[HN Gopher] YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos
Author : makeworld
Score : 483 points
Date : 2021-06-01 13:15 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| everdrive wrote:
| This problem may be surmountable, but eventually it seems likely
| that youtube will be closed to hackers and freeloaders. It's sad
| in the general sense -- but of course Google is free to modify
| their services however they like. Hosting all that video is not
| free and currently they support it via advertising.
|
| This means that any consumer of Youtube should expect that
| eventually Youtube may stop working for them -- and perhaps all
| the content they love on Youtube will eventually become
| unavailable.
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| I had a similar issue few days ago, but managed to do it with
| downloading my youtube account cookies with Chrome extension
|
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bga...
|
| This is the command I have used: ./youtube-dl -f best -a test.txt
| --cookies ./youtube.com.cookies
|
| -a test.txt - i had a bunch of URL in text file.
| [deleted]
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| I noticed this. My android phone is also harassing me for proof
| of birth date ("to help comply with the law"). I previously just
| signed out of google, but a couple of weeks ago i signed in for
| some reason, and can no longer find the way to sign out again.
| Android is the last google thing I use... looks like it's time to
| finalise the elimination of google. edit: ah, i think i do a
| remote sing-out from another device.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| This is what we get for the proliferation of saucy "bikini haul"
| videos!
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Is there a test video instance that can be used to check this on
| other systems?
|
| What's the behaviour on Invidious instances presently?
|
| (See: https://redirect.invidious.io/)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If there's anyone running a YouTube channel getting hit by the
| age restrictions, consider running a PeerTube:
| https://joinpeertube.org/
| Aerroon wrote:
| But the age restriction is due to EU regulation. It's only a
| matter of time until it filters elsewhere. Switching from
| YouTube isn't going to make a difference.
| JI00912 wrote:
| Any source for that? A few people have claimed legislation to
| be a reason but I'm not aware of any such rules.
|
| Actually I'd be very, very surprised if this was even in the
| jurisdiction of the EU.
| sbarre wrote:
| It's literally discussed and linked at the top of this
| thread.
| JI00912 wrote:
| Umm, no. The start of this thread just a link to
| joinpeertube and the top comment has no source or link of
| any kind.
|
| So I gather you don't have any source either then.
| thu2111 wrote:
| He means the discussion of the article. The change is due
| to new EU legislation, links are provided elsewhere in
| the (whole) thread.
| Aerroon wrote:
| It's this thing that's at fault: https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-a...
|
| Google even says so:
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779?hl=en
|
| > _The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is an
| EU-wide coordination of national legislation on
| audiovisual media - both traditional TV broadcasts and
| on-demand services. Recently, AVMSD was revised to extend
| certain rules to video sharing platforms (VSPs)._
|
| > _In line with AVMSD, you may be asked to re-verify your
| date of birth when watching age-restricted videos. Follow
| the prompts to submit an image of a valid ID or credit
| card._
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Google are operating in EU, not so for Peertube. I am able to
| make Peertube instance and tell EU for to pound sand, it is
| distributed.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Last time I took a look at peertube it was tiny numbers of
| views and a lot of porn, which is fine but not my platform of
| choice.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Peertube is a federated platform... running your own instance
| or using an existing open instance that has some content
| restrictions would solve the mature content issue.
|
| As far as 'views', in reality the vast majority of Youtube
| channels also get very few views. You can advertise/promote
| the Peertube instance just like you would promote a Youtube
| channel.
|
| Another alternative is to just have Peertube mirror your
| YouTube channel and link to the instance in every video.
|
| It really depends on the type of content you produce and how
| your content is 'discovered' but unless you are on the
| winning side of the Youtube algorithm, peertube isn't _that_
| worse.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| The irony of the age verification is that almost all age
| restricted videos on youtube are things I want to watch when
| logged out of my account.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| "In EU". Why is this not part of the submission?
| globular-toast wrote:
| This is lame. I download stuff with youtube-dl not because of
| "piracy" (the quality is shit and things like that are available
| elsewhere), but because I want to make sure I have a copy of
| important information. This very morning I changed a part on my
| car using a YouTube video as a guide. I downloaded this when I
| found it in case it was removed or my Internet connection was
| down when I needed it. If you go to the library it's perfectly
| legal to make photocopies of books for personal use. It's just
| common sense. But these monopolies naturally don't want us to
| have this right and want to make is think we're evil if we make
| our own copy of the information.
|
| I feel like these platforms like YouTube are an addiction. We
| know they have problems but we just can't shake them. I felt this
| way about Windows and Microsoft on general 15 years ago. I went
| cold turkey and stopped using those products back then and I've
| been very happy ever since. But things have become too easy and
| I've become complacent. I think it may be time for me to shake
| another addiction.
| alimbada wrote:
| I had this issue recently. The workaround was to use the embedded
| video link, e.g.: youtube-dl https://www.youtube-
| nocookie.com/embed/VIDEO_ID_HERE
|
| Edit: It seems to have been patched. I can't seem to use this
| method anymore.
| npteljes wrote:
| Patched indeed. I used this trick for ages, but it doesn't work
| for some time now.
| gruez wrote:
| IME it depends on the video. I've encountered videos where the
| embed workaround didn't work, although I was using the youtube
| domain not the youtube-nocookie domain.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I am not sure if it's the video itself or if we as
| 'anonymous' users keep getting in and out of regional a/b
| testing at youtube.
|
| As an anonymous user I keep seeing different behaviours with
| both 'forcing' embeddded links and also normal mobile links
| with latest ublock origin. (On Android with FF + ublock)
| alimbada wrote:
| It seems they've plugged the workaround. I tried it again and
| it no longer works.
| theamk wrote:
| Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you provide
| logged in account info. I think the correct title is:
|
| youtube-dl can no longer be used to bypass youtube's age
| verification checks
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Title seems misleading, it can download it as long as you
| provide logged in account info
|
| ... assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of your
| ID card to prove that you are 18+ ...
| pitaj wrote:
| ...only in some jurisdictions where it's required by law.
| JI00912 wrote:
| It's not required in my country and I get the checks. This
| has nothing to do with legislation.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Do you get the check that you need any account, or the
| check that you specifically need an account with ID
| verification?
| sbarre wrote:
| When you say "get the checks" do you mean YouTube is
| asking for a copy of your ID or that it's giving you the
| regular age gate check?
| pitaj wrote:
| I can't confirm without knowing what country you live in.
| I understand essentially the whole EU requires this, and
| the US is one example where the checks aren't required.
| JI00912 wrote:
| How would you confirm though? So far I'm seeing a lot of
| rumors but no one seems have produced any actual
| legislation that I can see anyway.
| ldjb wrote:
| This is covered by the Audiovisual Media Services
| Directive 2018/1808. EU member states were supposed to
| transpose this into national legislation by 19 September
| 2020, but not all have.
|
| You can see the status for each EU member state here:
|
| https://www.obs.coe.int/en/web/observatoire/avmsd-
| tracking
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" assuming that you have provided YouTube with a scan of
| your ID card"_
|
| I expect that at some point you'll have to prove your
| identity to use youtube at all, because its in Google's
| interest to know as much as possible about its users.
|
| Youtube will also probably turn in to a pay-to-view service
| at some point. They already dominate the video space, and
| their network effects are enormous, and a huge number of
| people will pay to continue to get access to that.
| debacle wrote:
| Google needs trust to be pay-to-view. These anti-user
| practices will further erode their trust, not increase it.
| thu2111 wrote:
| It's definitely not in Google's interest to require an
| action as awkward and engagement-killing as ID
| verification. They work very hard to _not_ take such
| drastic steps.
|
| Such requirements are being driven by governments who don't
| care at all about user convenience, only extending their
| control over people whilst blaming the private sector for
| "making" them do it.
| chaz6 wrote:
| I have a credit card linked to my account with Google Pay, and
| yet they want me to provide it again. That makes no sense. They
| already have the information.
| spentu wrote:
| I noticed this yesterday and now I am wondering what to do.
| Especially when more and more videos are getting flagged.
|
| ID is out of the question, credit card seems more plausible.
| However, i wonder what happens when you give the number. I don't
| want that it sticks after validation...
| southerntofu wrote:
| The only possibility is to get out of Youtube (and other walled
| gardens) as soon as possible. Talk to your favorite content
| producers about Peertube, maybe setup an instance with some
| friends if you're sure you can handle that for the coming
| decade and not close down in 6 months time.
|
| Both viewers and producers are heavily dissatisfied with
| Youtube. Time to move on.
| ars wrote:
| If you allow adult videos without age verification you'll get
| shut down.
|
| YouTube actually allowing adult videos is not something to
| diss. The fact that they need age verification is the price
| for it, the alternative is removing all those videos.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Would it be worth it to just get a credit card for the sole
| purpose of youtube-dl? Maybe put some kind of limit on it, if
| possible?
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| It's not about the limit, but about the tying of identity. If
| you enter a CC number, Google will then be able to know
| exactly who viewed the video. If you use youtube-dl, or even
| ad-blocking, who knows if that violates some T&C, and they
| could then shut down all accounts connected to you...
| spentu wrote:
| Long time ago I remember reading about some service, that
| allows using single use credit cards. Last year I was looking
| for it, as many services cannot ne trusted with this
| information. But I could nothing like it. Maybe I was just
| dreaming...
|
| Getting a legit card like that could be possible, but I don't
| think its worth of hassle and possible costs. Some companies
| practically throw these cards on you, but usually there is a
| catch.
| dharmab wrote:
| Capital One has an app called Eno which generates alternate
| card numbers, but they are still tied to the same account
| and identity.
| ohmaigad wrote:
| Revolut has disposable virtual cards -
| https://www.revolut.com/help/making-payments/getting-a-
| card/...
| beardbound wrote:
| My capital one card has virtual cards, and I've seen it
| other places. The only issue is that it's done by a browser
| add on that has incredibly high permissions. I handle it by
| using a separate Firefox profile for the rare occasions I
| need to use them. I start Firefox with that profile, use
| it, then go back into my normal profile.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| You might be thinking of Privacy [0].
|
| [0] https://privacy.com/
| dawnerd wrote:
| I'd use a temp card from privacy.com or something.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| That's naive, they will eventually block those kind of
| virtual cards just like they block virtual phone numbers.
| The point is to tie the account to a real identity.
| scandinavian wrote:
| According to google ID cards are deleted after age has been
| proven, but for some reason they might keep credit card
| information.
|
| >Important: If you enter your credit card info for age
| verification, Google will retain this data as necessary to meet
| legal and regulatory requirements.
|
| Must be because of audit laws relating to processing credit
| cards.
|
| https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/10071085?p=age-ve...
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt"
| [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and
| i have been using it with success for weeks now.
|
| get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then
| run youtube-dl in that folder with:
|
| youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id
|
| it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that
| cookie continues to work even if you log out of your account in
| the browser and log back in etc
|
| i'm trying to imagine a way to have a more permanent solution,
| maybe if youtube-dl provided some kind of login prompt type thing
| to enter some your credentials to virtually log in, although i
| imagine that would start to be another cat and mouse game of it
| working and then not working.
|
| [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-
| cookiestxt/bga...
|
| [1] https://i.jollo.org/ytdl.gif
| philshem wrote:
| youtube-dl does have "---username" and "---password" flags, or
| will prompt for a password if you just specify "-u".
|
| https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#authentication-option...
|
| But as of a couple days ago it wasn't working for age-
| restricted videos.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| That is for HTTP auth.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the
| age restricted measure
|
| Doesn't that only work if you a) are in the EU and have
| verified your age or b) outside the EU?
