Then why wouldn't the owner change after verification? Maybe they should verify every day, just to be safe?
Such nonsense just ruins the Internet, maybe we should find better approaches than "yet another banner": accepting cookies, accepting privacy policy, verifying age, registering, logging-in, etc. all to watch some dumb 10 second video... Yet, porn and violence are to this day still a Google search away. So, what is YouTube exactly trying to stop here?
If the verification has never been done, and to comply with any regulatory requirements, they will likely perform the check once. Just because your account is 18 years old is most likely not going to pass various regulations which they need to comply with.
Eventually, they could use the front side camera and do continuous face-ID style verification. So no getting mommy or daddy to do the ID verification for you.
Got my invite 17 years ago to date. Have to see if next year if I pass these... I wonder if they think that I managed to make account at less than year old...
Note, this is EU AVMSD regulation we're talking about. Even companies who you think wouldn't need to comply with it do require this (notably Microsoft, because of Xbox, Microsoft Family and related stuff). At least EU just requires a credit card, in Korea you basically need your digital equivalent of an ID ("For customers in South Korea, use I-PIN [ed note: https://www.oecd.org/sti/ieconomy/38540152.pdf] to provide parental consent or verify your age.", https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/parental...).
Different countries are at different stages of transposing this directive into national legislation [0], so if you're in an EU country and haven't come across this yet, you will probably encounter this in due course.
Note that the directive also applies to the UK, where it has already been transposed into legislation.
The Korean way makes more sense, it's akin to OAuth and Google never sees your ID (or gets a chance to collect more personal data if you use your credit card instead). And yes i-PIN was annoying when I lived there but I assume most issues have been ironed out.
The EU is working on its own digital ID for that very reason.
Unfortunately it still is. It has improvements though, so at least it wasn't stagnated like, I don't know, EU's APIs for VAT exemption queries.
Technically speaking, you can still access certain details (like name and gender) on the i-PIN system, but on the other hand Korean PIPA is very strict (stricter than GDPR except in certain religious activities, pointed out on the draft adequacy decision) and is actively enforcing the law.
Some methods don't work inside the EU. The only way to bypass this is to proxy to a country outside EMEA (like Canada) and use the methods listed there.
Does youtube-dl or one of its variants get the content or is that somehow blocked by the age check? If the former then you can skip the adverts that way too. Though it would be a bit of manual faf (open page, copy URL, wait, play video from resulting local file) compared to just streaming direct from the youtube page.
It's not ideal, but if you heavily blur all the info except name (which they probably know already) and birth date (what they're after), they accept it with no problem.
They took my German ID's front with all content blanked that want babe, DoB, and expiration date.
Took about an hour in probably done human "review" queue to check this isn't some bot-submission/low-effort fake ID.
I don't understand, as a child I circumvented most if not all age restrictions and consumed whatever media I wanted, except for when my parents saw me play GTA. What kind of deficiency am I experiencing that isn't obvious to me?
Yes, but where's the real, proper evidence that shows that watching age restricted youtube videos is detrimental to children? I think unsupervised access to age restricted parts of youtube may well be detrimental too.
I feel like most of these changes are there only because troubled parents feel like they're powerless to control their children.
Oh absolutely. Here's an hypothesis: turbo-consumerist videos targeted at children are far more harmful that much of the "age restricted" content of nudity and profanity.
I just mean we should be careful and work in an evidence-based way rather than a moral panic-based way or a "I turned out fine"-based way (this latter, a common defense worldwide of child beating for instance)
Okay, how about this. This requirement for age verification is because someone is asserting that profanity or whatever youtube decides is "adult only" is harmful to children.
Since you can't prove a negative, e.g. profanity isn't harmful to children, the question here is can you prove profanity harms children. Yes anecdotes aren't evidence, but what can be asserted without evidence (profanity is harmful) can be dismissed without evidence.
How about the idea that age blocking content and failing to put that trust in our kids is what's detrimental? Reminds me of the all too common tale of a child raised in a helicopter parent household who goes off to college and parties way too hard at their first taste of real freedom.
Circumventing child controls was part of my childhood. I couldn't play runescape until I was "13" but I sure got around that one. Was that bad for me? Seems extremely unlikely.
I agree with the parent comment that this is a pathetic attempt at adults trying every last measure to feel some sort of control over their children.
Guess that may mean the will fix the URL trick that allowed to circumvent the check. Don't know if it still works, but I used it from time to time because I use youtube without account.
Serious the world is slowly becoming a nightmare for those of us who travel, roadblocks EVERYWHERE.
When I was in Poland, I couldn't use a rental bike because you have to have a Google Account tied to the Polish Playstore to be able to install the app. For this exact reason I couldn't collect Starbucks points or pay conveniently while in Mexico for 6 months. Google and Apple expect you to buy 1 phone per country. This comes up again and again and again.
In South Korea, I couldn't even watch my own YouTube playlists. Some Chinese music videos I watch were age restricted and you have to become a long term legal resident to be able to verify. Oh, and they might not sell size 46 shoes commonly there either but I sure couldn't order them. You need the same ID just to be able to receive a package Fedex'd from overseas.
And on and on and on... Currently in Ukraine, at least 2 of my banks block me from any access to my finances both my phone app and any web access. A favorite travel news website I read also blocks access.
