this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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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.

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[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 123 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This kind of crap is driving popular creators, like Geerling, to move to other places. YT / Alphabet has lost the plot.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 45 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Yep. Most of my favorite creators are on Nebula now.

The ones that aren't get watched on SmartTube or in Brave Browser.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I love Nebula. I go there to watch Nebula Exclusives but it's not great for browsing or discovering new channels...I found everyone I subscribe to on YouTube first

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

I managed to find Extra History via Nebula, and it's one of my new favorite channels...but I've found a lot more favorites from YouTube, definitely.

One thing I do love is finding a new channel I like that has years of backlog.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Hypocritical Lemmy.... Preaching (F) OSS and then using Brave.... LoL!

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[–] brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 1 points 13 minutes ago

Nebula

Closed source, centralized and not even free...

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 88 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Sue YouTube. They won't change meaningfully until forced to.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 76 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sue for defamation that Youtube are alleging he is promoting criminal activity of piracy.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean maybe if YT said that? The only thing they said is that it's "harmful" somehow. And they won't elaborate anymore than that.

[–] sorghum@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If harmful isn't defined in the ToS, then the Merriam Webster definition will likely be construed to mean to be harmful to YouTube's business or to users. Although YouTube has been selective in this enforcement, ie not banning all videos pertaining to martial arts or fighting clips, drug use, or ad block tutorials.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That just answers a question that no one is asking. This is not an issue of defining words, it's an issue of what the words are referring to, exactly.

[–] sorghum@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Exactly, I haven't read the ToS to see if it is defined or references anything in there. I usually default to the standard definition of a word unless explicitly stated otherwise. For example, Sony changed the definition of purchase to remove any notion of ownership when buying content on their streaming platform.

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[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Like google, I'm sure Jeff has a near unlimited supply of money to pay lawyers.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But being a pushover is not the answer, so...

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago

It absolutely is on an individual level in a system where capital decides who writes the laws and who gets justice. The way you push back is by organizing as a class or at least a group.

[–] entwine413@lemm.ee 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Neither is throwing money away on a lawsuit with no chance of success.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 61 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

“how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content.”

In the future, public domain media will be banned for harming corporate profits.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah, people who thought Google wasn't openly strangling the free (as in libre) stuff because they weren't that evil - these people just have bad memory. In year 2012 it clearly felt that corps, Google and Facebook and MS and Apple and everyone, are on the move to capture it all without a way out. They kinda made the illusion of being softer later.

So the question is - how do we even advertise legal but unpleasant for them things, avoiding their censorship.

The devices are sold together with the operating system (often unchangeable) and packaged applications and means of installing software, right from the markets.

I mean, I have a solution. It's counterintuitive and seems unconnected, and too direct, but I guarantee you it'll work.

Forbidding companies to do moderation or refuse to accept content without technical problems, or banned content (CP and such), and similar good justifications. As in - if your service is up, and there's user content served from it, it shouldn't be removed without legal substantiation. It doesn't matter it's free, that doesn't mean you can do all you like. You are not a media outlet, you are a platform for many media, that's how you work in fact, so yes, your actions do constitute censorship if you do moderation. If you can't afford to keep it free with such rules, then start charging money for hosting, as it normally should have been.

And, of course, this should include public offering status, the prices should be the same for all users.

I mean, if we had this from the beginning, we'd probably still have the Web like in year 2003.

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 44 points 1 day ago

They are so pissed that we dare own anything. Fuck corpos.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 25 points 23 hours ago

Google should have been broken up years ago.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe stop relying on fucking youtube?

[–] Zwrt@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 hours ago

Are you suggesting that a guide on how to leave youtube should be elsewhere?

Thats like requiring to pass an exam to get access to the textbook.

[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Perhaps this can a driver of sorts for Peertube.

It's a good thing that I can't stand video tutorials or reviews (with the exception of video games).

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

I think so. A relatively small subset of the video upload firehose at YouTube who produce rewatchable content is going to require a lot less resources to provide than doing a free-for-all upload-anything video. This might actually be feasible.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 12 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

People are quick to burn Youtube here when its clearly the american copyright reach that causes this.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 22 points 16 hours ago

YouTube took down the video because of its own policies, not because of copyright law. So we should be blaming YouTube.

I think it's easy to see exactly why if you consider how YouTube treats small content creators. If I post a video and companies claim copyright on it, the video gets demonetized and I might lose my account. I can respond and contest the claim and maybe I can win but I still lost money in the meantime, and perhaps more significantly, the companies that made their copyright claims will never face a consequence for attempting to burn my channel. In other words, if I get things wrong a few times I'll lose my channel and my income source, but if they get things wrong a million times, they face zero consequence.

And you might be inclined to blame the media companies. But again, this is YouTube doing what YouTube wants to do of its own volition, and not something that's required by law. If YouTube valued small-scale content creators and end users, it would create different policies.

[–] Hack3900@lemy.lol 4 points 16 hours ago

I think it's both, a dumb system enforced in a somehow dumber way

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[–] nibbler@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

you say in the video that you use this setup to watch YouTube. I love watching YouTube with Kodi as it shows no ads. I guess they don't love that.

I'm not saying that justifies the strike, but it might be connected

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[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Was it YouTube or someone else that reported him? I think YouTube is fully automated so it blocked him and is ignoring appeal because of the previous complaint.

[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Because self hosting is getting cheaper and easier while average internet upload speeds are crazy high for the home user. Of course Google is scared.

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[–] oz1sej@feddit.dk 8 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

The video is up again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hFas54xFtg

But at some point, he shows he's moving some files to LibreELEC, and he has a folder called "Chernobyl" - how can that possibly be legal, if the folder actually contains files with the HBO show of the same name? Just asking because I'm curious 😊

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 14 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)

It was released on DVD and Blu-ray, if he purchased the disc and ripped it to his media, and hasn't shared those files with anyone, then it is legal, as an exception to copyright in the US, where Jeff and Google are both based.

Jeff has stated on multiple occasions that he purchases and rips his media, and does not use piracy.

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Also like… you can legally just name your file wtf ever you want, I can make a folder full of pics of my dogs “Chernobyl” it’s not illegal to use a word to name a file

[–] oz1sej@feddit.dk 3 points 11 hours ago

Ah - didn't know it had been released on physical media.

[–] Mio@feddit.nu 9 points 13 hours ago

You don't know the exact content of the files. He did not show those vidoeclips. I dont know if you can buy that or not. Sure it can be indication but in general you dont know as it varies between video to video if it is possible to buy.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I think ripping DVDs is still technically illegal, even though CSS has long since been broken. It is still illegal to circumvent encryption in a copy protection scheme, even if it's for your own personal use and the encryption scheme has been pwned.

I bet if he didn't mention that his videos were ripped from DVD, they might have left it up.

[–] Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 22 hours ago

And beyond the law it depends also on enforcement

The US doesn't give a right to break Bluray copy protection and make a personal backup or access it on a device that otherwise couldn't play it. But the only enforcement is on people sharing copies, no one is prosecuted for format shifting their collection to play over their LAN

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 4 points 11 hours ago

JG can also be found on Floatplane.

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