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly
| to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want
| YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based
| suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I
| occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel
| curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence
| what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just use
| youtube-dl INSTEAD of signing-in.
|
| And by the way, I always mostly used random birth dates
| whenever registering anywhere because I consider that personal
| information and don't want to share it. I don't even know what
| birth date did I set when I got my GMail back in the days it
| required invitations.
|
| I don't feel like watching an age-restricted video ever again
| if this actually requires identification and leaves no
| workaround.
|
| UPDATE: I'm actually surprised this gets down-voted.
| 63 wrote:
| This feels a bit overdramatic. You can remove videos from
| your watch history and, in my experience, YouTube will cease
| to give you recommendations based on them. You could also
| create a separate account used solely for watching videos
| with YouTube-dl instead of using your main one if you're
| worried about recommendations. I agree that it sucks that a
| workaround is necessary, but I don't think this particular
| one is worth getting too worked up about.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Does this work in practice? Most websites require text
| verification for accounts. With that they can just link
| separate accounts in the back end.
| 63 wrote:
| It works for me in practice. YouTube definitely are
| capable of linking separate accounts in the back end, but
| in my experience they don't do so for recommendations. I
| have a separate account specifically for watching a given
| type of content and I don't receive any of its
| recommendations on my main account. Now, whether or not
| they use linking to give advertisements or sell data I'm
| not sure, but at that point they can link based on IP
| anyway and we're talking about a separate issue.
| Vektorweg wrote:
| is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to
| suppress divergent opinion?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which
| we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to
| disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay
| silent".
|
| It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules.
| Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to
| downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the
| conversation constructively.
|
| qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a
| common use case of ytdl: to watch a video without being
| explicitly tracked by Youtube; although Youtube still
| does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law,
| and might violate US law too.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| I ran into this earlier this week when I went to watch Kung
| Fury, a free movie hosted on YouTube which is now age
| restricted. I pretty much just couldn't. Luckily the Pirate
| Bay exists, and now I have a permanent copy which is what I
| probably should've done anyway.
|
| I guess this means I watch less YouTube, which is probably
| better for me in the long run. But like hell I'm signing in.
| vasco wrote:
| I'm born in whatever far back year forms will let me choose
| in most internet services, over a 100 years old in a lot of
| cases, I assumed everyone did this.
| mithr wrote:
| Never had the patience to go all the way to the top, so I'm
| typically born in <couple of mouse scrolls up, random
| click>.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Three dead trolls in a baggie even made a song about it way
| back in early 2000s. The privacy song, just fill their
| database with garbage. Also I'm a 43 year old nun.
| dylan604 wrote:
| wouldn't it be better to change age/profession/etc stuff
| per website?
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| maybe one solution might be to create a new youtube account
| in an incognito browser, and then just use the cookie from
| that brand new account indefinitely for youtube-dl purposes.
| that way, the cookie you're using in youtube-dl wouldnt be
| 'tied' to your real account.
| mrvenkman wrote:
| The whole method that YouTube have used to set this up is
| worrying to me. In the space that the video is supposed to show
| there is simply a link to a website that you use to upload your
| details. It's a phisherman's dream.
| megous wrote:
| Aren't there better websites if you're into age restricted
| videos?
| SuperCuber wrote:
| An age restricted video could be be one that features mild gore
| and isn't rated for children, or for example music that
| originates from an adult rated show... Not everything age
| restricted is porn.
| tubbyjr wrote:
| Use alternate youtube front-ends like Invidious
| miles wrote:
| The title should be updated to indicate that this change only
| affects EU-based IP addresses:
|
| https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...
|
| https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/28578#issuecom...
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| It's definitely affecting at least some US users some of the
| time.
| stefan_ wrote:
| It can't download the video in the same sense that I can't expect
| to point YouTube-dl at a Netflix URL and have it download that.
| You need to login.
| h0nd wrote:
| Login alone does not help for age restricted videos.
|
| First step towards automatically stop using youtube. It their
| choice really.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Yes, I should have added _and verified your age_. But none of
| that is a youtube-dl matter, there is no magic video download
| link hidden in the page source.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Of course this is a youtube-dl matter. It could easily
| circumvent this by pretending to embed the video.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| No I've also had age restricted embedded links throw an
| error with something like "this video cannot be played
| here" and linking to non embedded player link.
| gruez wrote:
| >It could easily circumvent this by pretending to embed
| the video.
|
| It doesn't work.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354599
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| You believe an appreciable number of people will stop using
| Youtube over this?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would be willing to bet far less than 1%
| malka wrote:
| people wont complain imo, but a few will be lazy enough to
| not send their ID or put their card info
| guerrilla wrote:
| If they have to give over their CC number (which some
| people are reporting) maybe a significant numner will stop
| watching age restricted videos.
| Milner08 wrote:
| My issue is there is no alternative. I dont want to stop
| watching or hurt particular creators (not that one person
| would make much difference, but I enjoy their content) and
| Youtube is the only option. Even supporting them on Patreon
| the videos they share are still hosted on youtube... what
| am I to do about that? For a few (LTT for example has
| Floatplane) there are alternatives, but there is no app for
| it to allow me to cast to the TV... so either way I am
| screwed. The world desperately needs a YouTube competitor.
| I would be quite happy with a service like Floatplane where
| I can pick which creators to support, so long as there is a
| sort of 'preview tier' to help discover new creators which
| is add based and maybe even time limited.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| The economics of it are not good. An ad-supported YouTube
| competitor won't be able to survive if early adopter
| ("techie" types) are all using adblockers.
| ttt0 wrote:
| I don't know how many, but I certainly will.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| By market forces alone, Chinese censors will eventually gain
| control of YT and tell people of the world they what they can and
| cannot post. It's already happened to Hollywood movies.
| gsich wrote:
| This [0] still works, so it should be doable by youtube-dl too.
|
| 0: https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-YouTube-Age-
| Restrictio...
| gruez wrote:
| Doesn't seem to work on the video mentioned in the github link.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Am I the only one who didn't even know that youtube had age-
| restricted videos? Somehow I have managed to watch it for years
| without ever getting prompted for age confirmation!
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| It depends on what your needs/interests are.
|
| For example I've worked in medical devices, I had to watch a
| lot of different types of surgical procedures for a specific
| application.
|
| A lot of surgical content gets tagged as 'adult' even though it
| has nothing inappropriate as such.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| YouTube had to crack down on all kinds of videos because of
| some laws that congress passed under the pretense of
| "protecting children". For many content creators it's easier to
| mark your video as age-restricted than to try and comply with
| child-friendly guidelines. This is also why so many videos now
| disable the comments section.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah this definitely a government overreach thing rather than
| google's fault. Their implementation of the policy is kind of
| awful I suppose though.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Seeing the incredibly inappropriate content the algorithm
| (tm) starts suggesting to actual children (I see you like
| numberblocks, maybe you'll enjoy this fake video of
| numberblocks killing each other and swearing or this
| extremely repetitive and epilepsy-inducing flashing video
| with a couple of numberblocks characters) it's clear to me
| they don't give a crap and just do the bare minimum to tick
| some legalese checkbox in some compliance form somewhere.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| That sounds fine to me; child friendly should mean
| 'beneficial to children' or at least designed for children
| and not 'no searching nor nudity [nor extreme violence]'.
| bsdubernerd wrote:
| I've watched a few channels on retro-gaming where the authors
| intentionally marked the video as "age-resticted" with the
| usual disclaimer "the video might contain images that can be
| disturbing to some people". As in, 8bit gore.
|
| Sadly, the authors need to do this preemptively to avoid
| getting flagged and potentially taken down.
|
| Needless to say, I was using ytdl to bypass the limit, and I
| won't be able to watch these videos anymore. I'm not going to
| log in or give my ID to google.
| izacus wrote:
| Google got a pretty big fine in US due to not properly gating
| things for minors on YouTube (based on COPPA law). I guess this
| is now the result.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Fuck American hypocritical Hollywood, puritanical bullshit.
| Their kids are already watching gay horse sex and sheep
| bondage by the time they're 10.
| nonamesleft wrote:
| But https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp (fork of youtube-dl) can, so
| it shouldn't be a problem forever for youtube-dl either?
| prg318 wrote:
| yt-dlp actually does have the same issue (at least when
| connecting from the US):
|
| ./yt-dlp.sh "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE"
|
| [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Downloading webpage
|
| [youtube] rR8s72aouNE: Refetching age-gated info webpage
|
| ERROR: Sign in to confirm your age
|
| This video may be inappropriate for some users.
| nonamesleft wrote:
| Seems to be video-dependent, tried the one you posted, and it
| seems to fail, but another one
| "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew" worked with yt-
| dlp but not youtube-dl. Guess it's the beginning of the end
| of watching youtube for me soon.
|
| EDIT: From an EU ip.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| i tried "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE" and
| your link and both return the same thing -- age restricted
| -- from south america.
| rolph wrote:
| from USA ip :
|
| youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY4Gz_Axpew
| [youtube] oY4Gz_Axpew: Downloading webpage [youtube]
| oY4Gz_Axpew: Refetching age-gated info webpage WARNING:
| unable to download video info webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not
| Found Traceback (most recent call last): File
| "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 174, in
| _run_module_as_main "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
| File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
| exec code in run_globals File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module> File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line
| 475, in main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 465, in _real_main File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line
| 2069, in download File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 808, in extract_info File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line
| 815, in wrapper File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 534, in extract
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1502, in
| _real_extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2644, in compat_parse_qs
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line
| 2614, in _parse_qsl AttributeError: 'bool' object has no
| attribute 'split'
|
| very interesting
| judge2020 wrote:
| I don't see a mention of yt-dlp in the yt-dl issue tracker, so
| why is this? Does dlp autocorrect videos to the youtube-
| nocookie.com embed (as stated
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27354423) ?
| depingus wrote:
| I wonder how this is going to affect NewPipe.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| Just checked the video in the issue, it doesn't work in
| newpipe.
| lk0nga wrote:
| I confirm I've been experiencing "age related" issues in
| videos this week on newpipe
| llacb47 wrote:
| Although I'm not sure if this problem is fixed there, you should
| switch to yt-dlp for more active maintainance and added
| features/fixes: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
| FlashBlaze wrote:
| I wasn't aware of this project. Thanks for mentioning it.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Another great Internet snafu brought to you by over reaching EU
| technocrats.
| fapjacks wrote:
| Anytime anyone leans on the old "think of the children" meme, it
| should immediately raise suspicions about intent.
| slazaro wrote:
| It's pretty infurating that I've had a Youtube account since 2006
| (15 years ago), and now they're asking me whether i'm over 18. A
| basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts based on
| age, given the TOS of when they were created (e.g. if the TOS
| specified that I must be over 13, a 2006 account would mean I'm
| at least 28, therefore automatically verified).
| eric__cartman wrote:
| So you didn't create your Google account at age 3? That's
| impossible!
| rolph wrote:
| the 100th toddler theory:
|
| given enough time and sufficient numbers of toddlers chewing
| on keyboards one of them will out of chance alone create a
| google account
| eric__cartman wrote:
| well I did somehow manage to screw up my dad's linux box
| like that so anything's possible. (although I suspect it
| was because I liked to be an asshole and shut his computer
| off using the power button)
| FranchuFranchu wrote:
| Well, if a 3-year old toddler watches age-restricted videos
| on his mother's verified account, is that against child
| protection laws?