Multiple Texas government agencies actually block any overseas access, preventing my from cancelling my highway toll pass or paying the bill. I think I had trouble accessing some tax sites too. God forbid anyone ever go on vacation. You have a WWW site? You mean CWW, right?
There are a whole list of other problems worldwide, I wish I'd written them all down. Amazon is 100% nationalistic anti- the existence of other countries. All I can say is god bless Netflix, they're the most reasonable of any company or government by a wide wide margin. I see no need to play with VPNs for Netflix.
It's pretty annoying but you can switch your country as long as you don't do it too often - I have. Also at one point you could still install them if you started the instalation in the browser (e.g. on your computer) but I think that might not work for a while.
You can presumably switch your main account, too but that might be even more hassle.
Google allows one change a year. That doesn't do me any good, I switched to Mexico for said Starbucks app and instantly regretted it (for the next 12mos). I've spent 3-7 months in too many other places since
Could you elaborate? I've traveled extensively over the last 40 years or so, and I can't see how to any extent those companies (which I assume must be among those listed - Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix..) are making traveling easier. I use all of them, and they don't in any way make traveling easier than before. If anything it's more difficult, just as the parent post said - in the past there was no risk for having to need a Google Pay account just to rent a bike at your destination.
If you look at all the complaints being had here it’s all basically related to banking and legal stuff. This is a failure in governance, not really the tech companies.
Some quick devil’s advocate talking points:
- Access to ridiculous amount of information and reviews basically anywhere. What to do. What not to do. Finding hidden niche cool things. Etc…
- Access to ridiculous people too. We did a small trip in a remote location and had this young college student show us around for a private tour. Was amazing, personal, real, and got to see/try things/places we normally wouldn’t. We would not have ever had a chance to be connected with her before. It would have been big stupid tour company.
- Instant mapping basically anywhere and looking things up (just the fact you can look up a bike or car rental store in 1 second on your phone even if say you can’t do the auto bike option…)
- I can just hold my phone over a menu in any language and it translates it in real time
- Safer between family tracking me in real time via location app or just having the option to ship medicine nearly overnight if needed, etc…
- Netflix… no comment
I just feel this is a bit dramatic for one annoying rent a bike station.
>I just feel this is a bit dramatic for one annoying rent a bike station.
I think that's because you took the example off my head and failed to extrapolate that every where I go there are some roadblocks with what have now becoming (every day to a greater degree) basic services?
Access to food delivery & local Uber equivalents can be a problem, how exactly is not being able to get food or transport a "bit dramatic" as opposed to a 100% legit complaint (in fact I got caught in multiple countries' lockdowns, and I think goodness I didn't need to self-isolate to protect people and get caught with no food delivery options etc.)
Basically - if there is no awareness - they won't be addressed. This is not about a "trade off" with the great things Google or whoever "adds" to my life, there is no tradeoff, there is simply no attempt to address this stuff AFAIK first and foremost due to 0 awareness.
This, it is sad when Netflix has this figured out more seamlessly than any single governmental tourist-centric department in the world. Isn't the main job of many of these places to get as much tourist money as possible?
> When I was in Poland, I couldn't use a rental bike because you have to have a Google Account tied to the Polish Playstore to be able to install the app.
These sort of restrictions get nighmarish (as you mention) when the apps are the only way to do something, and they are region-locked to the country's app store.
There should be some obvious test, like if you want to make something app-exclusive, make sure the damn app is in every version of the Play Store.
I remember spending a couple of weeks in SF 4 years ago in an AirBnB... could I get a meal delivery in the evening? Nope.
Needed a US phone number, or US bank account / credit card, or both.
Things like Postmates didn't even allow the entry of a UK phone number with +44 prefix. I sensed then that travelling wouldn't get easier and more convenient, it would increasingly get less convenient.
There's a real opportunity for Stripe, Twilio, etc to really dominate globally given that these are the tools we need to reach the largest markets, and inversely as customers to access services in all markets.
Does Google not allow you to switch your playstore without losing your installed apps? This is possible under iOS and the AppStore (need a Chinese app? Switch to the Chinese App Store, get the app, switch back), or at least was when I did it.
I'm living part of this dystopian nightmare. I moved from Canada to Israel, with an Android, and my wife an iPhone. She moved her phone's app store to Israel, I left mine as Canada. This means that she can't get updates to apps she's paid for. I'm now left with sideloading Israeli apps (like the gas station electronic pay app!) because of silly geo fences.
Paypal won't allow me to add my Israeli credit card, while keeping my Canadian credit card attached. Ummmwhy? Google Pay complains that my Israeli credit card can't be registered to my Israeli address since my Google Play account is in Canada.
The only companies I don't want to light on fire now are Amazon and Spotify. Everyone else just causes friction, which becomes the way I become a customer elsewhere. It's almost as if countries and companies are designed to ensure you stay in a specific geography. G-D forbid I use my Canadian credit card to pay for electronic services in Israel.
Paypal is the worst with this. I struggle to understand why anybody uses them if they operate in a remotely inconsistent manner (i.e: move occasionally.)
I only recently re-opened an account due to local convenience, but would not trust them for moving serious cash around anywhere.
My (old) UK paypal account, even though i have the full credentials, doesn't allow me to sign in because it sends an SMS to a number i've long lost. I only wanted to sign in so i can close the account.
