
I just take issue with the smug hypocrisy he exhibits while doing it.
"These are my Principles and if you don't like them, I have others"