Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
How… How are they gonna pay for bandwidth if there aren’t any ads?
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Most of advertisers don’t care.
I remember liking the idea of Odysee, but that turned rather quickly
Thank goodness we have Lemmies ensuring no alternative tech can threaten YouTube. I was worried people might actually be against Odyssey in the comments
This Lemmy community is actually more pro-mainstream than Reddit and YouTube combined. Thank you for pointing this out. Time to go.
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Just a thing to think about, free speech is always going to appeal to Nazis, just as it should for most other people. Freedom of speech in the American sense where certain speech is not protected (such as screaming fire in a movie theater when there is no fire) is a right that we should continue to attempt to protect, even from people we disagree with (within reason, as mentioned above).
(such as screaming fire in a movie theater when there is no fire)
This idiom comes from an analogy in a SCOTUS opinion arguing that checks notes it’s a violation of the Espionage Act to distribute flyers that oppose the draft. That case was later partly overturned in Brandenburg v Ohio and the standard is that speech isn’t incitement unless it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. To the point that “$SLUR should hang from trees” is probably protected speech (because the lawless action isn’t imminent), but “you guys, grab that $SLUR over there so we can string them up!” probably isn’t.
So defending free speech inevitably means defending white supremacists and the like because free speech doesn’t actually protect anything if it doesn’t protect upsetting, outrageous, or offensive speech (and likewise, the arbiter of what counts as offensive is not guaranteed to always be on your side). It’s why the ACLU has defended them on more than one occasion. H.L. Mencken put it best.
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” ― H.L. Mencken
screaming fire in a movie theater when there is no fire
This scenario always reminds me of the very first part of this speech on free speech from Christopher Hitchens.
Sure. And Nazism is a direct threat not protected by freedom of expression.
I don’t disagree in the slightest, hopefully you understood what I meant though.
We understood, it just didn’t contribute anything and appeared to actively defend nazis.
Lol k
You know that’s exactly what people say about Mastadon and in some cases Lemmy right?
Yep. Use FastLBRY, not Odysee
Edit: huh… it might be dead now?
You just made an excellent point without realizing it. #mayflies
Didn’t know about its existence but as they were proclaiming free speech that immediately sets off alarm bells. Sad to see my suspicion is once again correct.
TIL Odysee had ads. UBO FTW
Edit; tbf, I haven’t been on it in a long long while. Generally too extremist for me.
That’s kinda the issue for a platform like that, at least in the early stages. You’ll get all the people who’ve been kicked off YouTube, and not the mainstream content.
Very true! Lemmy wasn’t super like that, but then again, reddit allowed nearly anything (apparently including csam to a certain degree). Then the API debacle, and that crap came here. Yt is more strict on certain things, which pushes those scourges of society to these platforms that are in their early stages, giving them an abysmal reputation.
Yeah, there wasn’t much that didn’t fly on Reddit, and banning a subreddit usually meant those users spread their bile elsewhere on the platform. The platform was self policing to an extent, in the fact that anyone too extreme became a topic of mockery elsewhere and weren’t really taken seriously.
I mean Lenny was like that though. After the exodus from Reddit most major instances defederated from hexbear which is like the OG Lemmy instance
Lemmy got like that after the exodus. No? I mean, I saw some BS here and there, but not nearly as much as right before the hexbear nonsense. Granted, I wasn’t on here much, and using a now defunct username, but I still didn’t see nearly as much.
Lemmy sort of started with people that got banned from Reddit
You can get banned from reddit?? That doesn’t bode well haha
You can get randomly banned on reddit.
Yeah, just endorse punching Nazis, a friend of mine got banned from Reddit for that.
I got perma-banned from a (mainstream, ordinary) sub for — and I’m really not joking here — criticising the “Caravan of Death”, which was a fascist death squad used by Chilean dictator Pinochet to assassinate political opponents in 1973.
I asked the mod team if they could specify the rule I broke, and then clearly they asked a Reddit admin to block my entire account, because that’s what happened.
Maybe I could appeal and get the account back, but I don’t really care that much.
This is ahistorical. The original Lemmy instance is lemmy.ml, and it was hugely tankie literally from the beginning - the .ml referring to marxist-leninism, years before Reddit’s API changes. It’s nothing to do with people being banned from Reddit, it’s just that the concept of a federated message board platform was appealing to communist software developers, who created and guided the project. If anything, the anti-tankie sentiment which is popular on instances like lemmy.world is what came to lemmy after the Reddit exodus.
Tankies have never really been regularly banned on Reddit in any real extent.
It’s depressing that bleating “free speech” has become a shibboleth, betraying the speaker’s tedious far right contrarianism and a wish to express it without consequence. Racists, Nazis, x-phobes, bigots of all stripes; these are your target audience when your primary objective for your platform is supposedly “free speech”, especially when it’s in opposition to the censorship of your users’ bigotry on other platforms. I wish it weren’t so, but it fucking is, 100% of the time.
It’s like on reddit, when you discover a splinter sub called r/FunSubReborn or something, where they post the same content as r/FunSub, but in this “reborn” sub you can also be an unmitigated cunt in the comments and make racist or phobic remarks without getting banned.
Tedious, tiresome, clueless wankers.
r/TrueUnpopularOpinion, r/TrueOffMyChest, r/GoodAnimemes (that sub was made after r/Animemes mods stated that “trap” was a slur, which made a bunch of manchildren angry who went to go make their own sub, so you can immediately guess how much of a misogynistic porn-oriented hellhole it is)
The mods are still wrong.
