[HN Gopher] YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims ...
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of
Physical Harm'
Author : WaitWaitWha
Score : 209 points
Date : 2025-11-07 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.itsfoss.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.itsfoss.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] More discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503
| bigwheels wrote:
| _YouTube is taking down videos on performing nonstandard
| Windows 11 installs_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45744503 - 9 days ago, 497
| comments
| brulard wrote:
| Although the reason was absurd, videos were eventually restored.
| superxpro12 wrote:
| TBH the title is clickbait given the outcome.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Isn't the damage done though? Like if they were down at the
| time when people were told that win10 reached end of support
| and it's time to get on 11 does it matter that they are up now?
|
| Anyway I doubt youtube did this intentionally, but it does show
| how vulnerable their system is to false reports.
| bbarnett wrote:
| But did someone on Microsoft's pay, a Google employee with
| elevated access, flag it?
| lazide wrote:
| DMCA has always been buried in false reports. Every system
| gets gamed, and this is a particularly easy one to do so
| with.
| rs186 wrote:
| > Rich appealed both immediately. The first appeal was denied in
| 45 minutes. The second in just five.
|
| > The platform claimed its "initial actions" (could be either the
| first takedown or appeal denial, or both) were not the result of
| automation.
|
| Didn't know YouTube can improve their review time from 45 minutes
| to 5 minutes without automation. I bet it's pure magic.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I'm sure someone is figuring out a new version of the DMCA that
| prohibits circumventing data collection "in the name of
| preserving copyright".
| dlgeek wrote:
| I mean... documenting the details of the investigation to
| support the first decision and relying on the documented
| details the second time would easily explain that.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Risk of physical harm? Should I perceive that as a... threat?
| twelvedogs wrote:
| Satya Nadella will kick in your door
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| The sci-fi movies warn us about evil robots. Turns out the evil
| entity was Microsoft and other big tech companies all along
| throw262144 wrote:
| Indeed; those who are worried about the possibility of
| paperclip optimizers should take a look at the profit
| optimizers that exist today.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You see, Windows 11 has new, improved, patented prevent-the-
| computer-from-physically-beating-up-the-user technology. But
| this technology requires an online account; you can't trust a
| local-only account to prevent the computer from beating you up,
| _because it 's on the computer in question_ (duh). So we
| prevent you from learning how to bypass the requirement for a
| remote account for your own physical safety.
|
| /s, in case that wasn't _blatantly_ obvious...
| 1000100_1000101 wrote:
| Perhaps someone at Microsoft threatened physical harm to a
| Google engineer if they didn't remove the videos... and they
| caved into their demands rather than reporting the threat, or
| perhaps did both.
| system2 wrote:
| What's next? Utilman.exe tutorials removal?
| g42gregory wrote:
| Unfortunately, this brings an obvious question:
|
| If they sensor something like this, how could we trust platforms
| with the actually important subjects?
| nicce wrote:
| We can't anymore. Simple as that.
| damnesian wrote:
| we put way too much faith in them. It's easy to fake
| authoritative when your substance is virtual.
| lazide wrote:
| lol, the evening news was always a laugh if you knew
| anything about the subject matter.
| pimlottc wrote:
| *censor
| reactordev wrote:
| You can't.
| vlucas wrote:
| You can't, and this was readily apparent in 2020 with Covid.
| Even doctors presenting factual information got censored and
| de-platformed by YouTube.
|
| The only real competing video platform that promises no
| censorship is Rumble ( https://rumble.com ), but it has a
| _very_ right-wing slant due to conservatives flocking to it
| during all the Covid-era social media censorship.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Yeah the moment they started I knew it was doomed to fail.
| Get it wrong once and your credibility is ruined. They should
| have never tried to censor content outside of what is legally
| required and therefore defined.
| Simulacra wrote:
| We can't. From COVID to wars, YouTube is like public access TV
| from the 80s with scam preachers. We have to take it with a
| bucket of salt.
| portaouflop wrote:
| This implies we could ever trust them.
| Madmallard wrote:
| Why is this allowed to occur?
|
| Why is Microsoft allowed to operate in such a user hostile way?
|
| Why aren't people like up in arms massively tanking their stock
| value, boycotting, reputation harming in every legal way possible
| en masse?
|
| Like are people just careless and distracted 24/7?
|
| Like surely this should just not be a thing?
|
| I just don't understand how inhumane hostile behavior is just so
| rampant and like allowed to exist in our society.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Because the only mechanism to hold these mega corporations /
| billionaires accountable is government, and they're already
| powerful enough to have waged massive information wars
| convincing people to fight each other instead of them.
| pants2 wrote:
| Why should I care that much what Microsoft is doing? I sold my
| Windows 11 computer long ago and haven't looked back. In fact,
| more user-hostile they get the better that is for the Linux
| ecosystem which is better for me!