The main reason I use PayPal is because they provide detailed records and invoices of online purchases in a single easy to see place, with simple options for disputing charges or getting refunds if I don't get what was purchased. It would be a pain in the ass to do that all through my bank, but on Paypal I can just tap "Refund" and communicate directly over PayPal with the seller.
Went through a similar thing in Germany. These are annoying details of an international move. I think the real solution that minimizes heartache is that you have to get local versions of all accounts - both banking and digital - including re-purchasing apps. One high-tech thing you can do is get a dual-sim smartphone (which excludes iPhone, naturally) so you can have both numbers on the same device. Although, honestly, I'd recommend just getting another device.
As for credit cards, definitely get a local one because most CC's will kill you on exchange rates and fees. Get a local bank account, a local credit card, and transfer funds with something like TransferWise [1]
Amazon works okay internationally, although again I'd recommend using two URLs (or containers) for each version. For example, you can access Canadian Amazon with "smile.amazon.com", and the Israeli one with just "amazon.com". But in general I think it's a good idea to use a container- (or browser-) per-country.
I'm not sure I entirely blame the digicorps on this one. Compliance with local law is difficult enough in isolation; these "dual digital citizen" cases are probably really complex. In fact, I'm surprised Spotify works seemlessly; it's probably an oversight by the music publishers.
This is all a corrallary, BTW, to the general truth that the only way to make money with digital goods is by creating artificial scarcity.
1 - https://wise.com/invite/u/joshuar301 - full disclosure, happy customer and this will generate 60 euros (under some circumstances) for me if you sign up.
That's not necessary. The landlord needs a bank account number, and some might ( of course, entirely depending on the person) accept a foreign one + the explanation that you're in the process of creating a French one. I've done it and know people who have done it, but of course it limits your options, especially in high in demand cities like Paris.
And there are always the neobanks - IIRC Aumax and Boursorama didn't ask for "justificatif de domicile" ( a utility bill or similar).
And there's another trick, you can get a phone contract online, with only a credit card; and this will get you a bill with any address you choose, but that's gaming the system.
Yes, it is the same in Germany. My employer rented an apartment for us, and to do this we assigned limited power of attorney (Vollmacht) to a consultant to registered for us.
So, with lots of money you can break the circular problem of: you need a residence to get a local account, and getting a residence requires a local account and physical presence in the town hall registration office.
There are probably (hopefully) more efficient ways to do this, but that's how we did it.
For google, you need to create a second account. There is no escape. At least it's free. I have an italian and a canadian account and that's the only way to make it work (I will have soon dual citizenship).
On the upside, all google apps do work with 2 accounts
You don’t need an ID to order from overseas in Korea, it’s a quick lookup away. I ordered camera gear, clothing and more. Pay customs duties as requested and you’re fine.
Access blockage is a pain in many countries, but it has zero to do with identifying yourself or having an account. You only need one, with a VPN hoster.
And this concerns Netflix just as well. Either they have changed something, or you are yet to make an unpleasant discovery. In my experience, the content available varies depending on where it thinks you are hailing from, regardless of payment method on file.
Amazon is the most reliable place so far to order overseas from, with one simple rule: only buy what’s “fulfilled by Amazon”. In my experience, as long as it lets you place that order, it will arrive (though customs paperwork and duties may be on you in some countries).
On balance my experience is mostly positive when traveling across reasonable countries. (The unreasonable ones are like China, where you are half outside of the system if you don’t set yourself up with a bank account and pay with WeChat.)
But yeah, I tend to not order takeout, I hate e-bikes and e-scooters with passion, etc. so I may be in the minority here.
> Access blockage is a pain in many countries, but it has zero to do with identifying yourself or having an account. You only need one, with a VPN hoster.
I think OP’s point was that one shouldn’t need a VPN to do these things.
Besides pointing out that a large chunk of what the original poster wrote is just factually incorrect, my point was that it’s hardly a “nightmare for those of us who travel”, since the remaining actual issues are so far solvable with a VPN, and even my mom can use a VPN.
Yes, it’s inconvenient and shouldn’t be this way, but it’s far from a nightmare (yet). The true nightmare is situation in a few places like the aforementioned China, which is where we may be headed judging by TFA, but we've a long way to go.
netflix has sometimes wildly different libraries based on where you are - and they weren't always in as many countries as they are now. At least they're nice about updating what's accessible immediately though (this is both a blessing and a curse)
If you download content in location X that is not available after you get to location Y, you can still access it if you put your phone on airplane mode. Can't refresh/redownload though, obviously.
I always thought having a VPN to home was valuable for getting around silly things like this while traveling.
All in all, as others have said, it is still easier to move between distant countries now than ever before, and these may seem like minor issues, but I feel your pain!
I moved a few times between France and the UK, and every time I've had to move all my accounts (Youtube, Amazon, Playstation store, etc.) but most importantly I have two separate Paypal accounts to handle both countries.
There are also some French administrative websites that I can't access when I am in the UK, preventing me from booking appointments to renew official documents. I have to use a VPN and even then the pages fail to load most of the time and are 100 times slower than when connecting physically from France.
> Amazon is 100% nationalistic anti- the existence of other countries
what do you mean? Given they have to quote shipping, it's not unreasonable to take into account.