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| I literally pay a monthly subscription to Google and they still
| wanted me to pay $0 once to show that I had a card.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > A basic calculation on their end could filter the accounts
| based on age, given the TOS of when they were created
|
| I assumed it was a legal requirement, and basic intuition and
| common sense aren't relevant. Much like the immigration form
| that says "Are you a terrorist".
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| There's such clause in TOS and I think that's how it worked,
| unlike Twitter which locked out every account when they added
| the TOS clause for needing to be over 13 when the account was
| created.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| This is Google making the first steps to block alternate/privacy
| centric interfaces such as NewPipe/invidious/youtube-dl. Push
| back now or never.
| williesleg wrote:
| Who cares? Time to go to tick tack.
| rolph wrote:
| actual HTML title == [[YouTube] Age verification issues - Can't
| download video. * Issue #28578 * ytdl-org/youtube-dl * GitHub]
|
| actual rendered title == [YouTube] Age verification issues -
| Can't download video. #28578]
|
| apparently this issue was closed
|
| >> Suika commented Mar 29, 2021:
|
| You are probably connecting from EU, right?
|
| A change to YT was announced ~4 month that there will be extra
| steps for age verification in EU, iirc.
|
| If you connect from outside of EU, it should work.<<
| hk1337 wrote:
| Just from YouTube it looks like because YouTube-dl works on
| pornhub and other XXX sites too.
| hedora wrote:
| Gmail recently started prompting saying they need a birthday to
| "comply with the law", and that they'll share it / use it for
| whatever unless you opt out in account settings.
|
| Under account settings, it only lets you opt out of publishing
| your birthday to your contacts. There's no opt out for marketing
| / sharing it with their business partners, etc.
|
| Scumbags.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I've found YouTube increasingly unusable in general over the last
| few months. It seems to be pushing absolute rubbish at me.
| There's a gap in the market for a music-only video service.
| swiley wrote:
| >music-only video service
|
| I'm not sure how that isn't soundcloud/spotify.
| yakubin wrote:
| Soundcloud and Spotify don't have any video.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| That was my reasoning.
| kube-system wrote:
| Spotify has video for some titles, particularly pop.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Usually its like a 30 second loop vs an actual music
| video.
| swiley wrote:
| We're rapidly approaching 30 seconds as the "standard"
| length for pop music.
| imhoguy wrote:
| tiktokization of pop music /s
| topkai22 wrote:
| It's actually the spotifization of pop music- spotify
| pays per song not per minute, so artists are incentivized
| to make shorter songs.
| swiley wrote:
| I'd argue it's actually just part of a very long trend.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Compared to classical music certainly, but between the
| 60s and the 90s the average song length _did_ increase
| again: https://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-
| songs-3-minute...
| macintux wrote:
| Given the glut of music streaming services, it seems unlikely
| to me someone could make money trying to compete with all of
| those and YouTube simultaneously.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I honestly believe that there's a market for people who want
| to watch a series of related music videos, and not have "A
| Vocal Coach Reacts to Silk Sonic!" pushed onto them.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| YouTube itself has this. music.youtube.com
|
| Not sure how it is implemented. It seems to just identify
| and catalog all of the videos uploaded to normal YouTube
| where the audio track consists of a single continuous
| musical track. It's not official music videos.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| All the videos start in potato quality for me now. What is
| going on? Surely they can afford the bandwidth of all services?
| bejelentkezni wrote:
| If you mean a low resolution, you can use any of several
| browser extensions (I like Iridium) to automatically
| "manually" select the resolution right when the page loads
| for every video, and this will also increase your maximum
| buffer from 20 seconds (?) to 2 minutes, which is nice if
| you're on wifi. If you mean on high resolutions the videos
| still look terrible, that's because the av1 versions of many
| videos look very bad above 720p on purpose if they're mostly
| watched in certain countries (can't find the source now, so
| treat as hearsay) where most viewers are on smartphones. You
| can mitigate this by going to settings > playback and
| performance and select "Prefer AV1 for SD."
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Thanks for the tips. Will give the AV1 setting a shot. By
| Iridium do you mean "Iridium for Youtube"? It seems it's
| not maintained anymore? TBH this functionality was default
| working on Youtube for me until recently and suddenly
| stopped. I'm on a 4g based wifi at home (long story) so
| maybe this is the issue but it 1) only just started
| happening in the past 2 weeks and 2) really shouldn't be an
| issue as the speeds are pretty good. Everytime I switch to
| 1080 or higher even there is no buffering issue at all.
| distances wrote:
| Most frustrating is the YouTube video quality with
| Chromecast. I can get some 4K to my tiny cellphone, but
| Chromecast projected to 190" picture on the wall is locked to
| some unknown SD that is compressed to smithereens making it
| completely unwatchable.
| tpxl wrote:
| They did reduce default quality for corona reasons before,
| might be the same thing?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| It just started happening so I doubt it.
| tosbalok2 wrote:
| Are you, by chance, using Brave? I've noticed that recently
| with Brave as well. Didn't seem to happen in Chrome even when
| viewing the same videos on the same machine.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Firefox. Dark pattern to get people to use Chrome?
| Engineering-MD wrote:
| I suspect this is the real cause. They did it with
| search, makes sense they would do it with other areas as
| well.
| danaris wrote:
| I've had the same experience on Safari--in addition to
| the issue with Find no longer working in Google Docs
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27351855).
|
| I strongly suspect that at least part of the reason for
| these is to discourage people from using Google's
| properties with browsers other than Chrome (whether it
| was the reason for creating them, or just noted as a
| benefit for refusing to fix them once they were
| identified).
| jwitthuhn wrote:
| I've also been seeing this in Firefox for the past couple
| weeks or so.
|
| The video quality will default to "Auto-1080p" or similar
| but it will be visibly much worse than 1080p quality.
| Switching to 1080p manually seems to be the only way to
| get good quality.
| gnulinux wrote:
| I use medici.tv for Western classical music.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| YouTube is finally at the point where it has grown into the
| only and largest video sharing service in the world. All that
| growth cost them a lot of money, and now they are pushing to
| turn that growth into profit. They'll slowly ratchet down the
| quality of videos, then add "original quality / high quality"
| video viewing to YouTube Premium.
|
| Pretty soon, youtube-dl won't work at all
| sct202 wrote:
| Apple TV/Music has music videos too, but it's a different kind
| of lock in with them.
| retSava wrote:
| This, and increasing tendency to suggest the same kind of stuff
| I've already seen, aka feeding the echo chamber. Also quite a
| bit of stuff that I've actually _have_ seen.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure for
| so much of internet culture, not to mention people's actual
| creative lives.
|
| This is one of the reasons I started using youtube-dl. I wanted
| to create an independent backup of all my favorite creators and
| contributors in the event that they have to leave or delete their
| channels.
|
| This content should belong to everyone. I wish I could trust that
| all my favorite videos will be there forever, but this is just
| not the case. Removing the comments on music videos already hurt
| a lot.
| javajosh wrote:
| You can't produce value around content without artificial
| scarcity. In this case, Google/YT centralizes distribution and
| access, so that in order to consume content you must pay a fee
| (watch ads, provide personality data, etc.)
|
| This has both good and bad sides to it. On the good side, it
| means people can make money as YouTube creators. This
| subsidizes the enormous volume of content that makes the
| creators no money.
|
| On the bad side, you have a SPOF, and those failure modes can
| be many and varied. In this case its unwarranted age
| restrictions, but more usually its fraudulent DMCA take downs,
| various algorithmic shenanigans, and of course censorship
| (which can be good or bad, actually).
|
| But you can't have one property (value producing artificial
| scarcity) without the other (a central point of failure).
|
| The real question is: can content creators host their own
| content such that they can derive value from it? Will users
| consume that content, and pay for it, somehow? Theoretically
| it's possible, but the _technical barriers_ are quite high. YT
| has capitalized on massive economies of scale to reduce the
| technical barriers to hosting and monetizing content to zero.
| This same pattern is repeated again and again: connect computer
| to the internet, then specialize that computer 's software to
| do one thing really well, attract users/makers, use your
| control of the platform to extract value from users (inject
| ads, membership fees, data brokers, etc), profit. The hope is
| that the value to society outweighs the cost, and honestly I
| think that's actually the case! I just hope more people get
| clear-eyed about the trade-offs for-profit internet services
| make to be viable.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Hmm, it's such a shame that we have a single point of failure
|
| You should consider using PeerTube instead, which is federated.
| thethimble wrote:
| Sorry I have the opposite perspectives as you:
|
| I don't want to visit independent creators' websites to find
| their content - all with different UIs, etc. YouTube gives me a
| clean, centralized way to access content where I know I will be
| able to stream 4K and view content offline. This feels
| massively more convenient to me than having to maintain a
| catalog of offline videos...
|
| While I think we all agree that centralization of control isn't
| great, the consumer gets tremendous value from centralization
| and this value doesn't get talked about enough.
|
| Finally your assertion of "this content should belong to
| everyone" is idealistic. Who is going to pay to store and
| stream this content? What about the copyright of the actual
| content creators?
| pmlnr wrote:
| > all with different UIs, etc.
|
| Let me introduce you to the concept of RSS and news/feed
| readers: https://aboutfeeds.com/
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| That's fine for discovering that an artist has put out a
| new video, not necessarily great for actually visiting
| their site and figuring out how to play it.
| nimih wrote:
| RSS seems to have worked out quite well for audio
| content, viz. podcasts; there doesn't seem to be any
| technical reason why it wouldn't work equally well for
| video media.
| asdff wrote:
| I personally use it for video media as well. One hit on
| my keyboard and the RSS item opens up mpv with the video
| playing. Computers are built to parse text, no reason to
| do it by hand sifting through websites with your mouse.
| lolbrels wrote:
| And they are saying when your clean centralized way to access
| content begins restricting and deleting that content, you no
| longer have access to it. With youtube-dl you can maintain
| that footage regardless. Sure it's a pain to catalog and
| store video files, but trusting YouTube is a naive long term
| plan because I've seen entire channels with hundreds of
| videos wiped clean with no way to find them again.
|
| YouTube is supposed to be free content so it should belong
| and be available to everyone, I don't think that's idealistic
| I think that was it's entire purpose...you pay with screen
| time and ads. I don't think Google is having any funding
| issues.
