YouTube Pulls Tech Creator's Self-Hosting Tutorial as 'Harmful Content' (jeffgeerling.com) 75
YouTube pulled a popular tutorial video from tech creator Jeff Geerling this week, claiming his guide to installing LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5 violated policies against "harmful content." The video, which showed viewers how to set up their own home media servers, had been live for over a year and racked up more than 500,000 views. YouTube's automated systems flagged the content for allegedly teaching people "how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content."
Geerling says his tutorial covered only legal self-hosting of media people already own -- no piracy tools or copyright workarounds. He said he goes out of his way to avoid mentioning popular piracy software in his videos. It's the second time YouTube has pulled a self-hosting content video from Geerling. Last October, YouTube removed his Jellyfin tutorial, though that decision was quickly reversed after appeal. This time, his appeal was denied.
Geerling says his tutorial covered only legal self-hosting of media people already own -- no piracy tools or copyright workarounds. He said he goes out of his way to avoid mentioning popular piracy software in his videos. It's the second time YouTube has pulled a self-hosting content video from Geerling. Last October, YouTube removed his Jellyfin tutorial, though that decision was quickly reversed after appeal. This time, his appeal was denied.
One of my favorites (Score:4, Interesting)
A great channel.
Re:One of my favorites (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, and I've seen this video, several times actually.
Youtube is so far in the wrong that here that there isn't even a word to describe it.
Seriously, are there *any* humans even left at Youtube or is it all just AIs chattering back and forth to each other?
Google does not want you to have tech skills (Score:5, Informative)
Remember: Google indexes the consumption of information.
They want you to consume information, not create it.
And if you're storing data and information in walled gardens that only you control, then Google can't get access to that, so it's not valuable or profitable to them to allow you to have that garden, or teach others how to garden, so the end result is that Google is actively against anything that gives you a technical skill or allows you to build a garden that Google isn't allowed to trample in, and this shows it.
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He is trolling and trying to use psyop tactics to stop you from considering the line of questioning on why Google doesnt wat people to host thier own stuff.
Its a Google stooge.
Ignore him and refer to the walled garden and the fact that Google doesn't want you to own a world garden because it wants the freedom to trample all the flowers.
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So... what's the tool with a suffix that rhymes with "car"?
The various "arr" plugins... Ala Sonarr, Radarr, etc... They're quite the collection of misfit toys. Usenet & Torrent scrapers & automation.
I would steer clear of them.
Re: Google does not want you to have tech skills (Score:3)
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Re: Google does not want you to have tech skills (Score:2)
Self-hosting is harmful to Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignore the reasons they gave; they're lies. The truth is that they would prefer nobody self-host, because they want you to use Google services instead. If everyone self-hosted, Google wouldn't make as much money. Home servers of any type are a threat to Google's business.
Re:Self-hosting is harmful to Google (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are thousands of other self hosting videos on YouTube with similar content.
Most likely some corporation complained because his videos rank highly in search results, and YouTube are just incompetent. They have shown a fairly consistent pattern of screwing up TOS violations and then eventually backing down when it got enough attention that large numbers of people starting noticing their mistake. Smaller channels are SOL.
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grifters like Jeff Geerling
How is Geerling a "grifter"?
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How is Geerling a "grifter"?
He makes videos mostly about other people's technology, and sometimes it's contrived stuff just to make a video about the latest tech toys.
But in his defense:
The people that make a lot of the stuff he works with are too busy creating to make their own videos, and are probably not as good at it as he is. He actually does a pretty good job on the production & editing side on complex topics. Go watch some of his peers, there's a lot of bad content in the Open Source / Homelab / self-host arena. He actua
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How is Geerling a "grifter"?
He makes videos mostly about other people's technology, and sometimes it's contrived stuff just to make a video about the latest tech toys.
Hm. Perhaps this is a use of 'grifter' I wasn't aware of.
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Apparently being a published author, having fun with technology and having a certain charisma via a wholesome channel to support a young family...
