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Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 9: Name Your Poison



Series parts:

  1. New Series: Why People Everywhere Should Quit YouTube
  2. YouTube's New Management: Time's Up, Start Paying and Watch Ads, Don't Use Free Software
  3. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 3: Google Exploits Creators, It'll Get Even Worse
  4. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 4: Financial Crunch Time
  5. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 5: The Real Enemy Has Become Sanity of Users
  6. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 6: The 'Audiences' as the Enemies of YouTube
  7. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 7: The 'Creators' as the Enemies of YouTube
  8. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 8: YouTube, Google, and Alphabet as the West's Political Opportunists and Enemies of Public Health
  9. YOU ARE HERE ☞ Name Your Poison


Summary Poisonous video hosting (and sharing) platforms need to be avoided; YouTube is fast becoming one of the least desirable options, for reasons covered thus far in this week-long series

MY INTENTION with this part is to give a short summary and outline, then offer some personal conclusions, reinforced by more recent events. The parts above stand on their own and are suitably partitioned based on themes or issues.

The previous part cautioned that YouTube is becoming another Fentanylware (TikTok) -- albeit one controlled primarily by the US. Like Twitter back in the days, YouTube had humble beginnings, but it is becoming more sinister over time. The malignant effect is due to technical changes, legal/policy changes, and the underlying content.

Over a decade ago I used to upload 'backup' copies of videos from Techrights, putting most of them in YouTube just in case someone may want them there or find them there. I stopped doing that about a decade ago.

YouTube isn't the same anymore and recent management shuffles mean we should expect the worst to be ahead, not behind.

Last night an associate of ours joked about stuff like Fentanylware (TikTok), a digital weapon built, maintained, and operated by Bytedance, which is not a social control media company but a surveillance giant:

regarding phones in schools: 1) should kids be allowed to bring weapons to school? 2) should kids be allowed to bring unusual weapons to school? 3) should kids be allowed to bring small weapons to school? 4) what if the weapon fits on a phone?


That sums up a growing problem. As we showed yesterday, based on news from the same day, those "apps" are commendeering young people like a flock of zombies. This isn't something "natural". It's not an inevitability either.

Prior to yesterday we covered the downsides of using YouTube, either as a mere spectator (watching videos, maybe commenting on some) or a "creator" (someone who uploads videos). There are plenty of downsides, more than most people care to acknowledge, and over time that list of downsides gets longer and longer.

The conclusion is that people need to take control of their platform. Stop outsourcing. It may seem 'cheap', but you always pay a lot later. There's that old saying, "there's no free lunch". Remember that any time you watch a YouTube video 'for free' (you are the product or the target) or any time you upload a video 'for free'. Google and by extension the US government (i.e corporations) will control you and boss you. That's not freedom, it's serfdom.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day