|
| I found the parent comment to be passive and agreeable. Not
| sure how you came away from it with so many things to
| disagree about.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| I think you make a good point that centralization provides a
| lot of value today. However, if the protocols that youtube
| used where open-source then it would be easier to create
| generic user interfaces open to all content makers. Similar
| to what another poster said about RSS feeds.
|
| I think one of the deeper critiques you and several others
| have made is that someone still has to pay for storage and
| streaming. Today I am paying. I bought the additional hard
| disk to store this on. In addition to my time and effort to
| collect the files. In the future I would pay some amount each
| month to stream what I have if it gave me access to everyone
| else's (essentially staking my video files).
|
| I don't mind paying for a good peer-to-peer service. In fact
| I feel that I am losing a lot more by staying with a legacy
| system. Hence backing up the videos I like even though I have
| no method of distributing them.
| ivan888 wrote:
| In my dream world where I have the energy (and time) to
| devote to writing software outside of work I would love to
| build something that satisfies this need. p2p creative
| content sharing which is user friendly so people can just
| run it and start sharing their work while also helping to
| distribute the work of others
| thu2111 wrote:
| Well maybe. But the YouTube "protocol" keeps changing. The
| problems yt-dl has are related to trying to keep up with
| the protocol's enormous surface area and, as we can see
| here, sometimes changes have to be made quickly in response
| to legislation.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| > Finally your assertion of "this content should belong to
| everyone" is idealistic. Who is going to pay to store and
| stream this content? What about the copyright of the actual
| content creators?
|
| That's ironic because YouTube beat Viacom in 2013 because
| "this content should belong to everyone" not us so you can't
| sue YouTube go sue the users.
| bsdetector wrote:
| I suppose the next step will be to turn on DRM for age-
| protected videos, which few will even notice since Widevine is
| installed everywhere.
|
| Soon after they'll turn it on for all videos, making it nearly
| impossible for normal people to save any videos and making it
| illegal to do so in the US.
|
| If there's anything you care about seeing in the future,
| proactively download it now at the highest quality while it's
| still possible to do so.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I bought a bunch of videos for my son to watch on his YouTube
| account. We can no longer access them as they are age restricted.
|
| I don't have a problem with Google providing parental controls,
| if I as the parent am in control. But Google have unilaterally
| decided that for us. Never buying any media from Google (or any
| other large tech company again). Reverting to second hand DVDs
| and putting them on Plex.
| privacyking wrote:
| Just do a charge back. Oh wait, don't do that unless you want
| the account and any associated accounts to get permmabanned.
| bitL wrote:
| It seems like YouTube deprecated /v/{video id} direct URL to all
| videos. All nice hacks slowly gone from Google...
| gnoll_of_gozag wrote:
| there are js scripts like https://github.com/zerodytrash/Simple-
| YouTube-Age-Restrictio... so it seems like this will get fixed
| eventually
| pityJuke wrote:
| Thanks for linking this. Hopefully it continues to work for a
| while.
| makeworld wrote:
| Does not appear to work for the video in the issue:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR8s72aouNE
| jokoon wrote:
| I found a way to download one through some proxy thing
|
| can't remember which
| dharmab wrote:
| From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP
| addressess, and you can pass in the session cookie of an account
| which has completed age verification.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| I live in Canada and definitely have the same issue.
| gruez wrote:
| >From the thread, this appears to only apply to EU egress IP
| addressess
|
| I tried with several north american VPN nodes and it's blocked
| as well.
| bouncycastle wrote:
| Recently, my 15 year old Google account started to nag me for my
| birthday. If Google was smart, they could have worked out that
| I'm old enough by now! (The account is older than 13 so
| definitely not a kid behind it, lol)
| zbrozek wrote:
| Ditto. Good thing the only product I use is Chat and can afford
| to lose it.
| fsflover wrote:
| But maybe your parents created the account for you, when you
| were not born yet?
| [deleted]
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| True, but are you 18?
| bouncycastle wrote:
| I have already added multiple credit cards to the account
| over the years.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Say there were a command-line or .rc option to confirm you're
| over age X. How much effort would it be to auto-generate or draw-
| from a pool of throwaway accounts that over age X?
| draw_down wrote:
| Really seems like the place to implement this functionality is in
| the browser, the thing that actually does the fetching and
| displaying of video.
| ficiek wrote:
| I don't understand what they expect, I will simply NEVER provide
| them with this data.
| oooooooooooow wrote:
| They expect you to comply, or be left out.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I remember http://nsfwyoutube.com/ hasn't been working for
| sometime. Maybe it is related. Is there still a way to
| anonymously watch restricted videos on youtube? I don't want to
| login to google to watch videos.
| gulbrandr wrote:
| You can use https://yewtu.be/ which is an instance of
| Invidious, all instances are listed here:
| https://github.com/iv-org/documentation/blob/f8ac896b91888e7...
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Are you sure this change doesn't break Invidious as well? How
| will Invidious access those videos if it needs to sign in to
| do it?
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Invidious can still get around the nanny gate...for now.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It works for me for maybe 2 out of 3 videos, then about half of
| those that don't work will work with their backup method (which
| I guess is maybe a download to their servers and then served
| from there).
| [deleted]
| pa9am wrote:
| I got the pop-up a week back or so. I uploaded a photo of my
| drivers license with everything redacted except my name and date
| of birth and clearly watermarked it with the purpose and current
| date.
|
| It was accepted automatically within a few seconds. Can't really
| complain.
| toto444 wrote:
| A few days ago, I clicked an age restricted video on Youtube and
| usually I just state that I am above 18 but now they ask for a
| credit card number or an identity card to prove it.
|
| I am not going to send this just to watch some random video clip
| that users have declared not appropriate to a young audience
| because it features a zombie. Seriously!
| jeroenhd wrote:
| AFAIK the age restriction credit card thing (inside the EU) is
| the result of some stupid law change (the Audiovisual Media
| Services Directive). Google probably doesn't want to validate
| users' age (because selling ads to impressionable kids is very
| lucrative) but they have to now.
| delusional wrote:
| I'm so tired of tech people saying "it has to suck because
| the law requires it", when they clearly haven't read it. You
| hear it all the time when discussing tracking banners or ID
| verification. NO, the law does NOT require your
| implementation to suck, and most laws give you plenty of
| leeway in how you implement it. This is really not personal,
| but I HATE the argument.
|
| Take this as an example. The AVMSD isn't new, it was codified
| in 2010. It has a website[1], and on that website you can
| read the rules (they even simplified them for us). The rules
| about minors are pretty relaxed[2]. For non-linear content
| (such as on-demand video) the law requires that content which
| "might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral
| development of minors" wont "normally" be seen/heard by kids.
| Nowhere does it say that YouTube has to require a National ID
| to show a video of a zombie. It's all interpretation, because
| that's how we do laws.
|
| It's true that YouTube said that it's "in line with
| AVMSD"[3], but it's a lazy excuse to shove in a feature.
|
| [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/archives/information_society/avpoli
| cy/r... [2]: https://ec.europa.eu/archives/information_societ
| y/avpolicy/r... [3]: https://blog.youtube/news-and-
| events/using-technology-more-c...
| danShumway wrote:
| > NO, the law does NOT require your implementation to suck,
|
| This is kind of an excuse though, because I have never seen
| an implementation of an age gate online that isn't kind of
| awful. You either make something that is trivial for kids
| to bypass, or you make something that is invasive, like
| Youtube's system.
|
| So we get these laws that say, "solve the problem", and
| there _isn 't_ a way to solve the problem. But criticism of
| the law or criticism of the law's outcomes aren't allowed
| because the law doesn't technically require that your
| solution to be terrible. It just asks you to do something
| that's impossible to do well without violating someone's
| privacy.
|
| In the US (at least for a while) this was solved by
| pretending that self-reported ages are an effective way to
| protect kids. And we pretended that would at least reduce
| exposure to this kind of content, even though in practice
| it has basically no impact at all. But if the law doesn't
| care about effectiveness, then why have the law in the
| first place? So we raise the standards a bit so that the
| law has some teeth. But again, nobody has ever in any
| context demonstrated a working age gate to me online that
| doesn't involve violating someone's privacy or collecting
| identifying information about them like a credit card or
| ID.
|
| So it doesn't actually matter whether or not the law says
| the solution has to be terrible. The only outcomes that are
| possible from these laws are either ineffective solutions
| or invasive solutions. If there is only one method to
| accomplish an outcome, then requiring the outcome is
| effectively the same as requiring the method.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > So we get these laws that say, "solve the problem", and
| there isn't a way to solve the problem.
|
| To give another obvious example of this pattern, there's
| "Make a crypto system which only lets the good guys in,
| not the bad guys".
|
| In both cases, there's a "think of the children"
| imperative attached, but at least with laws about age
| restrictions there's more of a chance that the
| politicians' true goal isn't mass surveillance.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > I'm so tired of tech people saying "it has to suck
| because the law requires it", when they clearly haven't
| read it. [..] The AVMSD isn't new, it was codified in 2010.
| It has a website[1]
|
| You know, if you were going to rant about people not
| reading things, you probably should have first validated
| your own assumptions. AVMSD was just updated (
| https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-a... ) which
| just recently went into effect. The updated law requires
| online video platforms to age gate content for children.
| How, exactly, do you propose they do that with an
| implementation that doesn't suck?
| delusional wrote:
| > if you were going to rant about people not reading
| things, you probably should have first validated your own
| assumptions
|
| I did, but I didn't stumble on this revision. Now that
| you linked it, I see hints everywhere that I should have
| noticed the first time around. Thanks for bringing it up.
| Although, I'm rather unhappy if my rant was taken to be
| about reading comprehension though. It really wasn't. I'm
| annoyed at people blaming laws for poor implementation.
|
| To tackle the revision though, lets looks at the revised
| text. It's kind of hard to get a hold of, since the EU
| document database is apparently down, but i managed to
| find a copy[1]. The relevant text seems to be:
| establishing and operating age verification systems for
| users of video-sharing platforms with respect to content
| which may impair the physical, mental or moral
| development of minors;
|
| Even here, it only calls for age verification. Again,
| there's no requirement for checking credit cards or
| passports. If we look at one of the drafts of the now
| enacted law[2], we see that they seem way more concerned
| with the differentiated moderation between platforms than
| the adequacy of the age verification process. We have to
| keep in mind that watershed (only showing adult content
| after a certain time) is considered an appropriate way of
| deterring minors from watching. The EU commission clearly
| don't think we should disallow children at any cost.
|
| I don't think it's on my to find a better implementation
| for YouTube, but with all the smart engineers they have
| access to, I would think they could come up with
| something less intrusive.
|
| [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TC1-CO
| D-2016-0...
|
| [2]: https://www.eu.dk/samling/20161/kommissionsforslag/k
| om(2016)... Page 20 around the middle of the page.
| danShumway wrote:
| > I don't think it's on my to find a better
| implementation for YouTube, but with all the smart
| engineers they have access to, I would think they could
| come up with something less intrusive.
|
| The sentiment behind this sentence is the driving
| motivation for almost every single bad tech law on the
| Internet. Programmers aren't magic, there are limits to
| what they can and can't do.
|
| Almost every bad tech law starts out with someone saying,
| "I don't know how this is going to work, but you're
| required to make it work, and if it falls apart it's your
| fault." You see this show up in the encryption debates,
| in the copyright directives, in debates about moderating
| content and identifying abuse, in the debates about age
| restrictions. It's universal, it comes from this belief
| that if you just require things, they'll magically happen
| because people can "nerd harder".
|
| It is, of course, usually very good for tech laws to
| legislate outcomes rather than methodology. However, that
| doesn't get rid of the obligation to determine whether
| the outcomes being legislated are actually possible.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > it comes from this belief that if you just require
| things, they'll magically happen
|
| We should be somewhat sympathetic that non-experts may
| not know the difference between a possible and an
| impossible technical goal, and we have to accept that for
| a politician there isn't much electoral advantage to be
| gained from trying to explain the difference to their
| voters.
|
| However, each time I hear an impossible goal proposed, I
| can't help imagining the politician saying "We managed to
| land people on the Moon and return them safely, so surely
| we can do the same with the Sun now."