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I think it will be better with a little bit higher
| marketshare, but once the masses come in they demand stuff
| like kernel-level anticheat, DRM and to never accidentally
| run things in a terminal and then it will become way worse.
| Linux is as user-friendly as it is, because it is used by
| professionals and power users and the masses use something
| else.
| daveguy wrote:
| That's why we have different distributions. Let one of the
| distributions cater to those who don't want control of
| their own computer.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yes, and this is how a healthy OS market should look
| like, but a lot of distros use the same kernel.
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Because people like my mom don't know there is an alternative
| and people like my dad thinks OSS has ties to communism
| (really, I wish I was joking) and MacOS is for hipsters.
| Doesn't matter that I work for a FAANG company and we use and
| contribute to OSS or that my work laptop is a Mac.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| Bit beside the point but Windows 11 is the first version since
| Windows 3.1 that I haven't used.
|
| Nuked my Windows 10 install and put Pop OS on it + a MacBook
| separately.
| noir_lord wrote:
| I've dual booted since the 90's and have run Microsoft OS's
| somewhere since the 80's.
|
| I _had_ Windows 11 (kept it around for gaming), I binned it a
| few weeks ago.
|
| Don't game enough to justify it any more (haven't even tried
| gaming on linux yet).
|
| Juice was no longer worth the squeeze.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Gaming on Linux is quite good these days, as long as you
| don't need any kernel-level anticheat for multiplayer.
|
| Proton is an impressive piece of software.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Bazzite baybeeeee
| golemotron wrote:
| And now 'physical' becomes as hyperbolized as 'violence.'
| phkahler wrote:
| No, "physical harm".
| shevy-java wrote:
| Google censors the world, together with Microsoft.
|
| Well - it is time that the rest of the world censors these two
| corporation. I don't want them to restrict information.
|
| People will find workarounds by the way. This is now a Streisand
| effect - as people see that Google and Microsoft try to hide
| information from them, they will now look at this much more
| closely than before, with more attention.
|
| (Having said that, my bypass strategy is to not use Windows 11
| altogether. I don't depend on it, having used Linux since 21
| years now, but my machine to the left is actually using Win10,
| for various reasons, such as that I can fix problems of elderly
| relatives still using Windows. But I won't use Win11 ever with
| its recall-spy software. I also don't care that it can be
| disabled - any corporation that tries to sniff-invade on me, is
| evil and must be banned.)
|
| Edit: Ok so the video was restored. That was good, but still, we
| need an alternative here. Google holds WAY too much power via
| youtube.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Also Visa/Mastercard are big silencers...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > This is now a Streisand effect - as people see that Google
| and Microsoft try to hide information from them
|
| This comment section is wild.
|
| The videos are up. Microsoft and Google weren't meeting in
| secret backrooms to censor this one channel. The most likely
| explanation is that a competing channel was trying to move
| their own videos up in the rankings by mass-reporting other
| videos on the topic.
|
| It's a growing problem on social media platforms: Cutthroat
| channels or influencers will use alt accounts or even paid
| services to report their competition. They know that with
| enough reports in a short period of time they can get the
| content removed for a while, which creates a window for their
| own content to get more views.
|
| The clue is the "risk of physical harm". People who abuse the
| report function know that the report options involving physical
| harm, violence, or suicide are the quickest way to get content
| taken down.
| bithead wrote:
| Either that or microsoft and/or google will send someone to
| my house to Raymond Reddington my ass if I install W11 with
| only a local account.
| silisili wrote:
| A tale as old as time. A long time ago I worked in DDoS
| prevention and the bulk of our first customers were competing
| gambling sites and online eyeglass retailers.
