Privacy respecting YouTube alternatives

[colonel_panic]

Hello all

I've been trying to ignore the issue, but I am increasingly finding myself unhappy about using Google services. IME they are not a force for good in the world.

The latest is asking me to upload a driving licence, passport or credit card before letting me see age restricted videos.

I'd like to find a platform where I can pay a bit of money to upload my music, or maybe get a VPS and host some songs myself. No ads, no tracking.

Does such a thing exist?

[raboof]

I've been trying to ignore the issue, but I am increasingly finding myself unhappy about using Google services. IME they are not a force for good in the world.

The latest is asking me to upload a driving licence, passport or credit card before letting me see age restricted videos.

I'd like to find a platform where I can pay a bit of money to upload my music, or maybe get a VPS and host some songs myself. No ads, no tracking.

I haven't used this myself yet from the 'creator' perspective, but perhaps you could consider joining (or starting) a peertube instance (https://joinpeertube.org/ - edited, fixed link).

Peertube is not 'privacy-respecting' in the sense that you cannot be tracked: actually, since it's peer-to-peer-based, your in theory random peers can also see what you watch/share. They can only track you when you are actually watching peertube, though, not also when you are emailing or using a search engine or through your mobile phone - so that's an improvement .

[colonel_panic]

I visited the front page. Without typing anything in, following the "trending" section had three videos about paedophilia out of the first 30 linked videos. It put me off, rather. Reminds me of some of the awfulness on Usenet in the nineties.

I could just share audio.

[d.healey]

I visited the front page. Without typing anything in, following the "trending" section had three videos about paedophilia out of the first 30 linked videos. It put me off, rather. Reminds me of some of the awfulness on Usenet in the nineties.

I could just share audio.

You are going to find this kind of thing on all the freedom respecting YouTube alternatives (unless they curate their front pages) because the whole point is they are uncensored, so people can post horrible stuff there as well as good stuff.

BitChute and Odysee are two other options, I think Odysee is the better one. There is also media goblin but I think you have to host it yourself.

[colonel_panic]

I accept that. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Peertube exists. I just don't want to see stuff like that. There's much on YouTube that I don't want to see either!

I think I'm going to self-host something. I will look at Mediagoblin. Thanks.

[Largos]

If you want a good way to use youtube Freetube https://freetubeapp.io/ is very good. You can do subscriptions in the program without needing to have a sign in.

https://funkwhale.audio/ is another option to music hosting or you could go ultra simple and just upload the files to any hosting service and share direct links. Not sure what you want exactly out of the hosting.

[raboof]

I visited the front page. Without typing anything in, following the "trending" section had three videos about paedophilia out of the first 30 linked videos. It put me off, rather.

Ugh, sorry about that, I should have checked the link better... somehow I got the impression that that was the 'official' peertube instance, but looking closer at https://joinpeertube.org/instances it's not even listed there... as you can see there's many instances that strive to blur or exclude 'sensitive' content - though how actively they moderate will likely depend on the instance.

You are going to find this kind of thing on all the freedom respecting YouTube alternatives (unless they curate their front pages) because the whole point is they are uncensored

I get what you're saying - though there's a difference between "allowing it to exist" and confronting you with it whether you asked for it or not. I'm a pretty happy user of Mastodon ( https://merveilles.town/@raboof ), and while it is 'technically possible' to create an instance, post horrible stuff, and federate to the rest of the mastodon instances, most instances have their own policies on what they allow to be federated and would block it. So as a user of a fairly-aggressively moderated instance you wouldn't see it.

[milo]

Does anyone have experience with Vimeo? They look like a reasonable YouTube alternative.

[autumncheney]

like others said, peertube is probably the best foss/privacy-respecting youtube alternative, i upload my own music to a peertube instance (https://tube.tchncs.de/video-channels/a ... sic/videos)

about that questionable content you saw, that's just a fact of life. all sorts of nazis, pedos, and other unsavory individuals will inevitably try to take over smaller social networks when the bigger ones decide they're fed up with their bullshit. luckily, a lot of instance owners across the fediverse do take action to block these people, and i'd say it's working. feel free to block them yourself if you want to

i checked out odysee, that one seems like it's infested with the bad side of free speech advocacy to a much worse degree than peertube. and don't even get me started on bitchute

i believe vimeo is the second biggest video service next to big y, and tbh using vimeo is probably just trading one off for the other, i'd rather use a community project

so yeah, peertube is probably the best bet. fun fact, the higher the "novelty factor" of the domain (stuff like .club, .party, or .zone), the friendlier the community is likely to be. just an observation

[GMaq]

Does anyone have experience with Vimeo? They look like a reasonable YouTube alternative.

I have a bunch of stuff on there... it's great to share with someone or embed in a post etc. It costs money if you need more than the basic bandwidth uploading limits. If you're wanting the most viewing potential it can't touch YT but then nothing can.. *shrugs

Sharing things among common interest groups is easy, pick a platform and do it.. For me sharing a song or video with everyone from my LM buddies to my cousin Jen or Aunt Florence with their iPhones requires globally established platforms. In this day and age you're extremely lucky to get a click at all...if someone not technically minded has to suddenly find and install Soundcloud or FunkWhale or Vimeo or browse to a webpage outside of your original link you are probably DOA and this is what keeps many of us (myself included) away from niche platforms.

[Eli]

Running it through FreeTube is the only viable option I've landed on.

[TAERSH]

@autumncheney
Thanks for mentioning PeerTube. I never heard of it.
After some weeks of inactivity my account at dailymotion permitted to upload private videos only.
I could not find a way to make them public, so I removed my account at dailymotion again.
Now I registered to PeerTube checking everything out.

[Jeax]

i believe vimeo is the second biggest video service next to big y, and tbh using vimeo is probably just trading one off for the other

Agreed. Vimeo has been accused of shady stuff as well.

“In direct violation of the BIPA, Vimeo is actively collecting, storing and using—without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies—the biometrics of thousands of unwitting individuals throughout the country whose faces appear in photographs and/or videos uploaded to the Magisto ‘smart video editor’ application in Illinois,” according to the lawsuit.

Source: ThreatPost and Consumer Privacy World

Anyone having success with PeerTube? Is it still the best alternative? If so, can anyone recommend an instance to start with?

[AndersBiork]

MakerTube wants your creations

https://chaos.social/@polykit/110650796965990855

https://makertube.net