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > Even here, it only calls for age verification. Again,
| there's no requirement for checking credit cards or
| passports.
|
| Age verification offline has always been done by checking
| IDs. Why would you expect anything different by shifting
| to online? The law demands age verification, and youtube
| delivered the de facto standard for age verification in
| the form of ID checking. That seems to be _extremely_
| cause & effect of the most straightforward variety.
| There's no reasonable expectation for anything different
| to have occurred unless those creating the law also
| outlined how to do this in a more privacy-sensitive
| manner. But they almost certainly didn't, so obviously
| tech companies would go with what's well established
| practice instead of trying to skate on legally thin ice
| to create new precedents for age verification.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > I don't think it's on my to find a better
| implementation for YouTube, but with all the smart
| engineers they have access to, I would think they could
| come up with something less intrusive.
|
| So you don't even have any idea what a better
| implementation might look like, not even a completely
| technically infeasible one? And the thousands of smart
| YouTube engineers, whose jobs revolve around making
| access to content frictionless to the point of being
| accused of making it addictive, just haven't thought "we
| should make this not suck?"
| akersten wrote:
| > NO, the law does NOT require your implementation to suck,
|
| When the law is "you have to verify a meatspace user's age
| before showing them content that could arbitrarily be
| considered 'adult' by some group of lawmakers who most
| likely have different and more puritan values than you,"
| yes, it _does_ require your implementation to suck, because
| that law sucks by definition.
|
| I'm glad YouTube implemented it this way, so that the pain
| of shitty laws can be felt instead of being allowed to
| proceed. Maybe people will actually try to push back
| against overzealous Internet regulation at some point.
| ehsankia wrote:
| If it was codified in 2010, was is it only going into
| affect now 10 years later? I'm not an expert in browsing EU
| law, but I do see a "revision" of AVMSD [0] that passed in
| 2018 and started going into effect around 2021 in various
| countries [1]. The two links you posted very clearly say
| "archived on 2012" so they are not the new version.
|
| [0] https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/revision-a...
|
| [1] https://www.obs.coe.int/en/web/observatoire/avmsd-
| tracking
| michaelmrose wrote:
| How do you even define content that "might" seriously
| impair the physical, mental, or moral development of
| minors. This is so subjective I don't see how you could get
| away with marking anything that wouldn't in the US be rated
| PG.
|
| At that point in order to ensure that such content isn't
| shown to minors you have to require a credit card or an ID
| because any reasonably kid would figure out how to set his
| or her age to a reasonable age of majority to avoid being
| pigeonholed into kid stuff.
|
| Can you give me an example of an alternative strategy that
| would be legal and more reasonable?
| zo1 wrote:
| It's possibly not how they wanted to interpret it (though I
| see how it helps their ad/tracking business). But it is
| probably how they _have to_ interpret it because they might
| get sued if they didn 't. At the very least it's an
| expensive court case to dismiss. All whilst eyeball-thirsty
| news agencies print articles such as "Google Refuses to
| Support EU Child-Protection Legislation", and Twitter-
| personas post tweets like "Uh Google - what about the
| kids?"
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'm not saying that the law requires that YouTube does
| this, all I'm saying is that this policy is the result of
| the AVMSD. Without the extensions to the AVMSD, Google
| would not have implemented this behaviour. You can argue
| that they've implemented an intentionally awful way to
| comply just to spite the politicians, or that they're
| overthinking the law, but there's still a direct relation
| between the update of the directive and the change in
| YouTube's policies.
| anfogoat wrote:
| Apparently you'll need to scan an ID if you don't have a
| credit card, and I bet the EU has millions of young adults
| without a credit card. Either way, the end result is that you
| cannot use a video service without exposing your real
| identity to the service provider. And for what? Is there an
| epidemic of video clips wrecking children's minds I'm not
| aware of? Lacking that, this doesn't seem even remotely
| justified.
|
| All this is either EU lifers keeping themselves busy to
| justify their existence to themselves, MEPs wanting something
| to grandstand on, or something equally vapid. A much better
| approach would have been to keep the age prompt and leave the
| rest up to the parents, ie, to do nothing.
| cdubzzz wrote:
| > And for what? Is there an epidemic of video clips
| wrecking children's minds I'm not aware of?
|
| I mean... maybe. I have young children and have no desire
| to have them anywhere near YouTube for essentially as long
| as possible _because_ of that very concern.
| alerighi wrote:
| Well it should be your responsibility to control what
| your children see online, on the web there are things
| fare worse than the one you can see on YouTube.
|
| I don't see why YouTube should ask your ID where most
| sites that host adult content doesn't.
| thu2111 wrote:
| You can already restrict YouTube on any sort of computing
| device you might give kids. Parental controls are built
| in to Android and iOS. There's no need for every website
| to duplicate that. However, there's a great "need" for
| the EU to constantly generate massive floods of
| legislation because they have ~30,000 civil servants they
| "need" to keep employed, many of whom earn more than the
| British Prime Minister.
|
| And unfortunately the EU _loves_ coming up with reasons
| to fine tech firms because they managed to ensure there
| are none in Europe itself, so it looks a lot like free
| money, to an organization that 's desperate for it (huge
| budget hole now UK has left + fines go straight into the
| EU spending pot).
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > many of whom earn more than the British Prime Minister.
|
| Is that the basic pay (PS79,936; EUR92,584) or the
| basic+entitled pay (PS155,376; EUR179,968)? (via https://
| assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...)
|
| https://eufactcheck.eu/factcheck/uncheckable-4000-eu-
| officia... suggests that only 3-4000 (10-13%, not exactly
| "many"?) are PG13 or above which would be EUR196,305
| (PS169,481) - above UKPM.
| GlitchMr wrote:
| > Is there an epidemic of video clips wrecking children's
| minds I'm not aware of?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate
| dkersten wrote:
| > All this is either EU lifers keeping themselves busy to
| justify their existence to themselves, MEPs wanting
| something to grandstand on, or something equally vapid.
|
| Or.. companies being obtuse with their implementation of
| the law, as they often are with the cookie/GDPR laws.
| StavrosK wrote:
| > Google probably doesn't want to validate users' age
| (because selling ads to impressionable kids is very
| lucrative) but they have to now.
|
| I mean, I hate this age validation as much as everyone else,
| curbing advertising to impressionable kids doesn't sound too
| stupid to me...
| Aerroon wrote:
| I would much rather allow kids to watch trailers of
| Battlefield than to have to give Google pictures of my
| ID/passport. But that ship has sailed now. This is the new
| reality and it'll probably be applied to more websites in
| the future.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Your kids?
|
| Also, there's much more content on YouTube that most
| parents would absolutely not want their kids seeing than
| a battlefield trailer.
| Aerroon wrote:
| If I had kids? Yes.
|
| My exploration online was effectively unrestricted while
| I was growing up. The internet had far more objectionable
| content back then that was easily accessible. I don't
| feel that it had any real negative effect on me. Why
| would I worry myself sick over my kids seeing it?
|
| Also, even if there is more objectionable content than a
| Battlefield trailer, the Battlefield trailer is
| restricted by the _same_ rules. And if everyone else in
| your kids ' friend group is talking about Battlefield
| then you'd be excluding your kid from it by limiting
| access to that. And if you don't limit access to it, then
| you get all the other 'objectionable' content too.
| wyager wrote:
| This is parents' job, not Google's.
|
| If you legally require Google to act like a parent, they
| have to do it to everyone.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Well then parents should apply legislative pressure,
| which should arrive at Google as "fix this or we
| legislate", and bingo, Google need to do something. That
| _is_ parents doing parenting. Parenting happens through
| societal structures.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| Hope you are happy with this the current situation then.
| I know that I am not because I do not wish to share my id
| with Google.
| growse wrote:
| When parenting your own kids isn't enough, but you feel
| you need to parent everyone else's as well.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| When you want to team up with other parents to make all
| of your lives easier.
| growse wrote:
| "all your lives"? Or just the lives of a few, at the cost
| of the many?
|
| Not all parents agree that this is the right thing to do.
| tovej wrote:
| Do you know _any_ parents that want their kids to consume
| ads?
| wyager wrote:
| The sane strategy is to simply avoid using an iPad as a
| babysitter rather than try to make everyone else's life
| worse legislatively.
| tovej wrote:
| Right, and it's not the tobacco industry's fault that
| people die of lung cancer, people should just know better
| than to smoke in the first place.
|
| And if you didn't know, children will eventually start
| using computers by themselves, probably before they are
| 12 (probably in first grade or kindergarten, I wouldn't
| be surprised). A huge portion of internet users are
| children. That's a fact. The reality is that a huge
| portion of children are online, and advertisers are
| specifically targeting children on youtube.
| sosborn wrote:
| I have two kids. I don't actually mind when they see
| advertising because it has given me a great opportunity
| to explain the tricks being used to sell product. I think
| they are generally wary of advertising now because of
| this.
| kube-system wrote:
| The same argument you are using is the justification for
| this. "It's should be the parents decision to allow
| children to watch this content, not Google"
| wyager wrote:
| Parents' authority over their children does not extend to
| forcing random strangers to enter government ID to use
| the internet.
| sp332 wrote:
| It's not exactly an age restriction, it's just getting
| permission from a parent. Either the parent puts in their
| ID information or they don't. Age restriction would be
| like movie theaters banning minors from certain movies.
| wyager wrote:
| Who cares about the age restriction? The issue here is
| obviously having to put in government ID to use the
| internet.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| It _sounds_ like you're speaking in absolutes though,
| lacking nuance. If you are, my reply to absolutes would
| be that we should stop enforcing alcohol sales to minors,
| as it's the parent's job to ensure kids their don't
| drink.
|
| Personally i think age verification is good. This
| implementation is moronic, though. And all around it's
| very, very difficult. So difficult that it may never be
| useful.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| > my reply to absolutes would be that we should stop
| enforcing alcohol sales to minors
|
| We absolutely should. Thankfully it is already not
| enforced in a lot of places (such as in greece).
| kowlo wrote:
| I hope I won't be considered presumptuous, but I suspect
| you don't have children? It is simply impossible to
| monitor absolutely everything.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| And you should not do so.
| [deleted]
| k12sosse wrote:
| I would say YMMV. If you have a child in a problematic
| scenario, your opinion might change.