Trap is a slur, especially used often by weebs. Describing gender non-conforming characters who look feminine as “traps”, including many canonically non-binary and woman characters, is pretty fucked up when you think about it. To them, “traps” and genderqueer people in general are sex objects, not characters with respectable identities. Most of the weebs that throw that word around are also the ones to do trans erasure, like denying that a character is transgender or otherwise gender non-conforming, instead treating any character implied not to be AFAB as a man; and then often ironically going crazy defending it as “not gay” because that’d be bad – there’s a reason “traps aren’t gay” is a meme, and it’s an unironically defended position by these people. They convince themselves it’s not gay by reducing queer people & characters down to sex objects, things to masturbate to, rather than people. If you don’t see them as an equal person, it’s not gay or immoral, is how they process it. Obviously they won’t say that explicitly if you ask them though, they’ll just say it’s not gay because being attracted to things that look like women is straight or something.
That’s why it’s used a shit ton in, you know, porn. Not just hentai, but actual real porn. Usually in place of “bitch”, “whore”, or some other word used to dehumanize women. They’re used in the same derogatory manner. It’s pretty disturbing when men use “bitch” or “whore” to refer to women and female characters, it’s dehumanizing. And it’d be pretty disturbing to well-adjusted people if someone described anyone feminine genderqueer as “a trap”, but this is a slur that weebs are fine using amongst themselves.
You would think those people wouldn’t equate anime characters with real people, but this mentality transfers between fiction and nonfiction unfortunately. Often times the way you feel about character identities in media is representative of the way you feel about the identities of real people – just look at the backlash of the gamergate people about the woke “ruining games and movies” by putting minorities and women in them.
Now, I’m not saying everyone who’s ever used the word “trap” is a bigot or anything. People use words without realizing the way others see it, and the impact it has. I used it in my weeb phase. But undeniably, “trap” is a derogatory word and a slur used to objectify queer people, and it always has been – it originated in 4channers & internet weirdos getting mad over trans people being at gaming events, posting pictures and labelling them “traps” (“they’re trying to trick you into thinking they’re a woman to trap you into having sex with them, when they’re really not a woman”). It’s no different than other slurs for queer people (like “fag” or “sodomite”). It’s harmful and shouldn’t be used. Persistence on using it shows a lack of respect for queer people and their identities.
Yeah it really does seem this way.
I’ve never been a “free speech absolutist”. I acknowledge that censorship is problematic, but it seems much less so than the alternative.
Good luck to them
Most such attempts fail when not enough people subscribe to paying tiers. Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
Personally, I hope the platform that welcomes Nazis crashes and burns.
Reading your comments is Nazis Nazis Nazis. I think you need some help.
Alright snowflake
Let the hate flow through you.
Freedom goes both ways. I hate nazis, but it’s better to have their bullshit out in the open to be criticized, than have them group up on shady underground places that would only make it worse.
I agree with you but so few people think so today. They think censorship is the answer because if they don’t see it, they feel better and can forget it exists.
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Absolutely fucking not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The Nazis already put their ideas out on the open, and we saw what happened.
The opposite is “the illusion of safety because of moderated platforms”. One might think a platform that removes fake news would only have real news, but that’s obviously not the case and creates an even worse landscape.
Just because moderating platforms to eliminate Nazis only drives them to build their own spaces doesn’t make deplatforming them the wrong move. I prefer them existing in the fringes rather than being accepted into the mainstream.
Tolerance for Nazis is only possible if you are ignorant of history, or if you are actively evil. “Stupid or Evil?” Isn’t a great place to exist, but I have to conclude one way or the other every time I run into this “why don’t we just hear the Nazis out?” narrative…
We know enough about Nazis already to tell them to go fuck themselves before they even open their mouths. Giving them a voice is an act of violence.
You’re doing the same as what others are trying to do to any open platform. You’re claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out. And as long as you believe that is the same, I’d rather not waste time discussing this.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely. If a platform is too heavily moderated and hides stuff like this, not only does it create the illusion that it does not exist, it also sets a precedent for abuse by the platform owners. The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
Filter bubbles are a very new concept and are much worse than coming across people spreading hatred and being able to tell them to suck it.
claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out.
On privately operated online social spaces, that’s exactly what you’re asking.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely.
That’s why free speech absolutism is a stupid idea that doesn’t make sense.
The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
You think the biggest threat to free speech is Elon Musk moderating Twitter like an idiot? You and I are clearly not worried about the same things in regards to suppression of speech…
Fuck no.
If anyone does want to support them, even by a small amount, and don’t have much money, I personally recommend subscribing for a month or two to the Premium+ subsciption, which is only $2.99/month. It’s all I can afford atm personally, so that’s what I’m going to be doing. They deserve support just for this action alone.
I don’t understand how that’s much different than YouTube. If you pay for YouTube then you don’t get ads either.
The difference is your favorite channel won’t be destroyed by a corporate abusing copyright strike, they won’t have to self-censor themselves from saying fuck or shit. A platform making money from ads means every content creator on that platform is a slave to the advertisers
My favorite channel wouldn’t have millions of subscribers and a somewhat steady recurring income because of this.
It’s a classic catch 22: Without viewers, no content creators. Without content creators, no viewers.
I think it’s great that they try to get rid of what makes YouTube suck but I don’t see that content creators are leaving YouTube anywhere soon.
They don’t need to leave YouTube at all. That’s because Odysee provides a YouTube sync feature, that syncs every upload from YouTube with the Odysee channel. They can set the sync and never touch Odysee again if they want to. Plus, if we collectively ask our favourite YouTubers to join Odysee, and actually make them realise that Odysee exists, more of them will eventually join. Once more have joined, it will be easier to convince even more YouTubers to join again. The cycle continues, and Odysee grows.
I’m sorry to be the guy that tried to ruin your party, but “if we collectively…”… How many people are you talking about?
100, 1000, 10000, 100000 ?
