So YouTube has really done it. They have now implemented the AI age verification system for Americans. So then, what can we do to fight back? Everyone hates it so we should (in theory) have the power in numbers and force YouTube to revert this. The problem is that we have to act as a collective body towards this one goal. If enough people say, “this boycott will not work because too many people won’t boycott YouTube, therefore it doesn’t hurt to use YouTube despite the boycott”, then the boycott will simply fall apart. The only way I can think to get around this is to isolate you (yes you the person reading this) from the rest of the community. Are you willing to quit YouTube permanently in defiance of these changes? I am. So what can you do to support the boycott?
- cancel any subscriptions with YouTube or google/alphabet
- download any videos that you have saved as “watch later” or anything similar using yt-dlp. There is also the sketchy website method but it is slower and sketchy
- sign out of YouTube and google on all devices
- get ublock orgin or the equivalent on chromium based browsers, brave
- use libredirect with the YouTube redirect on to redirect away from YouTube and towards an instance that respects you and your freedom.
If you are a GNU/Linux user, then you can take advantage of its customizability to further boycott youtube. Mpv has yt-dlp as an optional dependency so you can stream YouTube videos from mpv without actually going to the website or viewing the ads. I recommend in some way binding a key to open the contents of the clipboard in mpv. If you have problems with playback, then you can export your cookies and give yt-dlp the cookies.
Others have given their own guides on this. For instance, @nostalgicbody on twitter has created the following guide:
Bonus points for boycotting Google. There is a long list of things that google has its claws in but here is a simple list of things that you can do
- replace google search. You can use https://www.startpage.com/ for a wrapper for google search, brave search for an independent search engine, searxng for a wrapper to lots of search engines. Personally I use notnapoleon’s instance link or use some other niche search engine. The goal here is just to get away from google.
- stop using google chrome. see this. You can use another chromium based browser like the above mentioned brave or you can use a firefox based browser. The only browser separate from google entirely is apple’s safari and the upcoming ladybird browser. Ladybird is nowhere near ready yet so you will have to pick your poison of mozilla based or google based. I personally use librewolf
- use something else besides google drive and google docs.
Obviously some people are far more entrenched in the google ecosystem then are others. I for instance, have an iphone and use yahoo mail as well as cock.li for my email. If I was an android user that used gmail, I might have a harder time degoogling. This process is a journey but I recommend it from a privacy and freedom perspective
We have alternitives to YouTube… kinda. We have odysee, rumble, glomble, and peertube. These all have problems. Odysee has successfully convinced lots of creators to mirror their content there, however, the discovery system is bad and most of its users aren’t actively viewing content on it. Its treated as more of an archive then a social media. Rumble has the historical problem of being too right wing. So the only people on the site are those who the marketing worked. glomble is a indie web site created in responce to this ai verification system and has a dominance of non-political content. Great right? well no. You see, the creator never expected this to get noticed and now the server struggles to function. You can go there but its clear the server is barely functioning. Give it some time and things might change. Peertube has the same problems that odysee has but worse. Every instance is almost completely cut off from the rest of the network.
Now I should get to the question on everyone’s mind, “will this work?” Maybe. it is entirely possible that this is so far out of line that YouTube will be forced to limit this bullshit to the particular shithole countries that have the laws in place. If these laws get passed in the land of the free however, we are fucked.
For creators, should they completely stop posting on YouTube? I’d say yes, but for only a month. If nothing happens in a month, then the battle will be a battle of attrition. At that point i’d say to upload to YouTube for the audience as well as mirror it elsewhere. If you don’t build up a watch history since you quit YouTube, then you should be safe from randomly being called a minor. It will suck if suddenly you cannot upload anymore. This, however, will hopefully be offset by people quitting YouTube.
Am I basically just giving up here? no. The main issue is the id system. it is the main thing that we must avoid at all costs. So if there is anything here that I want you to take away, it is this,
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GIVE YOUTUBE YOUR ID.
This is how we win. Google looses if they cannot get their hands on our id.