| wyager wrote:
| Cool, so don't let them freely browse the internet if
| you're that worried.
| Spivak wrote:
| Sounds good. Say I'm a non-technical parent that wants to
| give my child access to YouTube but not allow them to
| watch content that they're not old enough to consume on
| their own. How should I do this? I want to give them the
| freedom to explore topics they're interested in so
| downloading some pre-approved videos isn't going to work.
| And my kid is smart and will realize that any account-
| specific setting can trivially be bypassed by logging
| out.
|
| What should I do? Not allowing my kids access to the
| internet at all is a non-answer in 2020. Hell it was a
| non-answer in 1995.
| alerighi wrote:
| Your argument doesn't make sense. There are a huge number
| of sites that host adult content that are easily
| accessible by a simple Google search. What can you do?
|
| > What should I do? Not allowing my kids access to the
| internet at all is a non-answer in 2020. Hell it was a
| non-answer in 1995.
|
| A non-answer is not allowing everyone else to surf the
| web without giving their credit card or ID to every
| website that hosts adult content. It would have a huge
| impact on privacy of the users and the freedom of the
| whole internet in general.
|
| A parent should educate their children, but I know that
| is simpler to set a bunch of restriction, give to the
| children a computer, and let him sit hours in front of
| YouTube while you do something else.
| watwut wrote:
| There is kind of no reasonable way to do it. Because the
| content is classified into two groups: for kids and not
| for kids which is too rough.
|
| And a lot of what they want to watch is formally not for
| kids and you will be absolutely ok with them seeing it.
| Especially non English content.
| wyager wrote:
| If you're concerned about this, stop letting your kids
| use a computer unsupervised. This seems like a no-brainer
| to me.
| Krasnol wrote:
| You should sit down with your kid and watch it watch the
| content until it's grown so far that you won't be able to
| keep it from finding the dirt on the net. By then you've
| hopefully educated it enough so you can be sure that no
| harm will come to it after it watched the adult stuff.
|
| Because one thing is sure: your kid WILL see it all
| because it's 2021.
|
| I mean seriously...you're not closing off all lakes
| because some kids could drown in them. You teach them how
| to swim.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| It really is the mission of every parent to ruin
| everything for everyone else (including their own kids).
| z0r wrote:
| I grew up with libraries and video stores for access to
| analogous materials and didn't have regular internet
| access until 1999. I really don't see why it's reasonable
| to expect the internet to supplant parenting duties that
| would have been reasonably expected in the pre-Youtube
| state of affairs.
|
| If you want to control what your kids see, don't let them
| have internet access. This is simply reality. I know that
| from the time I got internet access, I began to see
| things that would horrify my parents on a semi-regular
| basis that they didn't know about. (I had an SA forums
| account.)
| Spivak wrote:
| This isn't supplanting parenting duties, it's giving
| parents the tools to actually parent. Without this your
| options are basically no YouTube access at all or full
| YouTube access with zero granularity in-between. The
| default for logged-out people has to be restrictive or
| else it's trivial to bypass. The current rules for porn,
| alcohol, and mature games are a joke and have been since
| their inception. Everyone being born on Jan 1 1901 is a
| meme at this point. It's checking a regulatory box
| without actually doing anything and if YouTube tried it
| they would be raked over the coals.
|
| Libraries do restrict the materials that can be checked
| out by minors and I doubt that counted as supplanting
| parenting. How else could you give your kid any level of
| independence without the cooperation of other people?
| [deleted]
| thatcat wrote:
| The restriction previously happened at a device level,
| moving it to google seems like an elaborate justification
| to move the default to restrictive and break external
| video viewers and apps like yt-dl.
|
| You should control your kids device and make restrictions
| there, not place them by default on the entire internet.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is a tough question and I share it, with two
| elementary-age kids myself who _love_ youtube. I don 't
| have a good answer either. We put time limits on youtube
| and require that the kids use common-area computers to
| access it, but it would be nice if I could feel more
| confident about the content they're allowed to be exposed
| to.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Say I'm a regular member of society and want to watch the
| trailer for a new Battlefield game. How should I do this?
| YouTube asks me to give them pictures of my ID for that.
| _This_ is the mechanism that will be used for this right
| now.
|
| And it's all in the name of "protecting" children. This
| isn't some future hypothetical - it has already happened.
| I've been barred from a whole slew of content on YouTube
| because of this.
|
| Right now it's only used by Google. It's likely that in
| the future most websites will use this, because it's
| government regulation.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean this already existed prior to YouTube, it's just
| that before you couldn't access the 18+ trailer at all
| outside of an R rated movie theater or late night TV
| because it had to be made for prime time and print where
| content restrictions were enforced.
|
| I don't see this as any different than a theater asking
| to see your ID before letting your buy an R rated movie
| ticket. I sympathize that it's annoying hell but you
| probably also don't want Google deciding for themselves
| what your age is.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Yes, it existed before and it was moronic even then. But
| recent EU regulation pushes it onto streaming sites too
| and that's a different beast altogether considering the
| enormous amount of tracking that goes on.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| If only real 18+ content was the only thing that was
| affected - unfortunately random other stuff which might
| at most warrant something like PG (if even that)
| currently shows up as age-restricted, e.g. the original
| Tetris God video or the official upload of the Scatmans
| World music video.
| mindslight wrote:
| The standard we're comparing this to is the past 30 years
| of Internet Freedom where these invasive nags were
| nowhere to be found. Nobody was excited about the MPAA in
| 1995. But we were all excited about the Internet. Now
| "The Web" has become the MPAA et al. Lame.
|
| The real answer is the behemoths are going to become
| irrelevant, being inescapably bound to government control
| and surveillance capitalism. The more hoops and
| restrictions they add, the more tech people will move to
| decentralized solutions that don't suffer such bullshit,
| and eventually the normies will follow. It's just a
| tragic end to the past few decades of revolutionary
| energy, pointlessly wasted on centralized dead ends. And
| in the short term, it's fucking frustrating when trying
| to get anything done.
| sosborn wrote:
| There is a real different between showing your ID to a
| person in front of you compared to uploaded a digitized
| image of it to the internet. The threat vector completely
| changes once you do that.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Even if you locked them down to YT for kids, do you
| honestly trust Google to accurately decide what is
| acceptable for kids? Yeah, no. I don't. (Remember when
| they had porn in there?)
|
| So how does this help, anyway?
| sp332 wrote:
| Lately, they have been good. I don't blame you for
| mistrusting them because it took at least 4 scandals (I
| lost track), but they seem to have sorted it out.
| handrous wrote:
| Still much worse than just letting parents create an
| allow-list of channels or videos from any part of YT,
| including the non-"YouTube Kids" part :-/
|
| It'd be nice to be able to turn them loose on a YouTube
| that was just educational videos I've curated, no weird
| toy unboxing shit, without having to, like, maintain my
| own file server and streaming service.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Sit down next to your kid.
|
| Or anything else that doesn't fuck with my ability not to
| be tracked by google.
| danShumway wrote:
| Well, the devil is in the details. In practice, making sure
| that kids can't see certain content or making sure that
| they never get advertised to often involves age validation.
|
| There's some stuff we can do with content that is targeted
| _at_ kids, I don 't think those laws are inherently bad.
| Although... last time we tried to expand laws around
| advertising in content directed toward kids, that resulted
| in a huge number of game streamers and animators getting
| demonetized, to the point where Youtubers were doing wild
| things like swearing more in their videos so they could
| prove that they weren't targeted at kids. We seem to have a
| lot of difficulty articulating legally what the difference
| is between "kid appropriate" and "kid targeted" is,
| particularly when it comes to stuff like video games or
| "wholesome" (for lack of a better word) content.
|
| To me, it's very much a "who's going to bell the cat"
| policy. I don't want kids to be subjected to so much
| advertising, it's a great policy. In theory. But I have not
| so far seen any practical implementations of age
| restrictions online that haven't either been completely
| worthless or really problematic for both privacy and free
| expression.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| It makes total moral sense, but Google has proven that
| morality is not their top priority when money is at stake.
| That's why governments fine companies that do undesirable
| things; it forces shareholders to care about ethics.
|
| And perhaps it shouldn't; America's prudeness around sex
| but glorification of violence has had an effect around the
| world through Hollywood for years. Adding that morality to
| the flow of information might not be what we want.
| vkou wrote:
| Selling ads for non-kids stuff to impressionable kids is the
| opposite of lucrative. Advertisers generally don't want to
| waste their money on advertising to people who aren't buying.
| ljm wrote:
| I had this happen with the old "Ah fuck, I can't believe you've
| done this" video.
|
| I'm not sure why exactly that has an age restriction, or why
| I'd give Google some ID to watch a vintage Youtube meme. I
| presume it's because their ML detected 'fuck' in the audio.
|
| Note to Google: Ah fuck, I can't believe you've done this.
| Y_Y wrote:
| This encapsulates my feelings perfectly. My Gmail account is
| 17 years old, but I get a notification on my phone every hour
| or so, that I _must_ verify my age with Google. Nevermind
| that I 've bought plenty of things from them over the years
| and that all I want to do is watch a YouTube video they
| happily showed me many times before.
|
| Now I'm shopping for some storage to keep seventeen years of
| emails etc. so I can do a quick Takeout so that I don't lose
| access to all my data when I inevitably get unfriended and
| blocked by them for not being sufficiently compliant.
| [deleted]
| swiley wrote:
| You work so hard explaining to your friends good infosec
| practice like _not just typing their credit card in because
| some site wants to "verify their age"_ and then Google and
| Apple just go and fuck around with stuff like this.
|
| At this point the best advice you can give your friends is
| "stay the fuck away from computers unless you're willing to sit
| down and read a bunch of FOSSS manuals."
| moogleii wrote:
| Interesting, when does Apple ask for a cc for age
| verification? I don't think I've come across that UI.
|
| Edit: Looks like it might be an EU thing?
| tpxl wrote:
| I set my age to about 3 months old in Skype and got locked
| out. They need my CC to verify my age because of COPA
| (child online protection act in the US) or something.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| Skype is not Apple though
| swiley wrote:
| Anything on an iphone is Apple. They dictate content, UI
| design, architecture and moderation policy for all the
| apps on the device.
| emteycz wrote:
| No, Apple doesn't dictate credit card verification
| requirements. Actually they are quite opposed.
| serf wrote:
| >No, Apple doesn't dictate credit card verification
| requirements.
|
| that's the point parent was making; Apple made a decision
| about such things when allowing an app within their
| ecosystem that makes such choices (Skype, in this case).
| tonyaiken wrote:
| Allowing something to happen isn't dictating IMO.
| swiley wrote:
| It is when you're very strict about what you allow to
| happen. (which is the case with iOS apps.)
| swiley wrote:
| Apparently they have specifically allowed it in this
| case. Otherwise there would be no iOS Skype app.
| sp332 wrote:
| But other websites don't do this, so I don't think it's a
| COPPA thing.
| kodah wrote:
| That would be COPPA.
|
| > In 2019, the Government of the State of New York sued
| YouTube for violating COPPA by illegally retaining
| information related to children under 13 years of age.
| YouTube responded by dividing its content strictly into
| "for kids" and "not for kids". This has met with
| extremely harsh criticism from the YouTube community,
| especially from gamers, with many alleging that the FTC
| of the United States intends to fine content creators
| $42,530 for "each mislabeled video", possibly putting all
| users at risk.[58][59][60] However, some have expressed
| skepticism over this, feeling that the fines may actually
| be in reference to civil penalties, possibly intended for
| the site's operators and/or warranted by more serious of
| COPPA violations or specific cases of "mislabeling
| videos."[61][62][63] As of July 2020, nobody has got the
| $42k fine.[64]
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy
| _Pr...