|
| Why? Because they were all paying people to DDoS each other.
| Kinda silly, but good for business.
| portaouflop wrote:
| The reality is most people don't care about this.
|
| And if they do care they will find workarounds as you said.
|
| Nothing will change, the frog has been sitting in boiling water
| for more than a generation now and the newbloods never
| experienced the computational freedom you hold dear; they will
| happily use whatever corporate surveillance technology is being
| forced upon them. They will even defend it to the bone if you
| try to take it away
| WorldPeas wrote:
| and what phone do you use? There's no way out from that
| perspective (apple included), privacy and interoperability
| should not be mutually exclusive.
| mindcrash wrote:
| Once the masses discover that KDE is just as user friendly as
| Windows these days, ...
|
| ... _and_ that it is relatively easy to run (most) Windows apps
| they love through Bottles (https://usebottles.com/), and/or
| WinApps (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps)...
|
| ... _oof_
| Pxtl wrote:
| I've been doing my first journey w Linux as a daily driver and
| I'm not loving Mint+Cinnamon, what's the best distro for KDE?
| limagnolia wrote:
| The better question would be what is the best distro for you.
| Personally I like Debian. But I don't know enough about you
| and how you use your computer to say for sure what is best
| for you.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Devops-heavy development, but been a Windows desktop user
| up until now, with linux just running on servers.
|
| I'll probably go with Kubuntu just because I want something
| as vanilla as possible with the largest support-base.
| 1bpp wrote:
| Don't worry too much about distributions, they'll mostly just
| affect package formats and default settings, but imo Debian
| is the best choice for stable desktop computing, with the
| best overall support and community.
| o11c wrote:
| Unfortunately for right now, KDE has recently released major
| version 6, which is also about as _stable_ as Windows (meaning,
| very not). This is reminiscent of the KDE 4 transition and much
| worse than the KDE 5 one.
|
| For example, half the time I try to log in or unlock the
| screen, it just ignores my password. Fortunately, I have
| discovered that pressing Escape triggers a crash, and I have to
| deliberately trigger a segfault by pressing Escape, in hopes
| that next time the password will be accepted.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| There are a lot of videos on YouTube about things that have a
| "risk of physical harm" and this is what they choose to pick on??
| __loam wrote:
| It's all automated, of course there are false positives
| damonachey wrote:
| I would think this selective action could / should open them up
| to litigation for all the other harmful things on their site
| henvic wrote:
| Feels like AI going wild with censorship regardless of what they
| say lol
|
| I wonder if this is because Windows 11 has been used in critical
| systems to a certain extent?
| gorjusborg wrote:
| I no longer run a Microsoft OS on any of the computers I own.
|
| This type of behavior is the reason.
|
| Linux is good enough for most everything I do, for the rest is
| MacOS.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Meanwhile AI products occasionally talk kids into killing
| themselves and that's okay.
| Evidlo wrote:
| The videos were restored, though...
| Simulacra wrote:
| Oh this is going to get the Streisand effect.
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| They cant remove all the Ubuntu installation tutorials surely?
| wafflemaker wrote:
| So why shouldn't I use the windows 11 on the other partition that
| I use for games that don't run on Linux or run with degraded
| performance?
|
| (Yeah, it's Nvidia, no, I didn't do my homework and bought Nvidia
| for a Linux PC).
|
| While it may make sense for others, I don't find system that can
| lock up for 11 hours for updates suitable for anything other than
| occasional gaming. But why shouldn't I use it for it? I already
| think twice before getting any game that doesn't run on Linux and
| gave EA WRC Rally a downvote after they rug pulled Linux users.
| (A game that run on Linux on the beginning got borked with
| anticheat. A racing game, so you don't cheat your friends by
| having 1s less on that race you all compete on).
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is no worse usage of windows than the occasional one
| given the huge amount of updates it starts to download whenever
| you start it up after a long period unused.
|
| I guess it might be useful if you only keep it offline but in
| that case you aren't playing games online and thus you would be
| fine gaming on Linux given the only downside is lack of
| anticheat support.
| henriquemaia wrote:
| The video in question does present a risk of death... to Windows.
|
| (Nah, that wording is but a generic legalese sounding way of
| casting a huge net to get all sorts of fish.)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-07 23:00 UTC)