> Some Chinese..
China, and the CPC, are well know for restrictive policies and not giving a shit if it inconveniences foreigners. The message is pretty clear: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-24/china-ban... <- English tutoring is one of the few things foreigners can get a work visa in China for. I wouldn't be surprised if CPC is actively discouraging tourism. I wouldn't generalise this behaviour to all SEA.
> Currently in Ukraine, at least 2 of my banks block me from any access to my finances
To be fair, some countries have "complicated" relationships to international law/fraud.
>> Amazon is 100% nationalistic anti- the existence of other countries
> what do you mean? Given they have to quote shipping, it's not unreasonable to take into account.
I'm not entirely sure what the GP was getting at, but there is some friction with amazon and the international sites. I have amazon prime, but prime subscriptions seem to be region locked as it is only reflected in the .com site. When checking out through the UK or Italian Amazon storefront, it'll even prompt me to try a trial prime subscription.
In the 2 western European countries I've lived in, Amazon is an utter mess. "Free shipping over 30 EUR" often turns into searching for which listing for the item is covered. Heck, there isn't even a search filter for "items that will actually ship to my country".
Funnily enough I use an extension called "Amazon Global Shipping Filter" for this, since my country doesn't have its own amazon site (I'm in Ireland and there is no amazon.ie I use amazon.co.uk, or amazon.de if I want to stick w/ EU shipping).
Yes content on Netflix is specific to the country you're currently located in, however it works without complaint if you're in a country other than the one you were in when you signed up.
I've just come to terms with getting a different menu of options in each country, in the 1000s of options, and live with that instead of being picky. It's the easiest thing I deal with, to the point I'm thankful for it.
Compare Amazon Prime overseas - 100% worthless, they wouldn't even let me pay to view a video I would have gladly paid to watch once. My account was stuck in some sort of cyclical impossible state that bounced me around in circles with no definite error but no way to progress either. I just found it so shocking such a large company can't even account for the fact any of their customers would ever at any point go on vacation a few days.
"Multiple Texas government agencies actually block any overseas access"
Montana also. I'm Australian in Australia but own a vehicle in the US. When trying to renew the registration, the ecommerce site failed with an error telling me to contact some authority. That authority's site and contact details blocked access to anyone outside the country.
It is trivial to have multiple accounts active on any Android phone, and install apps using any of them. (And once installed, the app is not tied to the specific account in any way.)
Settings > Accounts > Add account > Google. And to choose which account to use for Play, just click on the profile picture in the app and choose the account you want from the drop-down menu.
The accounts can be tied to different countries. So there is no need to have multiple phones.
I don't even think its advertisement revenue, an more. I think its entirely a fatigue with political and social pressure.
Its so much easier to let go of your beliefs when it just becomes far too painful to keep fighting politicians and public scrutiny. Scares investors, hurts your staff, and I guess hurts revenue.
If you're YouTube and you're facing a barrage of inquiries about inappropriate content, this is the easiest way forward.
Yup, had this little gem appear for me on a very random video. So much so that I had to suspect that it was more of a requirement so that your credit card is locked and loaded for spending.
Also what makes a video marked as adult content is becoming absurd. Last month, a french youtuber was required to put pixels on a doom 1 screenshot. Pixels on pixels.
Even more absurd when the ads are not censored the same way, and hence can be way more adult oriented than the video.
I never though I would see the day where internet services would do something worse than TV.
But as a lot of youtubers reported, there is not much alternative since youtube:
• is the only place where you'll get such a big audience, and with powerful discovery mechanisms in place to make people discover your content
• is one of the few players actually giving you money for your content
• can handle millions of viewers in the first 5 minutes a popular video is released
A video subscription service created by Linus Media Group (LinusTechTips). Creators put their content ad-free on Floatplane, but can also put it other places (such as YouTube, and with ads). The users pay for the ad-free videos.
Can you explain why you think Linus/LMG/Floatplane's service is more trustworthy than YouTube? I do not share that opinion.
My starting position is that he is guided by business pressures not terribly different from YouTube's, from the following anecdata:
I understand Linus started Floatplane because his business relies on YouTube, a single point of failure
With PIA/Kape, he left whether or not to accept advertising dollars up to a user vote in YouTube's chat. It came out tied at first, and then he went to the Floatplane stream to break the tie, which ended in favor of accepting PIA advertising
In live streams he has spoken somewhat negatively about "free speech" advocates
I think Floatplane will simply go where the dollars go in the long run, and I see little in the way of moral conviction that they would e.g. fight government regulations or payment processor demands.
> Creators put their content ad-free on Floatplane, but can also put it other places (such as YouTube, and with ads). The users pay for the ad-free videos
So just like Nebula? It'd have been better if all the fleeing YouTubers had centralised on one alternative service, most people won't bother for multiple subscriptions.
Those rules are all due to legal settlements with the government anyway; in the event an alternative did pop up they'd end up having to do the same or very similar things once they're big enough to attract regulatory attention.
I've seen screenshots from Russian youtube where advertisers bypassed automatic moderation by confusing Google's image recognition and substituting letters in words.
> I never though I would see the day where internet services would do something worse than TV.
Don’t blame YouTube for this.