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| I had this happen on a gaming forum, they upgraded to new
| forum software and pushed users through a 'update your
| account' flow. I accidentally set my year to the wrong
| number and ended up locked out of what had been a long-
| term username.
|
| It was bad, actually, because they had developed a system
| where your username on the system was tied to your in-
| game nickname as well so I ended up locked out of both
| and had to create a new username/nick.
|
| The admin of the website literally said "there's nothing
| I can do". I'm sure this isn't to do with the law
| specifically but just some limitation of their tools.
| emteycz wrote:
| > The admin of the website literally said "there's
| nothing I can do". I'm sure this isn't to do with the law
| specifically but just some limitation of their tools.
|
| At the gaming forum I helped to run around 10 years ago
| we consulted a lawyer and this [asking for birthdate but
| not allowing birthdate changes] was the only way to keep
| out of serious trouble and to not need ID verification.
| rhizome wrote:
| Hah, that probably explains all the age-disclaimers on
| dating sites. I had assumed it was just "login with
| Facebook" people not being allowed to change their
| birthdate _by Facebook_ , but as it turns out that may
| have been unjust (though FB itself might also prevent
| bday changes for the same reason).
| emteycz wrote:
| It is definitely that at least with Tinder.
| benbristow wrote:
| Must be.
|
| On major mobile networks in the UK, SIM cards/data plans by
| default have an adult content internet filter enabled.
| Blocks stuff like pornography (obviously) and even some
| other various adult age-focused content like gaming
| websites. (I've seen the EA Battlefield/Call Of Duty
| websites blocked before)
|
| Usually if you try to access, say, pornhub.com, it'll
| redirect (ala. WiFi captive portal style) to an internal
| network page and you have to enter a credit card to disable
| it on your account. A debit/bank card won't work. I'm over
| 18 now but at the time I came across this (also over 18) I
| didn't have a credit card but I ended up bypassing this
| with a Curve (Fintech 1->many card thing) card which seems
| to identify as a credit card on the network's system.
|
| Alternatively, if you don't mind never seeing the assistant
| again (jk.), you can go into one of the network's shops and
| ask the assistant to turn it off by providing some ID like
| a passport/driving licence.
| sebmellen wrote:
| This only reinforces my image of the UK as a long since
| resigned totalitarian police state -- that, along with
| the huge 1984-esque CCTV posters with giant eyes hanging
| watchfully over a dreary autumn midday in London.
| istorical wrote:
| It's hilarious. If this technology existed 50 years ago
| you can be sure they'd be filtering out any homosexual
| content. "We must protect the children from filth" after
| all. Good old nanny state.
| sebmellen wrote:
| The posters I referenced were from 2002 [0]... I can only
| imagine how much worse it's gotten since then.
|
| > _Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching. That 's
| the message of posters plastered along London's bus
| routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears._
|
| > _But the posters are having the opposite effect on
| privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily
| reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in
| George Orwell 's 1984._
|
| > _The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a
| bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The
| eyes ' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the
| city's mass-transit provider._
|
| > "Secure beneath the watchful eyes," _the poster says.
| "CCTV and Metropolitan Police on buses are just two ways
| we're making your journey more secure."_
|
| [0]: https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-
| falling-down/
| jdofaz wrote:
| tv.apple.com did for me when trying to play a video
| keymone wrote:
| What videos are free to watch on there?
| jdofaz wrote:
| I don't know, I have a free year of it. It plays in the
| app without asking, but not on the website.
| keymone wrote:
| Did you sign in on the website?
| jdofaz wrote:
| No, I already had an account but it doesn't have a credit
| card on file.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Not an EU thing.
| syshum wrote:
| Blame Government not Google and Apple.
|
| I hate both, but this is purely a function of terrible
| regulations
| pixodaros wrote:
| My favourite is how many sites want you to click on a link in
| a "verification email" to log in, especially if you take
| basic precautions like blocking scripts and trackers and
| deleting cookies periodically. All that work training people
| not to click links in unexpected emails, and these companies
| get a bright idea to require that to log in.
| [deleted]
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Related anecdote: A few years ago, my father bought a android
| tablet to my grand parents (both 85+). After watching them
| use it for a few minutes, I realized how user hostile the
| technical world has become: tons of ads popping up and asking
| for your attention ("click me", "download x", "make your
| device run faster", etc).
|
| This and apps "redesigned" every few month, breaking the
| workflow they've struggled to learn (they usually needed to
| follow the hand-written note, they had taken when I showed
| them how to do).
|
| They've used it a bit more than a year, with occasional
| breakage, and they now have stopped completely.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Root it, install a dns level adblocker (either for their
| network or just the tablet), install appropriate apps for
| them (preferring FOSS when possible via fdroid) and relock
| the tablet before giving it to them. Oh, and run a backup
| of the whole device first.
| asdff wrote:
| I can't believe it has to come to this to get a usable
| device for a growing segment of the population. Old
| people practically need their own IT department fighting
| for their best interests with how predatory tech
| companies have been towards them. They are SOL if their
| kid isn't a techie.
| swiley wrote:
| You should try using android trackphones. The instant it
| connects to a network it will download gigabytes of crap
| and launch it in the background. It doesn't matter what
| you're trying to do, whatever it is will get killed
| because all the malware needs more memory. Apps you want
| to install will be added to the end of the long queue.
| The (expensive!) cellular data will be instantly burned
| through by Facebook and friends.
|
| It's incredible. Personal computing is well and truly
| dead for the "consumer."
| cvwright wrote:
| The things that you complain about are the reasons why
| Apple has become the most valuable company in the world.
| swiley wrote:
| Apple has become the most valuable company in the world
| because they own everyone's computers so anyone that
| wants to publish commercial software has to bend over for
| them.
|
| They're _not_ valuable because of any service they
| provide.
| cvwright wrote:
| By "computers" I assume you mean "phones and tablets",
| because Apple is still a small minority of the world's
| desktops and laptops.
|
| Even then, ask yourself: Why do so many people pay $800
| for an iPhone instead of $200 for some Android?
|
| They didn't become #1 by selling $99 developer accounts.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think you misrepresent the human App Store reviewers as
| not being a service they provide to their users.
| [deleted]
| sharken wrote:
| On the more humorous side they could have implemented an age
| check similar to the one from Leisure Suit Larry.
|
| Although the questions were a lot harder back in 1991 when
| the Internet was not at your disposal.
|
| http://www.classicgaming.cc/pc/leisure-suit-larry/age-quiz
| toyg wrote:
| Tbh I think this sort of thinng would be harder today, if
| you took away the internet "for a night", because pop
| culture is now much more fragmented than it was back then.
| technick wrote:
| I had to solve these questions back in 95-96 (when I was
| 15) after buying these games used from a pawn shop. I used
| various sources from multiple BBS's and teachers at my high
| school.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| On one hand, people have given up their credit card for worse
| pre-Internet or outside of the Internet (like "free" or
| nearly free trials that turn into a subscription service).
|
| On another, Google already has a lot of peoples' credit card
| numbers by way of Google Pay. Does this expose those people
| to any more risk?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| It might not be that dangerous right now, but it sets a bad
| precedent. It gets users accustomed to that, and gives bad
| actors a cover for their activities: Look, Google does it!
| dredmorbius wrote:
| And for those who _haven 't_ given their credit card
| number, as a protection against abuse or "accidental"
| purchases (in-app, in-game, premium content, etc.), this
| looks like a suspiciously-convenient-to-Google mechanism
| for acquiring CC data.
|
| We were previously told that it was advisable to use
| YouTube under an alias, and that other personal information
| such as phone numbers would be used only for account
| verification.
|
| Those policies were rescinded or proved to be lies.
|
| Google have no credibility here.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > this looks like a suspiciously-convenient-to-Google
| mechanism for acquiring CC data.
|
| Actually wouldn't be surprised if the newly acquired CC
| number appeared right away as a new means of payment in
| Google Play.
| pkulak wrote:
| The problem isn't that Google is going to do something bad
| with your credit card, it's that because it's Google, they
| are training people to be okay with it everywhere else.
| Like when my bank sends me an email with a link to an
| external domain because I have a "secure" message.
| mindslight wrote:
| Actually Google is going to do something very bad with
| your credit card - link your online nym to your meatspace
| identity so they can better surveil you. That's much
| worse than having to deal with a few fraudulent charges,
| which at most requires mailing in an affidavit.
| swiley wrote:
| I don't know why this is down voted. Maybe because at
| this point creating a Google account now requires such a
| link?
| dheera wrote:
| Aren't there some credit cards that can create virtual
| numbers?
|
| Just give them a virtual number and then disable it right
| after registering. Then have your free trial, and only if
| you decide to actually subscribe, change it to a credit
| card number that is active.
|
| Businesses should not be unscrupulously trying to make
| money off people who forgot about the product during their
| free trial.
| derwiki wrote:
| I use Privacy.com to make virtual cards for this purpose.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Does privacy.com still require a debit card? That was
| what put me off the last time I investigated their
| service.
| Chirael wrote:
| It did the last time I looked into it.
|
| I went to set up a privacy.com virtual card for a semi-
| sketchy site, only to have privacy deny the charge as it
| was for a "high risk" site.
|
| Yeah, I KNOW, that's why I wanted to use a virtual card.
| That ended my brief foray into privacy.com
| malka wrote:
| only work for US, alas
| homero wrote:
| It's really bad but seems to be some EU law, this isn't
| something Google ever wanted.
|
| An alternative would be entering your passport or something
| which would be even crazier
| alerighi wrote:
| It's not required by the EU. If not all the sites that have
| content not appropriate for children, such as porn sites,
| or Reddit, would need to implement this. And of course you
| wouldn't give your ID or credit card to a porn site.
|
| Google is the only company that started to implement this.
| To me it's not required by law but they decided to do so to
| get more user data. Also because having a credit card
| doesn't confirm nothing about your age. I use a credit card
| to buy things online since I'm 13, you can have a credit
| card even if you are not 18, simply your parents need to
| sign for it, but then it can have your name on it.
| laurent92 wrote:
| In 2010, Google required your ID card if you enter a false
| birth date, and you are locked out of your account in the
| meantime. Happened to a colleague of mine because we were
| using Google Apps for Business. Because he didn't want to
| give his real info to Google at work, he couldn't work for
| 2 days and had to give Google his ID.
| jobigoud wrote:
| > In 2010, Google required your ID card if you enter a
| false birth date
|
| How do they know it's false? And if they know it's false
| why do they ask for it, they already have the right one.