This is business. We’re talking about someone’s livelihood. Peace on earth is nice but it doesn’t guarantee food on your table.
Syncing is an alternative as long as it doesn’t mean that a view pays less on Odyssee than on YouTube. If it does, then the creator would not gain anything, just kidding income.
What is your selling argument for a YouTube creator with 100000 views on average to move to Odyssee?
I’m sorry to be the guy that tried to ruin your party, but “if we collectively…”… How many people are you talking about?
100, 1000, 10000, 100000 ?
As many people as are willing to do it. If you’re not; that’s fine; I’m not telling anyone they have to; it’s just an encouragement.
Syncing is an alternative as long as it doesn’t mean that a view pays less on Odyssee than on YouTube. If it does, then the creator would not gain anything, just kidding income.
Syncing is up to the YouTuber, it’s not hard to do, and requires no channel management after initially set up. They may not have a reason, depending on who they are, but it’s better to get some people on board with it than none.
What is your selling argument for a YouTube creator with 100000 views on average to move to Odyssee?
There is no “selling” point other than that it’s easy to set up and may earn them some extra cash, even if it’s not much in comparison to their YouTube pay. Other than that, there’s the fact that YouTube false copyright claims videos all the time, and if the YouTuber can’t get their video back up, their viewers can still at least view it through Odysee where the synced video did not get removed. If the channel is automatically taken down by false copyright issues, as has happened before, the video’s aren’t suddenly lost forever. Not all YouTubers keep a backup of all their videos on their own drives, and if their channel is taken down completely, “bye bye content”. I’m not trying to say that these reasons are much for most YouTubers, but with dozens of millions of YouTubers out there making good money, there are bound to be at least hundreds of thousands of them who would sync with Odysee if they knew about it.
they won’t have to self-censor themselves from saying fuck or shit
…or “non-white people are degenerate inferiors”.
Fuck Odysee.
Profits for big tech is never enough, and they will raise prices and introduce more ads forever. This is because in modern economy, having a quarter where the profits don’t grow is punished severely on the stock market.
The point of the post is that Odysee no longer has ads. I’m not trying to say you needed the subscription to remove ads. That’s how it was previously, until today. Free users don’t see ads anymore.
The difference between YouTube Premium and Odysee Premium is mainly in it’s reason for existing. YouTube Premium exists for the sole purpose of providing features that used to be free, with some extra things that most people don’t givea hoot about and never use; and, you know… to make themselves richer. It exists so that people buy it for the value it specifically brings them.
So essentially; people buy YouTube premium for the features, while people buy Odysee Premium to support the growth of the platform, help fund the platform, and support free speech. The extra features they get are just a little bonus as thanks. Not only that, but the features Odysee provides are “Early-Access” features, which means that most, if not all of those features will become available for free users eventually. At that point, I’m not sure what Odysee Premium will provide if all the features become free; they’ll have to figure something else out to give it more incentive. But as it currently stands, Odysee Premium is more like a donation than a service; which gives you extra features as thanks.
You’re reading obnoxious levels of goodwill into the actions of a company that doesn’t deserve it. This is just the video platform equivalent of “critical support to Russia.”
And how will they support themselves? Another crypto scheme to battle out with SEC?
Are they still using LBRY? Or did they switch to a different protocol?
They officially announced they were switching to the Arweave protocol in a post a little under a month ago, but I’m not sure if it’s happened yet; haven’t looked further into it yet, and it was revealed by other sources a little while prior to that.
I was curious what Arweave was, so I went to their site.
Turns out it’s yet another crypto scheme.
I was though this statement on their landing page was particularly funny:
The Arweave protocol is stable, mature and widely adopted.
It’s a blockchain system, but that doesn’t mean it’s related to cryptocurrencies in any way. Maybe it is, idk, but blockchain != cryptocurrencies, many cryptocurrencies use blockchains though because it’s useful for what they’re trying to do.
I am aware that blockchain is not the same thing as cryptocurrency.
And they do have a coin:
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Is this not a neo-Nazi/far right platform? I only ever see them linking antivax and evropa content on Odysee. That’s where I’ve heard of it.
It isn’t exclusively a Neo-Nazi platform, but it is a free-speech absolutist platform, so they have absolutely no problem platforming Nazis.
It’s basically the 4chan of tube sites. All are welcome, but if you aren’t a fascist you probably won’t fit in.
To be honest, I’ve been using the website and I notice nothing of this. I can click a few links and get to said content, yes, but my feed and some of the categories I check are on par with YouTube. The only big difference I experience is that there’s much more content of smaller content creators.
If one Nazi is allowed into a bar, it’s a Nazi bar. I’ll continue to steer clear.
something something if there’s a nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 nazis
That logic would make you a communist at Lemmy.
I don’t really think that’s true, so long as you stay off the tankie instance. I have it blocked.
Well, LBRY which odysee is a frontend for is decentralized, so you can host your own odysee-like instance and block content on there almost the same way as you can host one here and defederate. So it’s not that different from Lemmy. It is all decentralized after all.
I ain’t a fascist, Neo-Nazi, far-rightist, or any of the things Odysee is falsely marked by people as being, and I fit in just fine with my fellow Odysee users. Stop attacking one of the only companies who are truly trying to be the change they want to see in the world.
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Nothing about the LBRY token was a scam. You just hate cryptocurrency. Who needs literally the only form of decentralized online currency, right?
Banned users from other platforms are welcome with open arms on Odysee
That’s how bans work. You are not supposed to be banned on platforms where you haven’t violated any rules. Getting banned on YouTube for saying something controversial on Twitter is not right.
“If you allow a nazi to drink in your bar, even if it’s just one, you’re a nazi bar.” Is such a shit take, considering you’re at a communist bar.
