YouTube

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YouTube Hashtag Landing Pages Now Available to All Users

Charlotte Henry ·

YouTube made hashtag landing pages available to all users on Tuesday, Techcrunch reported. Although these operate differently from how they do on other social networks, they still provide another way for users to find content, and creators to get eyeballs.

Going forward, when you click on a hashtag on YouTube, you’ll be taken to a dedicated landing page that contains only videos that are using the hashtag. This page is also sorted to keep the “best” videos at the top, YouTube claimed. The ranking algorithm, however, may need some work as it’s currently surfacing an odd mix of both newer and older videos and seems to be heavily dominated by Indian creator content, in several top categories. The result, then, is not the equivalent to something like a hashtag search on a social network like Facebook or Twitter, for example, where more recent content gets top billing. For that reason, it may be difficult to use these hashtag landing pages for discovery of new videos to watch, as intended, but could still serve as an interesting research tool for creators looking to better leverage the hashtag format.

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YouTube Updates iOS App to Support HDR Video on iPhone 12 Range

Charlotte Henry ·

The YouTube iOS app now supports HDR video on the iPhone 12 range. As iMore noted, the video-sharing platform has supported such video for a while but needs to update the app every time a new device is released.

While YouTube has offered HDR support for iPhones since the arrival of iPhone X, the app does require an update every time a new device is released. That’s less than ideal but, thankfully, YouTube seems to be pretty on the ball and gets the updates out relatively quickly. It did take a few weeks last year, though. The newly updated YouTube is available as a free download from the App Store right now. Not that you’d know what to expect from the release notes! ‘Fixed bugs, improved performance, explored the edges of the known universe.’

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YouTube Doesn’t Recommend as Many Conspiracy Videos Anymore

Andrew Orr ·

YouTube is working to cut the number of conspiracy video it recommends to users, but that number is slowly increasing again.

Researchers trained an algorithm to judge the likelihood that a video on the site contained conspiracy theories by looking at the description, transcript, and comments. They examined eight million recommendations over 15 months. They found that shortly after YouTube announced it would recommend less conspiracy content in January 2019, the numbers did indeed gradually drop—by about 70% at the lowest point in May 2019. However, the number of conspiracy videos YouTube’s algorithm recommends has steadily risen again since then. These recommendations are now only 40% less common than when YouTube started its crackdown.

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YouTube Calls Cryptocurrency Videos ‘Harmful Content’

Andrew Orr ·

In a crackdown called ‘The Crypto YouTube Carnage’ the company has been deleting cryptocurrency videos en masse, labeling them as “harmful or dangerous.”

As years’ worth of videos started disappearing from several crypto YouTubers’ channels, many began speculating about the giant’s motivations. Some believe that YouTube is sensing a rise of new, blockchain platforms that can compete for creators both by offering them better “job security” and a higher cut of earnings.

Podcast

A Festivus for The Geeks in Us – Mac Geek Gab 794

John F. Braun · · Add Comment

Cool Stuff Found galore begins this episode, because that’s the spirit of the holiday season. Equally as important, though, are the airing of the grievances, and Mail.app provides a healthy platform for that…with some hints and tips, to be helpful, of course. After all, we each need to learn at least five new things! That’s not all: there are more tips and questions and answers here to enjoy, as well. Press play and join John, Dave, and the rest of the MGG Family for this week’s episode.

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Google Wants COPPA to Change so it can Keep Collecting Kids’ Data

Andrew Orr ·

The Federal Trade Commission is considering a revamp of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Google wants to help them change the rules, and asked the agency to eliminate rules that categorizes anyone watching kids content online as actual kids.

In September, Google agreed to pay US$170 million to the FTC to resolve claims that YouTube violated COPPA by serving targeted advertisements to children under 13…After the FTC settlement, YouTube told creators that they would have to identify when videos are aimed at children under 13. When that happens, YouTube now turns off ads that rely on web browsing behavior and other targeting data, which earn more for YouTube and creators.

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If Your YouTube Account Isn’t ‘Commercially Viable’ Google Will Delete It

Andrew Orr ·

According to YouTube’s new terms of service, your YouTube account can be terminated if it isn’t commercially viable enough. The phrasing is broad enough that some people think this means Google will take action against people using adblockers.

YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.

I’m personally not sure if that’s the case. You don’t need a Google account to watch YouTube, nor does Google need you to have an account for it to track you.

TMO Deals

YouTube's Original Content May be Reacting to 'Subscription Fatigue'

John Martellaro ·

Either YouTube’s original content managers are reacting to consumer ‘subscription fatigue’ or they’ve somehow learned of Apple’s (possible) plans for its Apple TV+ service to be free to Apple hardware customers. Or Disney’s recent announcements have taken the wind out of their sails. (sales?) PC Magazine writes:

YouTube’s original series, movies, and live events will be available for free starting Sept. 24. Here’s the catch: non-paying viewers will see ads when watching this content, and “only select episodes may be available for streaming [for free] at any time,” YouTube said.

The TV original content subscription war is heating up.

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YouTube Union Joins With EU Trade Union IG Metall

Andrew Orr ·

The YouTubers Union has joined with IG Metall, Germany’s biggest union and Europe’s biggest trade union. Together they created a venture called FairTube.

“We aren’t demanding things that cut into profits or are unrealistic. We want fairness. We want transparency. We want to be treated like partners. And we want personal communication instead of anonymous communication,” Sprave told Motherboard.

In a video announcing the move, IG Metall’s Vice President Christiane Benner, Sprave said that the partnership meant “a completely new time begins. It is no longer the case that we are helpless against Youtube. With the IG Metall, we have a strong, strong partner.” Benner added, “We know from experience that together we can achieve a lot.”

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Link Your YouTube Account to Fortnite for Fornite Drops

Andrew Orr ·

Epic Games is adding a new rewards system to Fortnite called Fortnite Drops. Link your Epic Games account and YouTube account to earn special rewards.

In order to get the special cosmetic rewards in Fortnite, you’ll need to watch 20 minutes of footage from specific YouTube Premier streams. There are going to be multiple times that you can accrue the needed 20 minutes of time watched, though if you want to get every single reward, you’ll have to watch 20 minutes from each individual stream.

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YouTube Under Federal Investigation Over Children’s Privacy

Andrew Orr ·

The U.S. government is investigating YouTube for allegedly violating children’s privacy.

The complaints contended that YouTube, which is owned by Google, failed to protect kids who used the streaming-video service and improperly collected their data in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 law known as COPPA that forbids the tracking and targeting of users younger than age 13.

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YouTube Bans Minors From Streaming Unless an Adult is Present

Andrew Orr ·

In a blog post today, YouTube announced new policies when it comes to minors. YouTube bans minors from live streaming without an adult present, and comments on videos featuring minors have been disabled.

The vast majority of videos featuring minors on YouTube, including those referenced in recent news reports, do not violate our policies and are innocently posted — a family creator providing educational tips, or a parent sharing a proud moment. But when it comes to kids, we take an extra cautious approach towards our enforcement and we’re always making improvements to our protections.

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Relentless Doppelgänger is an AI-Created Death Metal Livestream

Andrew Orr ·

Relentless Doppelgänger is a 24/7 YouTube livestream that features death metal created by AI.

The deep learning behind the YouTube channel is trained on samples of a real death metal band called Archspire, hailing from Canada. These real audio snippets are fed through the SampleRNN neural network to try and create realistic imitations…SampleRNN is smart enough to know when it’s produced an audio clip that’s good enough to pass for the genuine article – and as a result it knows which part of its neural network to tweak and strengthen.

I think it sounds pretty good. \m/