| gknoy wrote:
| > if they know it's false why do they ask for it, they
| already have the right one
|
| Great question. It seems like it's being used as
| authentication, rather than authorization, in that it's
| meant to prove that you are who you say you are.
| genericone wrote:
| This is how youtube and other SV websites will blackhole the
| undesirable channels and creators, mark my words.
| tzs wrote:
| Do debit cards work? If so, maybe get a prepaid debit card, buy
| stuff with it until it has a very low balance, and from then on
| use it for age verification.
| m463 wrote:
| A friend of mine had trouble with his young kid - he used a
| youtube video to walk himself through getting a credit card
| with grandma's birthday money. (I assume the prepaid cards you
| can get in the grocery store)
|
| They found out when they found a nintendo portable full of
| games in his closet.
|
| He was about 12.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| How did everything end up shaking out? Were the parents on
| the hook for the credit card bill, or was the credit card
| company on the hook for issuing a card to Santos L. Helpar?
| m463 wrote:
| I think it was a prepaid card.
| dkersten wrote:
| Yep, this happened to me a few weeks ago (even commented about
| it on a HN thread). I've had this youtube account since about a
| year after youtube came out and the google account its attached
| to since about 2005. To not be under 18, I'd have had to be be
| rather young when I created those accounts.
|
| With all the privacy-invading data google and youtube collect
| on me, surely they know that I'm old enough to watch whatever I
| like on youtube. But there's no way I am using either of the
| available methods to verify my age. I'd rather just not watch
| stuff on youtube.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wonder if I could just wait a year and pass the filter on
| virtue of gmail-account being 18 years old...
| cbmuser wrote:
| That's on the EU, not Youtube.
|
| EU citizens needs to convince their government(s) that these
| age restrictions are not acceptable or live with the status
| quo.
| buggeryorkshire wrote:
| I had that too. A 14 year old account, with Google Cloud and
| Google One billing, plus many Google Store purchases and they
| still wanted me to prove my age. WTF?
| gruez wrote:
| That totally makes sense from a software engineering point of
| view. The age check was probably implemented as a
| "verified_age" column somewhere, and they didn't bother
| backfilling it with your existing google account info.
| manigandham wrote:
| It doesn't make sense for a trillion-dollar company known
| for some of the best software engineering. There are
| remarkable lapses in UX with Google products.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Best engineering? Ever tried hiring some of those ex
| Google contractors?
|
| There is plenty of good engineers in Google and plenty of
| terrible engineers.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Someday I hope to read an article or watch a talk
| explaining Googles approach to UX.
|
| The best UX in a Google apps seems to be Gmail, and
| that's honestly not that good either.
|
| Google is able to build insanely complicated
| infrastructure, design cool languages, they produced
| fantastic backend software and the they completely forget
| that people need to interact with it.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Gmail at some point had a good UX. Nowadays I've switched
| back to a local mail client because their webmail is
| weirdly sluggish for no reason.
| ric2b wrote:
| The best UX is in products they killed, like Inbox or
| Play Music.
| kortilla wrote:
| Google is the new IBM. There are certainly amazing things
| being done but 90% of the employees are just doing boring
| CRUD and have never done anything special.
| wombatpm wrote:
| Any Googlers reading this discussion? Was there a valid
| reason for these decisions or did everyone just miss it?
| retSava wrote:
| Absolutely, but for one of the largest sites on the web,
| served by one of the richest companies on the planet, being
| the one company knowing the most about me (and billions
| more) compared to other companies, and Youtube being
| probably one of the most profitable sites on the web too, I
| do expect better.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| It's still shitty programming that inconveniences the user.
| _joel wrote:
| That's very convenient for them, if so, but I very much
| doubt that's the reason.
| cabalamat wrote:
| > now they ask for a credit card number or an identity card to
| prove it
|
| I got the same thing and it left a bad taste in my mouth -- it
| felt to me that it was just Google's excuse to hoover up more
| information about me.
|
| No, Google, I am not going to give you my credit card of
| government issued ID.
| MisterTea wrote:
| This is clearly Google pushing $12/month youtube red.
| duckfang wrote:
| redtube you say? redtube.com is a porn site.
|
| Its a poor product naming with google. I'd imagine that's
| going to make for some consternation.
| crummy wrote:
| I think the name is now "YouTube Premium"
| etxm wrote:
| That's interesting because I had a credit card at 16 (it was on
| my parent's account).
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _now they ask for a credit card number or an identity card to
| prove it_
|
| Related, I can't install my telco's app because it's region-
| locked to Australia and Google Play Store seems to think I'm in
| the USA--never mind that my account was created in Australia
| over fifteen years ago and it's only been to America twice for
| a total of less than three months, and that my phone was bought
| in Australia and set up in Australia, as was my first phone.
| Seems like a case of an absurd and harmful default. Anyway, the
| only way to convince them I'm in Australia is to add a billing
| method. Nope. I'm not giving them billing details. (Now if only
| the telco would unlock it, as their support staff said they
| were working on, never mind that the whole process takes less
| than five minutes and I gave them the help page over a month
| ago. Or better still, if the telco would just provide a web
| interface like literally _everyone_ else does, rather than just
| Apple and Google Android apps. Sigh. If only they weren't the
| cheapest for my needs by a large margin.)
|
| Also related to the whole age thing, I just started the Google
| Settings app half an hour ago for other reasons and it
| triggered a notification asking me to enter my birthday "to
| help us comply with the law", expressed even more strongly on
| the page the notification takes you to as "Your date of birth
| is missing. This info is needed to comply with the law.", with
| a "learn more about why Google asks for this info" link to
| https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1733224?hl=en-GB,
| where the only sort of thing that they could conceivably be
| referring to as a legal compliance matter would be the minimum
| age of 13, and... I've been using that account for longer than
| that anyway.
| ripdog wrote:
| Have you tried googling the app identifier (grab it from the
| google play url) to find an APK download?
| jsnell wrote:
| Create a new account from an Australian IP, sign it in to
| your Android phone as a secondary account, and then switch to
| the new account in Play to install the app. (Once installed,
| use of the app is not tied to the secondary account in any
| way.)
| LandR wrote:
| Had a video come up as age restricted forcing me to sign into
| watch. It was a cooking video, they added some form of alcohol
| to the dish at one point..
|
| I mean, I get it, but it still feels ridiculous.
| rolph wrote:
| toto444 perhaps you have the link to the video your interested
| in?
| toto444 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIrmxOBnKcs
| rolph wrote:
| i get, from USA :
|
| from YT: An error occurred. Please try again later.
| (Playback ID: 5sTGvTkd9YkomV3x) Learn More
|
| from YT-DL:
|
| $ youtube-dl https://youtu.be/ZIrmxOBnKcs [youtube]
| ZIrmxOBnKcs: Downloading webpage [youtube] ZIrmxOBnKcs:
| Refetching age-gated info webpage WARNING: unable to
| download video info webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
| Traceback (most recent call last): File
| "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 174, in
| _run_module_as_main "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
| File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
| exec code in run_globals File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module> File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line
| 475, in main File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 465, in _real_main File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line
| 2069, in download File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 808, in extract_info File
| "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line
| 815, in wrapper File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 534, in extract
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1502, in
| _real_extract File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-
| dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line 2644, in compat_parse_qs
| File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/compat.py", line
| 2614, in _parse_qsl AttributeError: 'bool' object has no
| attribute 'split'
|
| the 404 looks like a take down? or a hug of death?
| toto444 wrote:
| In that case YT is asking me my details so that I can see
| that the video has been removed..
| hyfgfh wrote:
| Looks like they are trying to reduce the friction to subscribe
| to Youtube Premium
| andreilys wrote:
| Take a look at the EU's _Audiovisual Media Services
| Directive_ [https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/avmsd] and you'll have your
| answer for why this feature exists.
| veggie_screams wrote:
| YT Premium subscribers also get this prompt. At least I did.
| hughrr wrote:
| Same situation here.
|
| This, the 2/3 ads being forced down me which are of no interest
| at all and the constant upselling of YouTube music and the
| recent shoot down of ad blockers on the desktop browser front
| really makes it a hostile place to be a consumer of media. I
| have experimentally uninstalled the YT app off my phone and not
| used the web site and I haven't missed it a bit.
| cosmojg wrote:
| > the recent shoot down of ad blockers on the desktop browser
|
| Mobile browsers have been affected as well. uBlock Origin on
| Firefox for Android has been letting the ads through
| recently. Fortunately, NewPipe exists, but it depends on
| youtube-dl so, while it remains free of ads, it's also
| affected by this change surrounding age-restricted content.
|
| Hopefully people start moving somewhere else within the next
| few years, maybe PeerTube. Admittedly, YouTube's network
| effects are disgustingly strong. I wonder what it would take
| to break them.
| h4waii wrote:
| There's also a fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock support
| [0], I am hesitant to link it, but I agree that moving off
| YouTube and centralized networks is the goal.
|
| 0. https://github.com/polymorphicshade/NewPipe/
| app4soft wrote:
| > _Fortunately, NewPipe exists, but it depends on youtube-
| dl so, while it remains free of ads, it 's also affected by
| this change surrounding age-restricted content._
|
| Issue thread is here.[0]
|
| [0] https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/6403
| arkh wrote:
| > I wonder what it would take to break them.
|
| Having Android apps could help with people who use an
| Android device to watch videos on their TV. And if Google
| does not authorize these kinds of apps on the playstore I
| think it is more than time to start on an abuse of dominant
| position suit.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| The App experience just got worse and worse.
|
| I deleted the app and now use Brave for YouTube watching on
| iOS. Clears most ads, and allows background playback if you
| full screen the video first.
| southerntofu wrote:
| On Android there's Newpipe that's really good. But now
| they're gonna face the same problems as youtube-dl with age-
| gated videos.
|
| The only real solution is to move out of the walled garden
| alltogether. Peertube, anyone?
| junon wrote:
| A screenshot:
| https://twitter.com/bad_at_computer/status/13996876854810583...
|
| I got hit with it too. I even have a youtube premium
| subscription - they already have my card on file.
|
| Google is so incredibly evil.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I just get a sign in to confirm age. Are you absolutely certain
| you weren't on a third party site?
| standardUser wrote:
| A credit card seems like a reasonable way to verify age. Can
| you think of a better way? Or do you think no content should be
| age restricted?
| JI00912 wrote:
| I doubt it has anything to do with verifying age though. More
| likely they know people are hesitant to sign up and pay for
| youtube, but if they can get your credit card in other ways,
| then later it easier to get you to pay for something because
| then you just have to press "ok" since your details are
| already entered.
|
| Plus this gives them your identity, which is relevant because
| their business model nowadays is based around tracking
| people.
| megous wrote:
| eIDAS + smart card reader. :)
|
| But I guess, google still wants to make the check passable.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| And if I have no credit card?
|
| (I have no credit card. I approach 6 decades in age.)
| standardUser wrote:
| Don't debit cards work as well?
|
| If you have no debit or credit card, why would any for-
| profit enterprise want to interact with you in the first
| place?
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| Debit cards work if they're Visa or MasterCard, probably.
| Many countries have national card schemes for debit cards
| that do not work.
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