I agree with most of your points, but “anti physically and mentally disabled”? Really? Your source describes how they reuploaded unsubtitled lectures for the sake of preservation. This is hardly a villanous move and has nothing to do with “not caring about deaf people”. Let’s keep the arguments honest, you have plenty else to stick them with that’s actually substantial.
Even the rest just boils down to “these people say that they’re nazis, so it must be true” and “nazis are bad. If you give them fair treatment, you’re one yourself.”
And when it comes to these nazis/white supremacists, I am willing to bet what labelled them as such was criticizing some DEI, or maybe complaining about “wokeness” which is far from the Heiling skinhead that people associate with nazis.
It is so hard to trust a single word of anyone nowadays that describes people as nazis. I’d be fine with taking back this statement if the actual videos/posts/whatever from the so called nazis were posted here so that I could see for myself, rather than what some traditional news media has to say about them.
I was posting in another subthread about this too. The front page on Odysee had some conservatives videos, and one crazy 5d energy conspiracy video, but none of the videos brought up were far-right or white supremacist, but they sure were circled and pointed out as such.
Pretty much, unfortunately. And the people who run Odysee have repeatedly, time and time again, defended Nazis, white supremacists, far-right conspiracies, videos calling for genocide, etc.
Although in fairness to my knowledge they haven’t done what Musk has done for example and said “free speech! [Unless you disagree with dear leader, then it’s an account ban]”
Ya that’s exactly what I would like to NOT support.
There may be content generators on there you can label that way, but that doesn’t make the platform neo-nazi.
You take all of the stuff excluded from a big platform and put it on a small platform, and it’ll swamp every other topic out. If as a platform runner you feel that you should not censor others, then this can happen.
On the flip side, there’s nothing stopping other with less controversial opinions to post there as well. Nobody is going to be told their channel about supercars isnt racist enough, or their politics channel is too-left communist.
Strongly disagree with you. If you have a bar that tolerates Nazis, you’ll find that bar becomes a Nazi bar over time. To commingle with Nazis is to accept them and their ideology.
I’d have a very hard time sending people to my videos if they sit next to a white replacement theory video.
I think Odysee has created far fewer Nazis than sites with addiction exploiting algorithms that say they remove such topics.
I mirror my stuff from youtube over there and I do not fall into these categories. To be fair, I have the tiniest of audiences anyway, so… doesn’t really matter either way.
Haven’t checked in on Odyssee for a while though. Not sure if the auto mirror thing still works.
I found your channel, and yeah, your latest YouTube uploads are still being synced to Odysee.
Thanks for checking :D that is pretty cool.
Cool. What’s your channel? I have a gaming channel for no-commentary playthrough’s. It’s not synced from YouTube, though.
no-commentary play-throughs
🤤👌 The best content.
Honestly, I might just have to think about getting into that type if thing. I am not one for editing anyway.
Go on!
I mirror my stuff from youtube over there and I do not fall into these categories
Same.
And I’ve noticed that there seems to be a very small user base there.
My videos and most in my niche only get 10s of views on Odysee.
When I go browsing around outside of my niche, I tend to find quite a bit of right wing conspiracy stuff. Not really who I want to be associated with, but it’s not nearly as bad as some of the other (now failed) "free speech " video platforms that came before it.
I sure haven’t seen any far right videos on there. My suggestions are always open source, linux, science, mental outlaw and Louis Rossman.
If there is far right content, it definitely is filtered away if you don’t watch similar content. I checked out the featured tab just now and didn’t find anything remotely political.
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OK, the 3d to 5d consciousness video is conspiracy bullshit by some religious nutjob, that is for sure. And the comments in that video seemed to shit on the creator, so it is not like people are agreeing with it. I agree it is insane.
But the rest of the videos you’ll have to explain to me what makes them far-right, and racist, because they just seemed typically conservative to me, and some of the points made sense. For example, thinking the Olympics opening ceremony was boring and overall bad doesn’t make you far right.
Now, I just skimmed over the videos so I might have missed something, but I saw nothing that would for example get you banned on youtube. Maybe they’d get you false copyright struck for showing the Olympics opening ceremony because apparently that’s been happening to critics on youtube, so I understand why they would rather post it on odysee.
The assassins creed video is just plain true. I’m not conservative, but I do live in Japan, and there is definitely anger over the cultural appropriation and misrepresentation of Japanese history. The video summarizes the points but nothing stated is far-right.
Babylon bee has been called “far-right” by the NYT at one point, but it was then amended and they apologized, so as far as I know, it is another typical conservative news media and mostly satire. I skimmed over this video too, but didn’t see anything far-right in it. It seemed to be about censorship, and had some fair points to be honest.
So to summarize, They’re conservative, and I don’t agree with all of the points, but they’re not far-right. Except for that conspiracy nutjob video, none of these need to be removed from any platform.
I’m there because some of my favorite streamers, like MentalOutlaw, are there. I know there will be people who hold an opinion or view that i disagree with but the same is true here. I’m not saying that there is hate speech here but i can’t expect every site i visit to be sunshines and rainbows just for me.
Most of those videos are also found on YouTube. I would expect that you don’t see those videos suggested to you because the algorithm has learned what you like to watch.
If you open up YouTube with a VPN and in a private tab you’ll likely get search results that include a mix from both the right and the left.
I’d rather not link to them, but from the ones you circled, these are the videos that I found on YouTube while doing a quick search:
- The Babylon Bee video
- The Paris Olympics opening ceremony video
- The Assassins Creed video
Now please excuse me as I purge my history…
You sometimes see that stuff on Odysee because they don’t censor it, unless it promotes violence or hatred to individuals. They do have community guidelines after all, since they can’t legally host… illegal content. In that sense there is censorship because they can’t not censor things to some extent; but the free speech and large lack of censorship is their goal regardless. As an Odysee user for over 2 years, this is the minority of content on the platform. Where you do see that content that breaks the rules… that’s what the report button is for.