He got it early and built a following with the raspberry pi cluster thing, ostensibly with his own money. Rolling your own cloud, well I have no use for a home server array but more power to him for educating the populace on the possibilities.
If companies now want to throw him free stuff that he can play with that doesn't make him a grifter.
Re:Self-hosting is harmful to Google (Score:4, Informative)
You two are reading way to much negativity into "grift".
Grift [merriam-webster.com] has a meaning. It seems you define to use words according to you.
Busking on a guitar in the subway for change is a grift too.
Please explain how a busker [merriam-webster.com] is a grifter. Again, words have meaning.
At the end of it, he's a self-made man, and I respect that.
Are you confusing someone who has initiative with someone who is a grifter.
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It seems you define to use words according to you.
You'll find the urban dictionary diverges from Miriam Webster as well, offering up several definitions, some involving "side hustles", many others fitting your dictionary definition, and another that's just "hanging out on the beach", which I find a stretch. So there seems to be some variation here that you're insisting not be allowed.
https://www.urbandictionary.co... [urbandictionary.com]
Furthermore Jeff has posted elsewhere here and is free to defend himself if he feels the need. But I suspect "the playa is too busy running h
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You'll find the urban dictionary diverges from Miriam Webster as well, offering up several definitions, some involving "side hustles
Well that's a lie. From your own link onUrban Dictionary [urbandictionary.com]: "An online side hustle that consists of expressing political opinions, usually right-wing, and then asking for financial support in order to continute to express those opinions. . . " TThat's not remotely the same thing.
So there seems to be some variation here that you're insisting not be allowed.
And what part of the rest of the definition has anything to do with what you are saying: "In this context, grift implies that either A) the opinions are jus
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He makes videos mostly about other people's technology, and sometimes it's contrived stuff just to make a video about the latest tech toys.
Um what? That describes almost every single independent YouTube channel that reviews technology. None of those creators are employed by companies like Intel, Apple, etc.
The people that make a lot of the stuff he works with are too busy creating to make their own videos,
Again, what? He is independent from Intel, Apple, Raspberry, etc.
Go watch some of his peers, there's a lot of bad content in the Open Source / Homelab / self-host arena. He actually works from scripts, stages & edits, and speaks clearly.
And what does this have to do with "grifting? His content is a bit more polished?
As I understand it, he has some significant health issues.
So what? He has a channel where he creates his own content. For example, his latest video about making a a computing cluster [youtube.com] with seven Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. It has very little practical
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I wouldn't call him a grifter. My only real complaint about his videos is that they are quite lightweight. The recent one he did about uses for the original Raspberry Pi is a good example. Didn't take investigate it much, just loaded Pi Hole and called it a day.
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False. Self hosting videos are dime a dozen. They are going specifically after videos that talk about OpenELEC / LibreELEC / Kodi due to the large number of plugins available to turn it into a piracy box. Even though the software and self hosting concept is legal.
telecom (Score:4, Insightful)
YouTube needs to be regulated as a telecom provider. As such, it must be prevented from discriminating against content for any reason other than it being illegal.
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YouTube needs to be regulated as a telecom provider. As such, it must be prevented from discriminating against content for any reason other than it being illegal.
Agreed. I'm all for organizational autonomy, but when you monopolize a sector of the economy to the point that you become the town square, you should be regulated on the same grounds.
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... when you monopolize a sector of the economy to the point that you become the town square, you should be regulated on the same grounds.
Thank you for that. You've conveyed an important concept clearly, and it applies to huge swathes of the internet. And you did it with wording barely larger than a sound bite. If you have no objections, I'll adopt it as my new Slashdot sig.
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... when you monopolize a sector of the economy to the point that you become the town square, you should be regulated on the same grounds.
Thank you for that. You've conveyed an important concept clearly, and it applies to huge swathes of the internet. And you did it with wording barely larger than a sound bite. If you have no objections, I'll adopt it as my new Slashdot sig.
Be my guest.