It’s not YouTube making the decision to require ID or credit card. They’re complying with the regulations. That’s why this restriction is only in a single regulatory region, not a global requirement.
There’s a culture war brewing around internet services with user-generated content, including YouTube. One side wants more freedom to view and share content. One side wants much more censorship of anything they don’t want to see (or, more commonly, things they don’t want other people to see). This ranges from dangerous misinformation to low-grade objectionable content like video game screen recordings.
The strangest part about this internet user-generated content war is that many people have taken both sides because they just like to hate big tech platforms.
But the censorship is global. I see it in France, even if there is no legal reason for it. I've seen plenty of male dicks or female breast on old french movies as a kid, it was not considered immoral.
Also I don't recall my TV requesting my credit card to watch content as a kid.
Well that is the problem though...back in the day YouTube was a fun place where people exchanged ideas, discussed their hobbies and so on. It wasn't about money at all. These days 99% of people on YouTube are only trying to grow their channel to make money off it like that is the only motivation to do anything in life. Money just corrupts everything it touches.
If they want to verify my age, that is fine.
But I'm not fine with using credit cards, they where never meant for that and that is a hackish solution.
Not a fan of photo id's either, I've used that once, and it was a ridiculous blast from the past.
We have proper electronic id's where I live, so used that or nothing.
I lost a lot of mass over the period 6-to-8 year ago, so since than until recently my passport had a photo that didn't look terribly like me. Oddly this was never questioned at all at airports, though was when using it as ID for picking up an order at Tesco.
Does Google require US accounts to verify age too?
I ask this because I set up my phone's google account when I was living in Japan. When I moved back I had to switch my app store county in order to use locally purchased Play gift cards. Soon after I stated getting notifications to "Verify my age on my Google account to help them comply with the law".
So far ignoring it has seemed to work, has anyone else experienced this? Also what law are they trying to comply with?
This has been an issue for some months now and has led me to think that it’s already almost too late to save content worth saving from the siloization of YouTube (age restriction also kills youtube-dl).
Is there such a thing as a distributed Youtube archiving project?
There’s no chance content on Youtube will ever be more accessible again.
Surely if the cookies are the answer you need to first give over the ID to get the right values in your cookies for youtube-dl to use, so you are not circumventing handing your ID to Google.
Sadly, I think you may be right. The ship has sailed on a great many channels and videos I had bookmarked. Rescuing whatever we can from this fire and pulling the plug on our own consumption on the platform seems like the wisest course of action.
The priorities we have are so whack. We should be verifying age for social media usage. Minors shouldn’t be allowed to destroy their digital personas with incriminating posts.
Back in the day parents used to say "don't reveal any personal information on the internet", no verification necessary. But the ad giants destroyed that.
Any EU lawmakers/regulators who could have done something about this but chose not to do so are lying when they claim to care about your privacy, no matter how many cookie consent banners they mandate.
Unless they also require you to turn on a webcam and give them control of it, there is no way for them to verify you don't have someone else underage in the room watching with you. At some point, a country has to decide what level of possibly illegal behavior is acceptable to avoid the panopticon police state required to prevent any and all possible violations.
Remember when Google+ tried to make people use their real names[0]? Having data is one thing. Having data with a real name handed to you is something else completely.
This isn't specifically about the article, but generally, does anyone know what the heck is going on with the YouTube App?
Recently they took away anyway to refresh the videos on the home screen. So I have to login as a guest, then back into my account to get refreshed videos.
There is no way to tell youtube from the app to not show me a video or a channel. I can't join a channel from the app, or look at the community stuff or any of the comments. From mobile you can do that stuff but the experience is horse shit.
I love youtube, I just can't for the life of me understand why their app on apple tv and android is absolute garbage compared to even what it used to be 6 months ago.
> I love youtube, I just can't for the life of me understand why their app on apple tv and android is absolute garbage compared to even what it used to be 6 months ago.
Resume driven rewrites? Missing functionality is a tell tail.
You'll be happy to know they've partnered with Google Pay and can conveniently save your card for the next time you want to rent a movie for €15.99 (just make sure to watch it within 24 hours of starting it, you know – before the bits expire).
I'm shocked that Googs does not already have enough information collected and linked to your account that this is necessary. Maybe FB can create a service where you can submit an email/phone number, and then return the age of the user. You know between the Googs and FB, they have linked to your profile multiple emails so I'm betting it would be a pretty robust service. Of course returning the user's age would be the lowest tier offered. For a higher service fee, you could then gain more access to the user. CASH COW
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg
Such nonsense just ruins the Internet, maybe we should find better approaches than "yet another banner": accepting cookies, accepting privacy policy, verifying age, registering, logging-in, etc. all to watch some dumb 10 second video... Yet, porn and violence are to this day still a Google search away. So, what is YouTube exactly trying to stop here?
Note that the directive also applies to the UK, where it has already been transposed into legislation.
[0] https://www.obs.coe.int/en/web/observatoire/avmsd-tracking
The EU is working on its own digital ID for that very reason.
Unfortunately it still is. It has improvements though, so at least it wasn't stagnated like, I don't know, EU's APIs for VAT exemption queries.
Technically speaking, you can still access certain details (like name and gender) on the i-PIN system, but on the other hand Korean PIPA is very strict (stricter than GDPR except in certain religious activities, pointed out on the draft adequacy decision) and is actively enforcing the law.