Yikes. So if there weren’t laws, they would let worse stuff fly than endorsing genocide.
My understanding was that Odysee served the purpose to upload videos that could no longer be uploaded on YouTube due to YouTube’s community guidelines. The time I checked out that website the front page was full of manosphere types and the Evropa documentary and anti vax crap
That was never the purpose of the platform, otherwise it would have been marketed that way. The platform allows more content than YouTube does, so it’s not far-fetched to assume that people would use the platform for that, and tell others they should use the platform because of that. What random people on the internet promoted the platform being good for is not the same thing as the platform owners themselves creating the platform for that very purpose. If you really care about the “purpose” of the platform, just watch some of LBRY’s oldest videos on the platform from before the Odysee frontend even existed yet for LBRY; where they were first revealing their visions for the platform and the progress they had made.
Also note that plenty of people upload stuff to Odysee for their preservation efforts. Just because some documentary that talks about medical misinformation or promotes a conspiracy theory (for example), exists on the platform; it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s there to promote the idea; it’s simply there so that people who want to see the video can see it. I’ll watch content that was censored from YouTube and other big-tech social media platforms because I just want to see what was said. People have the right to that level of freedom; Odysee provides it because they should.
That was never the purpose of the platform, otherwise it would have been marketed that way.
This implies that marketing is always or usually honest. I would argue that the exact reverse is true. In fact I was involved once in a series of marketing meetings where a marketing guru who had worked with some huge companies said flat out that “marketing is a lie” and he meant it literally. He explained that you’re selling an idea, and thus it wouldn’t be possible for it to be actually honest. Since you cannot buy a product that will solve all your problems, and yet that idea is implied in most ads. Happy smiling people somehow result from anything you can buy? Pfft.
Obviously that’s not going to be how you market a video platform exactly, but also they were never going with a tagline like “Because YouTube doesn’t allow bigotry!” whether it’s true or not. Facebook doesn’t market their service as a way to monetize your personal data despite the fact that it’s exactly what it is. Marketing is inherently misleading at best.
The platform allows more content than YouTube does
That’s just a different way of phrasing what was said and you seem to be disputing…
You sometimes see that stuff on Odysee because they don’t censor it, unless it promotes violence or hatred to individuals.
All neo-nazi /far right content promotes violence and hatred to individuals, since groups are made up of individuals.
Far right content is more common than on YouTube because of the guidelines, but in my experience the largest parts are crypto, privacy and similar, also a decent amount is gaming (at least that’s what I upload)
I’ve noticed that the Linux and open-source community is pretty big there, too; with a lot of them being part of the privacy community. I’m a part of this community on Odysee.
In my experience the Linux people are considerably more on peertube compared to its site, but this may just specific to the channels I watch
I don’t use PeerTube much, but I plan to. This is probably why I didn’t know it was bigger with Linux users. Though it makes sense since I tend to see PeerTube mentioned and linked to far more often on the internet than Odysee.
Its a mix of both in my exp. A deciding factor I think is money source for the creator. If it subscription (librepay, opencollective, patreon, etc) peertube is fine for them. If the primarily get paid more directly odessy is more enticing (because of its built in payment system).
Well I never happened to see anything related to these topics on Odysee. I mostly used to follow tech stuff as my other hobbies like cars and basketball aren’t really present on the platform.
If you have some favourite YouTube channels from the cars and basketball world, you should try contacting them personally and asking them to sync their channel with Odysee. Even if they choose not to; at least they’ve heard of it now, know at least some of their audience may want them to, and may consider it in the future 🙂.
It might not work asking in YouTube comments though, but it’s worth a try. The reason I say this is I’ve personally tried it multiple times over the past year, and strangely I’ve been noticing that YouTube appear to be switching between banning the word “Odysee” spelled specifically that way, and not banning it. I would comment something with the word Odysee, and no matter what happens, it would immediately disappear the moment I refresh the page – commenting anything else would work fine. A few months later, I tried it again and it worked. Some time after that, it stopped working again, and it was like that for quite a while. Fast forward a month or two, and I again checked it a few days ago, and it seems to be currently working again; and all my previous comments from the past about Odysee have reappeared in my comment history, when they previously would not appear in my comment history. So now could be a good time to comment. It wasn’t a glitch with my account, because I tried it with two separate ones.
“Associate your personal brand with the fringe-right/antivax/Nazi YouTube! What could possibly go wrong?”
I can see my favorite channel now “I have zero interest in learning a new platform to have to figure out, I have a hard enough time with the mainstream sources” lmao
we went over this with Twitter, “I am not learning another social platform, when Twitter dies I will just not have any SM Presense except discord”
What are you quoting? I didn’t say any of that.
I’m quoting what the last streamer who I followed stated when asked whether they would jump off Twitter when Twitter went to shit and everyone jumped ship.
Channels can still run they’re own in-video ads tho, yeah?
It’s less so, but not incorruptible.
Yes, but usually it’s the videos that are synced to Odysee directly from YouTube which contain these sponsored segments. I’ve never seen an Odysee exclusive video before that has a sponsored segment, because the platform isn’t big enough for advertisers to care.
Tbh I’m OK with brand deals from creators I like, it’s the forced 2 minutes of unskippable bullshit I can’t stand
I’m okay with it too. But it undoubtedly influences content.
It also breaks the flow of the video, which is why I have started skipping them. I noticed just how much nicer videos without any sponsorships are because you dont have to dedicate time to lead into and out of an ad and can continue the video without explaining everything twice.
I also dont see any value gained by me or the creator if I fully watch the 100th squarespace commercial, as I dont get to hear anything new.
