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YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

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Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to suppress divergent opinion?

Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay silent". It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules. Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the conversation constructively. qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a commo…

> although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too.

I was in agreement with your post until this throw-in line at the end. What reason do you have to believe that YouTube is breaking US and EU law?

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#402
post #358
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm born in whatever far back year forms will let me choose in most internet services, over a 100 years old in a lot of cases, I assumed everyone did this.

Never had the patience to go all the way to the top, so I'm typically born in .

I was born in the year zero; if that breaks your database, good.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to post something very similar, as I would use it specifically to watch videos that want me to give up information and sign in. I don't find that reasonable, thus I adjust accordingly my taking these countermeasures. You are being downvoted to suppress your well thought out information. It would be nice if HN had a public ledger of who up or down voted a post. You would click on the post and could see whi…

"I want to maintain my privacy when watching videos." "I think the site should publicly post a list of users who upvoted and downvoted comments that I feel were wrongly suppressed." I had to read your comment multiple times to determine whether it was intended to be sarcastic or not.

The moment you participate in voting, you become a participant , even if your participation is really small, instead of being a pure consumer. When the internet came along, so much content has been made available without requiring accounts. Then services appeared that began auth-walling their content. Nowadays you can't even visit someone's linked in page without logging in, and there are major restrictions for places like facebook or instagram. This "must have an account with us" internet isn't the internet the world deserves. And again, requiring accounts for participation is fine. Talking about consumption only.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to post something very similar, as I would use it specifically to watch videos that want me to give up information and sign in. I don't find that reasonable, thus I adjust accordingly my taking these countermeasures. You are being downvoted to suppress your well thought out information. It would be nice if HN had a public ledger of who up or down voted a post. You would click on the post and could see whi…

"I want to maintain my privacy when watching videos." "I think the site should publicly post a list of users who upvoted and downvoted comments that I feel were wrongly suppressed." I had to read your comment multiple times to determine whether it was intended to be sarcastic or not.

Not sure I agree with it, but "Exactly those actions intended to cause publicly visible changes (such as comment graying) should be subject to transparency, which anything else (such as viewing videos or comments) should be subject to privacy." seems like a prefectly self-consistent position.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you'll need to scan an ID if you don't have a credit card, and I bet the EU has millions of young adults without a credit card. Either way, the end result is that you cannot use a video service without exposing your real identity to the service provider. And for what? Is there an epidemic of video clips wrecking children's minds I'm not aware of? Lacking that, this doesn't seem even remotely justified. All…

> And for what? Is there an epidemic of video clips wrecking children's minds I'm not aware of? I mean... maybe. I have young children and have no desire to have them anywhere near YouTube for essentially as long as possible _because_ of that very concern.

Are you specifically worried about the 18+ videos that youtube allows? I feel like even a perfect age check wouldn't do much to make youtube safer for young children.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#406
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has become the most valuable company in the world because they own everyone's computers so anyone that wants to publish commercial software has to bend over for them. They're not valuable because of any service they provide.

By "computers" I assume you mean "phones and tablets", because Apple is still a small minority of the world's desktops and laptops. Even then, ask yourself: Why do so many people pay $800 for an iPhone instead of $200 for some Android? They didn't become #1 by selling $99 developer accounts.

Why do so many people pay $800 for an Android instead of $200 for some iPhone?

I don't understand the comparison you're making, because both kinds of phone are available in a wide price range.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#407
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root it, install a dns level adblocker (either for their network or just the tablet), install appropriate apps for them (preferring FOSS when possible via fdroid) and relock the tablet before giving it to them. Oh, and run a backup of the whole device first.

I can't believe it has to come to this to get a usable device for a growing segment of the population. Old people practically need their own IT department fighting for their best interests with how predatory tech companies have been towards them. They are SOL if their kid isn't a techie.

Or buy an ipad.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#408
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and as per the Internet's one golden rule (of which we have at least a dozen), "Do not (ab)use downvotes to disagree, put your disagreement in writing or stay silent". It is frowned upon here, but not against the rules. Downvotes on HN should, optimally, only be used to downvote comments that truly do not add anything to the conversation constructively. qwerty's comment, imo, was constructive, as that is a commo…

> although Youtube still does track you, but in ways that probably violate EU law, and might violate US law too. I was in agreement with your post until this throw-in line at the end. What reason do you have to believe that YouTube is breaking US and EU law?

1. They have betrayed user trust in the past and continue to do so.

2. They have been sued by the FTC, paid millions in settlements, and failed to prove that they did not break the law.

3. They are currently being sued by the DOJ and many states attorney general.

4. They have made numerous settlements in private privacy-related litigation as opposed to proving they were not liable, despite having enormous cash reserves available for legal costs.

If someone were to suspect Google was "probably" breaking the law, this does not seem like an unreasonable suspicion.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it just me, or are downvoters abusing their power to suppress divergent opinion?

I've noticed this happening also. A little while back I posted something about how I found the right wing response to tech censorship funny, given that most sources on the right don't consider it real censorship. I then provided an example. I made no statement of opinion outside of saying I found it funny. The comment itself spent all day flipping between [-2, 2] points. What I found the most odd was that I never eve…

I don't think it's odd, tbh. People downvote stuff they do not agree with, even though the downvoted statement contains no opinion nor attack. That's just how people behave online.

Re: YouTube-dl can no longer download age-restricted videos

#410

As someone else mentioned in the comments, the "get cookies.txt" [0] extension works to circumvent the age restricted measure and i have been using it with success for weeks now. get the extension, export the cookies.txt file to a folder, then run youtube-dl in that folder with: youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://youtu.be/id it works as of right this minute [1] and in my experience that cookie continues to work…

But I don't want to use the cookies, I used youtube-dl exactly to watch age-restricted videos without signing-in. I don't want YouTube to track which videos I watch and make history-based suggestions so I never sign-in and reset cookies often. I occasionally stumble upon age-restricted videos and feel curious what's there but I don't want any of them to influence what does YouTube believe my interests are so I just u…

I don’t have a Google account and yet I watch YouTube almost daily. The algorithm still curates a feed for me so why should I have to sign up? I ran into an issue where I was not able to download an age-restricted video last week and just moved on.

Nothing Google does will make me want to create an account.

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