Re:telecom (Score:4, Informative)
No it doesn't. People need to post videos to places that aren't YouTube. There are both commercial and federated alternatives to YouTube, it's just people like you insist on hiding their existence from people.
The way to beat Google isn't to regulate, allowing them to play cat and mouse with regulators with the rules changing every time there's a new government, it's to take away their power.
If you're a corporate bootlicker but still, for whatever reason, dislike Google, click here [dailymotion.com]
If you're OK with volunteer run organizations or would even like to self host but in a way where your connection isn't overloaded, click here [joinpeertube.org]. (Self hosted videos are mirrored to the instances where people watch them so your bandwidth bill stays small)
Nothing from what I can see prevents Gerling from posting on both YouTube and Peertube and directing his users at the beginning of each new video to his Peertube account, pointing out the PeerTube account includes videos YouTube has nuked.
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Some people say their internal "Community Guidelines" prohibit promoting other platforms and this is selectively enforced.
Regardless of the veracity of those claims it could easily be added to their ToS for "safety".
>> I purposefully avoid demonstrating any of the tools (with a suffix that rhymes with "car")
Anybody know what he's referring to? I'm ignorant of that one.
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Social platforms are hard to stay decentralized. There is a strong financial and economic advantage in centralization.
What we need is pull down the curtain that hide those private judges. A company can't make decisions by itself. It is the people who own the company or employed / contracted by the company who make decisions. Content take down and account ban judgements shall not be allowed done anonymously. A country can't get judicial justice with all the police and judges be anonymous from their people
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I don't know about Gerling personally, but the reason most high subscriber, high production value channels are on youtube is because that is where they can make MONEY.
A lot of the content creators don't want to also do the other sales activities effort that would be required to find sponsors, read their ad copy on the show, do the tax accounting for ad sales and accepting direct payments from multiple clients... etc. Youtube lets them produce content and makes monetizing it push button. That is hugely val
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On occasion I watch "the WAN show" from Youtube channel LTT. His take is that Youtube gets so much content, because of their (relative) high pay-out rate. Other platforms are much more greedy than Youtube is. Now I don't follow too many Youtube channels (anymore) and he appears to be one of the few willing to speak about Youtube income. So I will have to take his word on it, as I don't create or post videos myself.
Given the size and reach of Youtube, I do think that LTT isn't bullcrapping about this, as som
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If you're a corporate bootlicker but still, for whatever reason, dislike Google, click here [dailymotion.com]
I appreciate being shown alternatives, but I just clicked on that link and the top video autoplayed a trailer that started with "This was Hitler as we knew him" apparently for the 1962 movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Not the best introduction into a video sharing site, especially since I'm at work right now.
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YouTube needs to be regulated as a telecom provider. As such, it must be prevented from discriminating against content for any reason other than it being illegal.
Sure, if you want it to become an unusable cesspool. If you just hate YouTube and want to kill it, this is the way. Same with any other site that hosts user-provided content -- if it's popular and unmoderated it will become a hellscape in short order.
Re:telecom (Score:5, Interesting)
The hypocrisy that is YouTube just gets worse by the day.
People like Jeff have perfectly good, harmless content flagged and removed for specious reasons while the company continues to profit from scammy ads that promote fake "health hacks", counterfeit electronics goods such as the fake "Sandisk" SSDs being pitched right now, "laser welders" that turn out to be just soldering irons, water-blasters that are nothing of the sort, etc, etc.
I (and thousands of others) have been reporting these ads using the mechanisms built into YouTube and also through @teamyoutube on X but the ads continue to run until the advertiser's spend is exhausted.
Surely, after a while someone must wake up to the fact that if YouTube/Google isn't going to act when these scam ads are reported and simply continues to profit from them then they become an accomplice to fraud and should he charged as such.
I've heard from hundreds of people who've lost money after being duped by these fraudulent ads and even when THEY complain to YouTube with their proof, the ads keep running.