But the most egregious videos are where they try to hide that they are transitioning into an ad, like by creating some minute long argument that leads from the topic to the sponsor. Which leads to me not only having wasted my time for the actual ad, but also the transition.
“free-speech” ❌ “you can say shit uncontrolably” ✅
You cannot say things “uncontrollably” as there is still a community guidelines set of rules that just aren’t as strict as YouTube’s, plus the ability to report is there too. Despite being a free speech platform, it is still legally required not to host illegal content, and so these community guidelines absolutely must be there. If the comments or videos directly promote violence or hatred (just two examples), they are grounds for removal by site moderators. They are usually only removed when people report them, though, since the moderation team likely isn’t very large at this point in time.
In my 2 years with Odysee, I’ve found one person earlier this year directly promoting extreme violence in a comment section. That’s one time too many; but it’s still a long time. I reported them, and they were removed. I don’t know how long it took for them to remove it though, because I only checked if the comment was still there after a couple of weeks; and it wasn’t; so I can’t speak for the swiftness of the moderators in their actions yet.
One problem is when sometimes reporting doesn’t work, and the shit stays there possibly forever, even after “human” review.
I used to like Odysee until I saw them clearly promote conspiracy theories and far-right, almost Nazi rhetoric on the homepage.
Guys, just because the backbone of your site is decentralized doesn’t mean your centralized frontend can’t be modified by you.
They never even made a single attempt to help others develop alternative frontends too, so the decentralization there was more akin to decentralization theater.
Unfortunately that’s one of the problems with a lot of alternative platforms.
You would think there’d be some decentralized video hosting thing popular with us Fediverse types but in practice they’re all the low spots in the gutter in which the densest shit gathers. Most of the audience is on Youtube, and you only migrate to an alternative site if you’ve been banned from Youtube, and the folks who haven’t been banned from Youtube don’t tend to want to go stand next to the people who have so it’s difficult for legitimate content creators to adopt those alternative platforms.
Dailymotion still exists and I think you can still upload there but I know of no “dailymotioners.” Vimeo seems to have gone in a b2b direction, Twitch is mainly for live streaming, Tiktok succeeded where Vine failed, Nebula was some Youtubers starting their own Netflix with blackjack and hookers, Floatplane was LMG starting their own Netflix with blackjack and hookers, then you’ve got the several porn sites of varying dubiousness, and then down in the sump you’ve got the likes of LBRY and Odysee.
There are a few creators out there that publish multiple places. If it doesn’t cost to publish, we could start encouraging more people to publish more places. The biggest problem is you do actually have a chance to get paid on Youtube. Most of the content worth watching is only doing it because they can make money
Guys, just because the backbone of your site is decentralized doesn’t mean your centralized frontend can’t be modified by you.
They never, ever stated the content on Odysee can’t be removed; this is a misunderstanding spread by both people who don’t use the platform, and even a lot who do use the platform but haven’t properly done their research about how the platform works. They can’t not have content removed since they are still legally required to remove illegal content, such as that which breaks copyright law, for example, pirates uploading full-length movies. Than when people find out that content can in fact be removed, they call Odysee a lair for something they never claimed.
They never even made a single attempt to help others develop alternative frontends too, so the decentralization there was more akin to decentralization theater.
Fair complaint.
Guys, just because the backbone of your site is decentralized doesn’t mean your centralized frontend can’t be modified by you.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Did you mean can be modified? Or what does this have to do with Nazi rhetoric? Maybe you have a different idea about the word “frontend”?
Sorry if my wording was unclear, let me rephrase.
Odysee is the platform, the site, the frontend, and the company. LBRY was the backend, the blockchain-based system that actually stored the videos themselves.
Odysee was the main interface to interact with the videos stored on LBRY, to essentially act like YouTube, but the videos were technically available to anyone.
Odysee then used the justification that the backend was decentralized to say that they had to remain entirely neutral to any content on Odysee, because a decentralized system inherently cannot have its content censored by one party.
This ignored the fact that they could choose to modify which videos their frontend would show to users. They acted as if this was not possible, even though it was.
Thus, a decent YouTube alternative with some good creators on it refused to censor any nazi content that started making its way there because YouTube rightfully deplatformed its supporters, and let it infect the platform without doing anything to stop it, pretending as if they had no choice, while in reality, it just brought them more revenue.
Oh right, so you were talking about the content, that’s not what I understood under “frontend”. Thanks for clearing it up.
I don’t have any experience with the platform, so I’m not in a position to judge their decisions, but it’s always tricky when you present yourself as censor free. There’s things you obviously don’t want on your service, but if it falls within the legal realm, it is no longer a matter of “will we block Nazi material” but whether from that point onward you start taking a moral and political stance.
Things get incredibly tricky and cumbersome if you choose that route, not just from an administrative perspective but also technically. I can understand why the people who operate the platform would prefer to primarily use legality as a deciding factor, as not every ideological issue that you open yourself up to if you take the other route is as straightforward as fascism.
the ideal path would be to censor nazi stuff on their frontend and also support others making their own frontends. that way they’re truly free speech, everyone can use the backend, but they don’t promote the bad shit
This is exactly what they should have done, and one of the main reasons I got annoyed with them. There was one single public RPC endpoint for the LBRY blockchain that was publicly available. one. (and then it went down shortly after I found it)
Compared to other blockchain-based systems, with tons of free public RPCs (click on the arrow below Ethereum Mainnet), LBRY was absolutely terrible.
It meant there was almost no tooling or resources for any developers to start their own site, and essentially killed the very idea of doing so.
Compare that to something like Lemmy or Mastodon, where I’ve personally seen numerous different moderation policies on different instances, and Odysee just stopped feeling like a good alternative to YouTube.