I imagine all of them will eventually stop working though.
I feel like most of these changes are there only because troubled parents feel like they're powerless to control their children.
I just mean we should be careful and work in an evidence-based way rather than a moral panic-based way or a "I turned out fine"-based way (this latter, a common defense worldwide of child beating for instance)
Since you can't prove a negative, e.g. profanity isn't harmful to children, the question here is can you prove profanity harms children. Yes anecdotes aren't evidence, but what can be asserted without evidence (profanity is harmful) can be dismissed without evidence.
Circumventing child controls was part of my childhood. I couldn't play runescape until I was "13" but I sure got around that one. Was that bad for me? Seems extremely unlikely.
I agree with the parent comment that this is a pathetic attempt at adults trying every last measure to feel some sort of control over their children.
When I was in Poland, I couldn't use a rental bike because you have to have a Google Account tied to the Polish Playstore to be able to install the app. For this exact reason I couldn't collect Starbucks points or pay conveniently while in Mexico for 6 months. Google and Apple expect you to buy 1 phone per country. This comes up again and again and again.
In South Korea, I couldn't even watch my own YouTube playlists. Some Chinese music videos I watch were age restricted and you have to become a long term legal resident to be able to verify. Oh, and they might not sell size 46 shoes commonly there either but I sure couldn't order them. You need the same ID just to be able to receive a package Fedex'd from overseas.
And on and on and on... Currently in Ukraine, at least 2 of my banks block me from any access to my finances both my phone app and any web access. A favorite travel news website I read also blocks access.
Multiple Texas government agencies actually block any overseas access, preventing my from cancelling my highway toll pass or paying the bill. I think I had trouble accessing some tax sites too. God forbid anyone ever go on vacation. You have a WWW site? You mean CWW, right?
There are a whole list of other problems worldwide, I wish I'd written them all down. Amazon is 100% nationalistic anti- the existence of other countries. All I can say is god bless Netflix, they're the most reasonable of any company or government by a wide wide margin. I see no need to play with VPNs for Netflix.
You can presumably switch your main account, too but that might be even more hassle.
If you look at all the complaints being had here it’s all basically related to banking and legal stuff. This is a failure in governance, not really the tech companies.
Some quick devil’s advocate talking points:
- Access to ridiculous amount of information and reviews basically anywhere. What to do. What not to do. Finding hidden niche cool things. Etc…
- Access to ridiculous people too. We did a small trip in a remote location and had this young college student show us around for a private tour. Was amazing, personal, real, and got to see/try things/places we normally wouldn’t. We would not have ever had a chance to be connected with her before. It would have been big stupid tour company.
- Instant mapping basically anywhere and looking things up (just the fact you can look up a bike or car rental store in 1 second on your phone even if say you can’t do the auto bike option…)
- I can just hold my phone over a menu in any language and it translates it in real time
- Safer between family tracking me in real time via location app or just having the option to ship medicine nearly overnight if needed, etc…
- Netflix… no comment
I just feel this is a bit dramatic for one annoying rent a bike station.
I think that's because you took the example off my head and failed to extrapolate that every where I go there are some roadblocks with what have now becoming (every day to a greater degree) basic services?
Access to food delivery & local Uber equivalents can be a problem, how exactly is not being able to get food or transport a "bit dramatic" as opposed to a 100% legit complaint (in fact I got caught in multiple countries' lockdowns, and I think goodness I didn't need to self-isolate to protect people and get caught with no food delivery options etc.)
Basically - if there is no awareness - they won't be addressed. This is not about a "trade off" with the great things Google or whoever "adds" to my life, there is no tradeoff, there is simply no attempt to address this stuff AFAIK first and foremost due to 0 awareness.
Except I do think you are being dramatic and I do think it actually is about “trade offs”.
Still appreciated reading your notes.
> When I was in Poland, I couldn't use a rental bike because you have to have a Google Account tied to the Polish Playstore to be able to install the app.
These sort of restrictions get nighmarish (as you mention) when the apps are the only way to do something, and they are region-locked to the country's app store.
There should be some obvious test, like if you want to make something app-exclusive, make sure the damn app is in every version of the Play Store.
Huh? How is the Play Store supposed to know whether your Israeli gas station takes cash or not?
Needed a US phone number, or US bank account / credit card, or both.
Things like Postmates didn't even allow the entry of a UK phone number with +44 prefix. I sensed then that travelling wouldn't get easier and more convenient, it would increasingly get less convenient.
There's a real opportunity for Stripe, Twilio, etc to really dominate globally given that these are the tools we need to reach the largest markets, and inversely as customers to access services in all markets.
Paypal won't allow me to add my Israeli credit card, while keeping my Canadian credit card attached. Ummmwhy? Google Pay complains that my Israeli credit card can't be registered to my Israeli address since my Google Play account is in Canada.
The only companies I don't want to light on fire now are Amazon and Spotify. Everyone else just causes friction, which becomes the way I become a customer elsewhere. It's almost as if countries and companies are designed to ensure you stay in a specific geography. G-D forbid I use my Canadian credit card to pay for electronic services in Israel.
I only recently re-opened an account due to local convenience, but would not trust them for moving serious cash around anywhere.