Now there seems to be a lot of bonafide channels being deleted for "scams and misleading practices" without warning. Perhaps YouTube doesn't like the competition whenit comes to scamming -- it wants to retain its crown as "best scammer"?
It's a shame Jeffs video was pulled because I'm encouraging people to set up their own VOD servers and federate into a global network coordinated by independent search engines. This is the only way to dethrone YouTube now that it's clearly become an evil entity.
Give it a Choice: Telecom or Media (Score:3)
YouTube needs to be regulated as a telecom provider.
It should be given the choice. Either it gets regulated like a telecom provider in which case it cannot discriminate against content unless it is illegal and, in return, cannot be prosecuted for material on its servers OR it gets regulated like regular media in which case it has editorial control over the content it serves but is then legally liable for that content.
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OR it can follow the laws that actually exist and do what it is doing right now: block whatever it feels is harmful or inappropriate, while not being responsible for what 3rd parties post.
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Damn - I wish I had mod points to give you.
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Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it.
P. J. O'Rourk
Re:Let's be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Since this is /. we can use a car analogy here.
Many, many crimes require cars for their commission, and many, many more are facilitated by them. Therefore it is reasonable to ban instructions for using cars because we can assume they are mean to facilitate criminal acts.
Re:Let's be honest (Score:4, Insightful)
Further point, continuing the car analogy: the ban is coming from a company that makes money by renting access to cars, not even leasing them, and does not want people to own their own cars.
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"...and does not want people to own their own cars."
False. Youtube cannot exist without content creators. That is how YouTube is differentiated over networks.
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Cars serve many purposes, what many purposes do the equipment promoted on sites like Geerling's serve?
I've asked quite a few people on occasion what purpose a home NAS serves today, I do not get good answers. Jeff Geerling wouldn't provide an answer for that either. In an age where people don't even have use for computers in the home anymore, why do people have need for hundreds of terabytes of local storage not direct attached to a computer? Unless you are using massive amounts of data, you do not need
Re:Let's be honest (Score:4, Insightful)
I've asked quite a few people on occasion what purpose a home NAS serves today, I do not get good answers.
I have a Tb of home movies & pics of my kids childhoods. I can turn my server off and toss the drives in a drawer, get them out 5 years from now, and those memories will still be there. I miss a single payment to AWS and my storage goes away without so much as a puff of digital smoke. Same with B2, DO, OCI, etc...
That's just one example. My homelab does quite a bit more than that, Git, Jenkins, Security PVR, DTV PVR via an HD Homerun, etc... All away from Google's prying eyes. If the local PD wants my doorbell footage, they have to get a warrant. Ring will just hand it over without telling me.
It is absolutely fair to judge equipment by what it is useful for.
And it's fair to judge your poor judgement... You just think you don't get good answers. That's you imposing your standards & values on someone else. Not everyone is a cloud apologist stooge with money to burn. Some of us like to tinker and live frugally, and we don't need your or Google's permission!
T
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What if I record everything I say/do and store this, so that later a (local) LLM can use that as data to RAG or even train? It adds up quickly. Better to record in high quality/high definition, so that this data is less prone to errors when ingested. This whole process can and does consume a lot of storage space. Is t not for actual storage, then for actual storage + temporary storage use during processing.
Home videos, (unsorted) family photos, security cam footage, you want all of that in the highest quali
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I've asked quite a few people on occasion what purpose a home NAS serves today, I do not get good answers.
Do you use any cloud services at all for anything? Storing files? Saving pictures you take on your phone? Here's my good answer: I want these features without being subject to some corporate overlord controlling them, and doing whatever bullshit they wrote in their terms of service with them.
My NAS duplicates functionality we all take for granted commercially, but I WRITE MY OWN TOS.
In an age where people don't even have use for computers in the home anymore
The world is bigger than whatever device you use to tweet. Computers are in many homes, they get used for actual meaningful th
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Your argument is completely disingenuous. It actually weakens your argument, because if you had a good reason, you wouldn't be speaking obvious bullshit.