It’s a shame because the thing that kills alternative platforms is getting flooded with racists to the point that they drive everyone else out.
A lot of “free speech” platforms box themselves into a corner by declaring themselves “free speech” platforms while intending that to mean they won’t ban users for mild wrongthink, but then white supremacists show up, and if they get banned then they start causing a massive shitstorm over the fact that the platform isn’t truly supporting free speech. Then they drive out all the normal people who don’t want to be associated with them and the platform is forced to shutdown.
Then you have morons like Tim Pool who will endlessly attack “free speech” platforms if they ban white supremacists.
As if Youtube didn’t promote conspiracy theories and almost Nazi rhetorics that serve the country it’s based in. They do, which they don’t call as such. Everything else they’ll call conspiracy theories and propaganda.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted since you’re 100% correct. I watch one video about gaming and YouTube’s recommendations are all alt-right anti-feminist stuff with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.
Google surely knows enough about me to know I lean far-left but the algorithm is determined to feed me that slop.
I have no idea from a technical perspective if Odysee’s algorithm is independent from or worse than YouTube’s, but the criticism of YouTube is completely valid.
They’re being downvoted because one platform being shitty doesn’t excuse another from it.
See: Tu Quoque
I didn’t read the argument as saying one platform’s behavior excuses the other. I saw it as saying that both are bad.
It certainly doesn’t come across as a defense of either platform to say they’re both infested by Nazis.
I have watched super progressive content on Youtube but also watched conservative content as well. It’s possible there are a lot of progressives who also watch content from the other side so the algorithm pushes it.
that’s why you should be logged out of Google and also delete your cookies periodically :) To reset the memory of Google
The thing is that I do want to have my subscriptions and favorite channels, and as long as UBO blocks ads, I haven’t fully made the switch to a different front-end.
But it still bothers me that it serves me far-right, religious, and conspiracy theory content given that I’ve never once engaged with any of those topics.
Fox news seems to own YT’s algorithm as far as I can tell.
Never a click from me, but 6 of the top 10 news vids every time.
So that makes odysee’s behaviour OK?
Nothing. But mentioning it, don’t forget to mention Youtube as well.
The difference between Odysee and YouTube is that YouTube doesn’t claim to be a free speech platform that allows any possible statements on, and does often take down a lot of the harmful content. You only see the remainder, not the whole.
Odysee is quite small, and as such, could relatively easily moderate much more of the content on its platform, if they actually cared about doing so.
Odysee explicitly tries to allow as much speech as possible, claiming that they totally won’t allow any bad content, while in reality, platforming LGBTQ+ misinformation, white nationalist rhetoric, anti-immigrant propaganda, etc.
All of those violate their Community Guidelines, by the way. But remember, it’s guidelines, not actual policy as to what they remove.
Iv been using odysee for a couple years and never had an ad on the ios or android app. Nor in the browser. (In video sponsors dont count). Odysee ftw i much prefer when creators i watch use youtube and a alternative platform like odysee
Yes, I just remembered that I’m pretty sure the F-Droid version of the app on Android doesn’t contain ads, because F-Droid probably didn’t allow it; while the Google Play version did contain ads. I’m not sure why they didn’t appear on your iPhone though, I don’t have one to test that.
Not familiar with Odysse, how’s they’re content moderation? We don’t need another fascist platform.
how’s they’re content moderation
go there, you’ll se it immediately… loads of maga terrorist garbage
I started digging into Odyssey some time ago when I found electro boom and big Clive were posting there. Immediately there was a lot of trash, like mostly trash. I went ahead and created an account where I could actually block content makers. I started off just blocking the wheel offensive ones anyone spouting libtards and woke. Moved into blocking clinate deniers and anti-vaxs, flat earthers. I just sit there and block 40 or 50 every time I logged in. Slowly, the content became less offensive overall. But you start running into the problem where they’re all just videos from the same 30 preppers showing you how to make eggs in a $5,000 freeze dryer. I eventually started blocking the annoying and repetitive stuff. I haven’t checked recently, but in its heyday the content just wasn’t there even if you got rid of all the other crap you didn’t want to see
Yeah, I find that since so many people watch such different content from each other, it means that whether or not the content on a smaller platform like Odysee is actually interesting to people, tends to be hit or miss. It still needs more growth fix that issue. I still watch a lot of YouTube though, and Odysee has their own official extension which allows you to choose to either redirect YouTube links to Odysee (if the same video officially exists there), or show a “Watch on Odysee” button right YouTube’s “Subscribe” button.
I noticed there wasn’t enough gameplay videos of the games that I like, and hardly any game soundtracks uploaded, so I started uploading my full game playthrough’s and game OST’s to a couple of channels for the people who also have my taste in videos. Oh yeah, fun fact: You can also have multiple channels on the same account and quickly switch between them. It’s pretty cool. The extension even lets you transfer your subs over from YT.
You had me at the ability to block content creators. The fact that YouTube doesn’t have this is insane.
YouTube has a “Don’t recommend this channel” option. Which, as far as I can tell, does actually get them to stop recommending the channel on the main recommended feed. If you’re subscribed they’ll still show up in your subscriptions and will still show up in search if you look for them (to the extent that anything relevant shows up in search).
The option isn’t prominent, it’s in the “3-dot” menu next to a video on the recommended feed and I’ve been unable to find a way to view or manage the list of blocked channels, but it’s there.
Edit: a word - “able” to “unable”
Yeah, this is an option on YouTube.
On Odysee, there’s both the option to “Block” channels, or seperately “Mute” channels. You can also manage your blocked and muted channels separately under Profile > Settings > Content Settings > Blocked and muted channels. According to this page in the official Help Hub:
Blocking: “When you block a user, the blocked user can no longer comment on any of your content, channel, or comment threads. In addition to this, all comments and reactions left by the blocked user on your content, channel, or in the comments section, will be filtered for everyone.”