My (old) UK paypal account, even though i have the full credentials, doesn't allow me to sign in because it sends an SMS to a number i've long lost. I only wanted to sign in so i can close the account.
As for credit cards, definitely get a local one because most CC's will kill you on exchange rates and fees. Get a local bank account, a local credit card, and transfer funds with something like TransferWise [1]
Amazon works okay internationally, although again I'd recommend using two URLs (or containers) for each version. For example, you can access Canadian Amazon with "smile.amazon.com", and the Israeli one with just "amazon.com". But in general I think it's a good idea to use a container- (or browser-) per-country.
I'm not sure I entirely blame the digicorps on this one. Compliance with local law is difficult enough in isolation; these "dual digital citizen" cases are probably really complex. In fact, I'm surprised Spotify works seemlessly; it's probably an oversight by the music publishers.
This is all a corrallary, BTW, to the general truth that the only way to make money with digital goods is by creating artificial scarcity.
1 - https://wise.com/invite/u/joshuar301 - full disclosure, happy customer and this will generate 60 euros (under some circumstances) for me if you sign up.
Good luck with this in France. You have to show evidence of stay (a contact for utilities), for which you have to have an account.
There is a law that states that you can get an account without these requirements, and then there is the reality.
This reality also means that if you know someone who is a good client in a bank and go with them, there is a good chance they will open the account.
Banking in France is such a mess.
That's not necessary. The landlord needs a bank account number, and some might ( of course, entirely depending on the person) accept a foreign one + the explanation that you're in the process of creating a French one. I've done it and know people who have done it, but of course it limits your options, especially in high in demand cities like Paris.
And there are always the neobanks - IIRC Aumax and Boursorama didn't ask for "justificatif de domicile" ( a utility bill or similar).
And there's another trick, you can get a phone contract online, with only a credit card; and this will get you a bill with any address you choose, but that's gaming the system.
This is good news, I know several people from the EU (and outside) that could not get a renting contract because of the lack of good ol' French IBAN
> Aumax and Boursorama didn't ask for "justificatif de domicile"
Boursorama does, I do not know for the max card.
> you can get a phone contract online, with only a credit card;
oh really? the telecom companies do not ask for your actual address? I thought that this was now impossible following the anti terrorist laws
So, with lots of money you can break the circular problem of: you need a residence to get a local account, and getting a residence requires a local account and physical presence in the town hall registration office.
There are probably (hopefully) more efficient ways to do this, but that's how we did it.
Since the iPhone XS, they have double SIM. One of the 2 must be an eSIM, but otherwise it works fine.
On the upside, all google apps do work with 2 accounts
Access blockage is a pain in many countries, but it has zero to do with identifying yourself or having an account. You only need one, with a VPN hoster.
And this concerns Netflix just as well. Either they have changed something, or you are yet to make an unpleasant discovery. In my experience, the content available varies depending on where it thinks you are hailing from, regardless of payment method on file.
Amazon is the most reliable place so far to order overseas from, with one simple rule: only buy what’s “fulfilled by Amazon”. In my experience, as long as it lets you place that order, it will arrive (though customs paperwork and duties may be on you in some countries).
On balance my experience is mostly positive when traveling across reasonable countries. (The unreasonable ones are like China, where you are half outside of the system if you don’t set yourself up with a bank account and pay with WeChat.)
But yeah, I tend to not order takeout, I hate e-bikes and e-scooters with passion, etc. so I may be in the minority here.
I think OP’s point was that one shouldn’t need a VPN to do these things.
Yes, it’s inconvenient and shouldn’t be this way, but it’s far from a nightmare (yet). The true nightmare is situation in a few places like the aforementioned China, which is where we may be headed judging by TFA, but we've a long way to go.
If you download content in location X that is not available after you get to location Y, you can still access it if you put your phone on airplane mode. Can't refresh/redownload though, obviously.
I always thought having a VPN to home was valuable for getting around silly things like this while traveling.
I moved a few times between France and the UK, and every time I've had to move all my accounts (Youtube, Amazon, Playstation store, etc.) but most importantly I have two separate Paypal accounts to handle both countries.
There are also some French administrative websites that I can't access when I am in the UK, preventing me from booking appointments to renew official documents. I have to use a VPN and even then the pages fail to load most of the time and are 100 times slower than when connecting physically from France.
what do you mean? Given they have to quote shipping, it's not unreasonable to take into account.
> Some Chinese..
China, and the CPC, are well know for restrictive policies and not giving a shit if it inconveniences foreigners. The message is pretty clear: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-24/china-ban... <- English tutoring is one of the few things foreigners can get a work visa in China for. I wouldn't be surprised if CPC is actively discouraging tourism. I wouldn't generalise this behaviour to all SEA.
> Currently in Ukraine, at least 2 of my banks block me from any access to my finances
To be fair, some countries have "complicated" relationships to international law/fraud.
> what do you mean? Given they have to quote shipping, it's not unreasonable to take into account.
I'm not entirely sure what the GP was getting at, but there is some friction with amazon and the international sites. I have amazon prime, but prime subscriptions seem to be region locked as it is only reflected in the .com site. When checking out through the UK or Italian Amazon storefront, it'll even prompt me to try a trial prime subscription.
I am surprised, because there is some content on Netflix region-specific which you can't access from another country.