Every single person here knows that a car is generally used for normal, everyday stuff. Going to groceries, etc. If you see a car on a road, the chances are one in a million it's being currently used to commit a crime.
Likewise, every single person tech-literate enough to be on Slashdot knows this is used to store pirated media files, not your collections
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Likewise, every single person tech-literate enough to be on Slashdot knows this is used to store pirated media files, not your collections of homemade EDM or circa 1922 field recording.
This is pure bullshit. They really stupid thing about your comment is if you actually watched the video all it was is throwing a SBC into a plastic case, plugging it into a TV, writing a JeOS image to a 128GB SD card and copying 23 gigs of media to that SBC over a wireless LAN.
You would think by the descriptions in TFA the video was about setting up a home media server or as someone else posted installing a NAS with hundreds of terabytes of pirated films when it was no such thing.
Kodi is just a front end m
How long until DVD players are banned? (Score:2)
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They already stopped making videotape players, how long until the only way to play video is through "approved players" only? There are browsers that are not allowed the Widevine plugin, so the walls are closing in..
Some companies have already exited the DVD/Bluray player market. I've bought a couple spares to keep in the closet for if mine every break, because I'm not throwing away my media collection. They can take my physical media from my cold, dead hands, not before.
Apache etc. (Score:1)
Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Comparison (Score:4, Informative)
"How is a server like he was creating fundamentally different than Youtube itself?"
Answer: the first doesn't make Google any money.
"It's the worst kind of harmful content" (Score:2)
"It harms US!"
The Serfs (Score:2)
Google says: The serfs must not have knowledge.
Google says: The serfs must not have power.
Google says: The serfs must not have independent thought.
Google says: The serfs must keep the money flowing to us.
Show It! (Score:3)
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Heh, I've also now posted the video to X, and finally started uploading the rest of my back-catalog to Floatplane (I get it, subscriptions are evil and all that... that's why I also posted it to Internet Archive).
I want to make sure all the content I create is always available freely through some conduit. If I can earn a living through it, that's a bonus. And I'd like to keep it that way—but if the worst comes, and my channels are deleted, I'll still make sure to get the videos somewhere else people c
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Keep fighting the good fight! And thanks for all your high-quality content!
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I considered uploading to X but discovered that unless you pay them a monthly stipend, you can only upload very short vids (90 seconds I think).
So, if you do start paying them and upload longer vids, what happens if you stop your payment either voluntarily or perhaps because you die? Will your longer vids suddenly disappear?
None of the alternative platforms offer any kind of guarantee of continued service... hence people are far better off to self-host and federate if they are in a position to do so.
Youtube (Google) has problems (Score:3)
I visit many of the tech channels, including Geerling's, and would often leave replies in the comment section helping others with tech issues. About a year or so ago many of my replies were suddenly disappearing with no explanation. Reposting them would again result in the same thing. I finally got so frustrated I just stopped replying. It would appear the dissemination of technical information is becoming forbidden on Youtube. Best to use it now for enjoying cat videos.
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I visit many of the tech channels, including Geerling's, and would often leave replies in the comment section helping others with tech issues. About a year or so ago many of my replies were suddenly disappearing with no explanation. Reposting them would again result in the same thing. I finally got so frustrated I just stopped replying. It would appear the dissemination of technical information is becoming forbidden on Youtube. Best to use it now for enjoying cat videos.
Wow! If that's true then YT is even more dystopian than I realized!
This may be a good time to quote Random361 from elsewhere in these comments: "... when you monopolize a sector of the economy to the point that you become the town square, you should be regulated on the same grounds". YouTube has in effect created a town square, and they shouldn't be legally allowed to muzzle you in that way.
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I read a comment a while back, I believe it was here on Slashdot, that someone pointed out the same thing happening to them. Their solution was to complain to Youtube and threaten legal action and the censoring of their posts stopped. But, I have no idea how to even begin that process.
AI at wrok? (Score:2)