Muting: “When you mute a user, you will no longer see them in any comment sections, replies, search results, homepage, related content, or anywhere else. They’re hidden from your experience on Odysee.”
So basically, if you don’t want to see their content (including comments); mute them. If you don’t want them to talk to you or be seen in your own channels’ comment sections by both yourself or others; block them. If you want absolutely nothing to do with them, you can both block and mute them simultaneously. Note: The article shows how to block/mute them from within the comments section. You can also block/mute them from the channel page itself or by clicking the 3-dots beside their video thumnail.
u don’t want them to talk to you or be seen in your own channels’ comment sections by both yourself or others; block them. If you want absolutely nothing to do with them, you can both block and mute them simultaneously. Note: The article shows how to block/mute them from within the comments section. You can also block/mute them from the channel page itself or by clicking the 3-dots beside their video thumnail.
I did that, took me a couple weeks. There were a handful of content creators left.
Sure looks full of MAGA garbage. Conceptually it’s a good idea, but I’ll be passing since I don’t need that trash in my life.
Internet is full of MAGA garbage. Bittorrent DHT is full of MAGA garbage. What’s your point? There are ways to filter out what you don’t want to see.
If you can’t see the point, then I cannot help you.
I can see it, I just want you to spell it out that you are a fascist douchebag (everyone who wants to censor other opinions is that).
So…being anti-MAGA makes me fascist. Got it. And I never once said I wanted to censor opinions. Stop making shit up, you sound like a MAGA moron.
Good lord, they’re everywhere. Literal morons, everywhere.
Good lord, they’re everywhere. Literal morons, everywhere.
Its worse than that, maga are literal terrorists at this point, and supporting a convicted criminal trying to elect him king so he can get away with all those crimes, makes them partially culpable for all his crimes
The point of course is that if you don’t want to see it, you refuse to use any platform that allows others to see it. Which must make it awfully hard to use the internet. Surprised you manage to even use Lemmy.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance. I was also alive well before the MAGA weirdos decided to spread their fascist Nazi propaganda all over the place. There was once a world war about that – and they lost. I guess they don’t like being losers.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it. Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance.
This appears to be an argument against a position I wasn’t taking. You just appear to be upset that alternative video streaming sites don’t ban people you disagree with. Good luck with that.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it.
Hey, you may been around longer than I have. Only had the internet since the mid 90s. So it depends on how you define “a few”. It was a very different beast back then, and I for one miss the relative lack of concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness.
Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
I chalk that up to said concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness, but then I don’t think it’s become a shithole because people I disagree with also have a voice, but because of aggressive monetization and the enshittification that that inevitably entails.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
No, you are well understood. You are opposed to alternative video platforms (and apparently some other unnamed Lemmy instance) because those things do not necessarily reinforce your echo chamber, and you consider that reinforcement a vital feature. I’m waaay over on the far end of the spectrum, and chose my instance specifically because they do not defederate, they keep everything available and leave it up to the user to decide what they do or do not wish to see (and I to date have nothing blocked - no users, no communities, no servers).
I completely understand not wanting to see that there, and you don’t have to see it, and besides, I see that all over YouTube too when I’m not signed in receiving good recommendations based on what I like.
I suggest reading my comment response to YTG123 (which is the other person who just replied to you), since you probably weren’t notified of it. Sorry to not reply directly, but I understandably don’t want to write another few hundred words, and the comment is relevant to you.
Thank you for this reasonable response.
Perhaps when things mature, I’ll give it another look. YouTube for me, when not signed in, does not have the sheer plethora of MAGA nonsense like this site does. Maybe it’s some regional algorithm, I don’t know, though I live in the south where MAGA idiocy runs rampant.
I take the path of least resistance when it comes to filtering out lies and garbage from my life. For now it’s simpler for me to just not browse the site than to weed out such content.
It definitely is, but it doesn’t try to force recommendations on you like YouTube. You can mostly just subscribe to channels you like and view their content.
It doesn’t force recommendations on you, and channels you don’t like can be muted or blocked. I’ve only blocked a handful of channels (Most of them were synced from YT too). Than there are sections: if you only want to see content you like to see, use the respective sections. If you want to see technology content, you aren’t going to click on the spirituality section.
Furthermore, recommendations aren’t actually a free feature (yet), as it’s still in early access and comes with Premium. 99.99% of the people who are upset about the “recommended content” being stuff they strongly dislike aren’t actually even being recommended anything to begin with. The videos that appear on the side are “Related” videos. Their system for determining related videos isn’t extremely comprehensive yet, so some other random content can slip through the cracks. For example, I was listening to a no-copyright music track called Icelanding Arpeggios, and I was shown a “Related” video along the side; a video synced from YouTube, which was of a man’s voice reading aloud Psalm 4 of the Old Testament with Icelanding Arpeggios playing in the background. The reason it was classified as “Related” wasn’t because some system was able to listen to the music in the video, but because the exact words “Icelanding Arpeggios” appeared in the description of said video about that Psalm. Here’s an example of “Related” suggestions. In this case they are working well and as intended, showing more video’s related to Solid-State batteries.
So the current unfortunate reality is that a video about, for example, how gravity works, occasionally may suggest “Related” content on the side about gravity not being real, that the earth is flat, and that the sun is 3,000 miles in the sky. Because, you know, it’s about the sun and gravity. The video’s are technically related in some way, but most people who are learning about the universe don’t want to see that, because it has no real scientific basis, is not widely accepted, and gravity and the ball earth has already been proven to be true.
After all, Odysee is still being developed, and their system’s for suggested “Related” content is still not fully matured.