Compare Amazon Prime overseas - 100% worthless, they wouldn't even let me pay to view a video I would have gladly paid to watch once. My account was stuck in some sort of cyclical impossible state that bounced me around in circles with no definite error but no way to progress either. I just found it so shocking such a large company can't even account for the fact any of their customers would ever at any point go on vacation a few days.
Montana also. I'm Australian in Australia but own a vehicle in the US. When trying to renew the registration, the ecommerce site failed with an error telling me to contact some authority. That authority's site and contact details blocked access to anyone outside the country.
Or maybe funny is the wrong word…
Or we can keep the status quo.
Settings > Accounts > Add account > Google. And to choose which account to use for Play, just click on the profile picture in the app and choose the account you want from the drop-down menu.
The accounts can be tied to different countries. So there is no need to have multiple phones.
No anonymity will be permitted by big tech, because having everything linked forever to your history allows for more revenue from advertisers.
Big tech becomes default choices for businesses and society, so no anonymity will be permitted in society.
Its so much easier to let go of your beliefs when it just becomes far too painful to keep fighting politicians and public scrutiny. Scares investors, hurts your staff, and I guess hurts revenue.
If you're YouTube and you're facing a barrage of inquiries about inappropriate content, this is the easiest way forward.
Even more absurd when the ads are not censored the same way, and hence can be way more adult oriented than the video.
I never though I would see the day where internet services would do something worse than TV.
But as a lot of youtubers reported, there is not much alternative since youtube:
• is the only place where you'll get such a big audience, and with powerful discovery mechanisms in place to make people discover your content
• is one of the few players actually giving you money for your content
• can handle millions of viewers in the first 5 minutes a popular video is released
• has a very low barrier of entry for consumers
So far the breadth of content on Youtube is unparalleled, but there is some hope that may change.
Maybe Twitch will eventually get more into hosting video, but I wouldn’t exactly say they’re much better.
My starting position is that he is guided by business pressures not terribly different from YouTube's, from the following anecdata:
I understand Linus started Floatplane because his business relies on YouTube, a single point of failure
With PIA/Kape, he left whether or not to accept advertising dollars up to a user vote in YouTube's chat. It came out tied at first, and then he went to the Floatplane stream to break the tie, which ended in favor of accepting PIA advertising
In live streams he has spoken somewhat negatively about "free speech" advocates
I think Floatplane will simply go where the dollars go in the long run, and I see little in the way of moral conviction that they would e.g. fight government regulations or payment processor demands.
Edit: floatplane's TOS seems like they aren't any better than YouTube unfortunately.
So just like Nebula? It'd have been better if all the fleeing YouTubers had centralised on one alternative service, most people won't bother for multiple subscriptions.
Legal in the US that's said. Because we get the censorship in our countries too even if the law is different.
For example, https://twitter.com/wylsacom/status/1296396951550930949 (NSFW)
But I guess this is totally fine because it earns Google money in the end.
Don’t blame YouTube for this.
It’s not YouTube making the decision to require ID or credit card. They’re complying with the regulations. That’s why this restriction is only in a single regulatory region, not a global requirement.
There’s a culture war brewing around internet services with user-generated content, including YouTube. One side wants more freedom to view and share content. One side wants much more censorship of anything they don’t want to see (or, more commonly, things they don’t want other people to see). This ranges from dangerous misinformation to low-grade objectionable content like video game screen recordings.
The strangest part about this internet user-generated content war is that many people have taken both sides because they just like to hate big tech platforms.
Also I don't recall my TV requesting my credit card to watch content as a kid.
YouTube isn't asking for this in other territories.
I don't like it, but I don't really expect it change.
if it was JDG's video on Duke Nukem [0], it was to put pixels on the strippers of Duke Nukem 3D, so not exactly the same thing.
I really liked his follow up video [1], where another issue was how hard it was to deal with the YT content moderation team
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-or4WhpXx_k (non-censored) or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74fG-8jPsRw (censored)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb-Tk0N8XzA
https://i.imgur.com/oXAGiiU.png
Protect the children people!
The part where he is asked to censor an arm is also hilarious.
I lost a lot of mass over the period 6-to-8 year ago, so since than until recently my passport had a photo that didn't look terribly like me. Oddly this was never questioned at all at airports, though was when using it as ID for picking up an order at Tesco.
I ask this because I set up my phone's google account when I was living in Japan. When I moved back I had to switch my app store county in order to use locally purchased Play gift cards. Soon after I stated getting notifications to "Verify my age on my Google account to help them comply with the law".
So far ignoring it has seemed to work, has anyone else experienced this? Also what law are they trying to comply with?
Is there such a thing as a distributed Youtube archiving project?
There’s no chance content on Youtube will ever be more accessible again.
[0]: https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/google-plus-finally-dit...
Recently they took away anyway to refresh the videos on the home screen. So I have to login as a guest, then back into my account to get refreshed videos.
There is no way to tell youtube from the app to not show me a video or a channel. I can't join a channel from the app, or look at the community stuff or any of the comments. From mobile you can do that stuff but the experience is horse shit.
I love youtube, I just can't for the life of me understand why their app on apple tv and android is absolute garbage compared to even what it used to be 6 months ago.
Resume driven rewrites? Missing functionality is a tell tail.