Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
I used to like Odysee until I saw them clearly promote conspiracy theories and far-right, almost Nazi rhetoric on the homepage.
Guys, just because the backbone of your site is decentralized doesn’t mean your centralized frontend can’t be modified by you.
They never even made a single attempt to help others develop alternative frontends too, so the decentralization there was more akin to decentralization theater.
Unfortunately that’s one of the problems with a lot of alternative platforms.
As if Youtube didn’t promote conspiracy theories and almost Nazi rhetorics that serve the country it’s based in. They do, which they don’t call as such. Everything else they’ll call conspiracy theories and propaganda.
I have no idea why you’re being downvoted since you’re 100% correct. I watch one video about gaming and YouTube’s recommendations are all alt-right anti-feminist stuff with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.
Google surely knows enough about me to know I lean far-left but the algorithm is determined to feed me that slop.
I have no idea from a technical perspective if Odysee’s algorithm is independent from or worse than YouTube’s, but the criticism of YouTube is completely valid.
I have watched super progressive content on Youtube but also watched conservative content as well. It’s possible there are a lot of progressives who also watch content from the other side so the algorithm pushes it.
They’re being downvoted because one platform being shitty doesn’t excuse another from it.
See: Tu Quoque
I didn’t read the argument as saying one platform’s behavior excuses the other. I saw it as saying that both are bad.
It certainly doesn’t come across as a defense of either platform to say they’re both infested by Nazis.
So that makes odysee’s behaviour OK?
Nothing. But mentioning it, don’t forget to mention Youtube as well.
The difference between Odysee and YouTube is that YouTube doesn’t claim to be a free speech platform that allows any possible statements on, and does often take down a lot of the harmful content. You only see the remainder, not the whole.
Odysee is quite small, and as such, could relatively easily moderate much more of the content on its platform, if they actually cared about doing so.
Odysee explicitly tries to allow as much speech as possible, claiming that they totally won’t allow any bad content, while in reality, platforming LGBTQ+ misinformation, white nationalist rhetoric, anti-immigrant propaganda, etc.
All of those violate their Community Guidelines, by the way. But remember, it’s guidelines, not actual policy as to what they remove.
Guys, just because the backbone of your site is decentralized doesn’t mean your centralized frontend can’t be modified by you.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Did you mean can be modified? Or what does this have to do with Nazi rhetoric? Maybe you have a different idea about the word “frontend”?
Sorry if my wording was unclear, let me rephrase.
Odysee is the platform, the site, the frontend, and the company. LBRY was the backend, the blockchain-based system that actually stored the videos themselves.
Odysee was the main interface to interact with the videos stored on LBRY, to essentially act like YouTube, but the videos were technically available to anyone.
Odysee then used the justification that the backend was decentralized to say that they had to remain entirely neutral to any content on Odysee, because a decentralized system inherently cannot have its content censored by one party.
This ignored the fact that they could choose to modify which videos their frontend would show to users. They acted as if this was not possible, even though it was.
Thus, a decent YouTube alternative with some good creators on it refused to censor any nazi content that started making its way there because YouTube rightfully deplatformed its supporters, and let it infect the platform without doing anything to stop it, pretending as if they had no choice, while in reality, it just brought them more revenue.
It’s a shame because the thing that kills alternative platforms is getting flooded with racists to the point that they drive everyone else out.
A lot of “free speech” platforms box themselves into a corner by declaring themselves “free speech” platforms while intending that to mean they won’t ban users for mild wrongthink, but then white supremacists show up, and if they get banned then they start causing a massive shitstorm over the fact that the platform isn’t truly supporting free speech. Then they drive out all the normal people who don’t want to be associated with them and the platform is forced to shutdown.
Then you have morons like Tim Pool who will endlessly attack “free speech” platforms if they ban white supremacists.
Focused on “free speech”?
When I see that used multiple times by a platform operator it invariably means they’re right-wing wingnuts and/or the platform will devolve into right wing drivel while silencing dissent.
Yup. And on descriptive grounds, the whole thing falls into a false dichotomy: treating free speech as an all-or-nothing matter, instead treating freedom of speech as a scale. And that giving someone complete freedom of speech always means restricting the freedom of speech of someone else.
(I typically exemplify this through a guy with a megaphone in an offline plaza. Telling him to drop off the megaphone reduces his ability to reach willing listeners, thus his freedom of speech; but if you leave him alone nobody else can be heard, so their freedom of speech is lowered.)
Thank you, you put it better than I could. It’s not binary, it’s not all or nothing. You can have some freedom of speech and yet still not really have freedom of speech if you’re silenced by those who disagree.
Yes, your megaphone example is a special case of the paradox of tolerance. In this instance, tolerance of loud voices means quiet voices are drowned out.
It’s related - Popper’s paradox highlights that you can’t compromise with some people, while my focus is that you need to impose some limits.
It’s easy to tweak the example though, to be more like the paradox - if the megaphone guy is telling people to kick off the plaza some people, or saying stuff to make them leave.
Yes, or if multiple people get into a megaphone arms race and are all noise blasting each other so hard that no one can hear anything anymore.
The only way free speech can survive is with decentralized platforms like email and lemmy. Any time there is central control free speech isn’t.
You think Lemmy has free speech? Some major mods here are quite liberal in controlling exactly what speech and ideas they allow their uses to be exposed to, and that is how it will always be by those desiring power over others.
Yes, Lemmy is 100% free speech.
We can make lemmy.spacepope.org and nobody can silence us. It doesn’t prevent other instances from refusing to listen to the truth of space, but those who want to participate can.
eyeroll
This isn’t even a true statement. Mods are human and can silence views they don’t like.
Go post some progressive and democratic views or criticize authoritarian support over on the grad.ml side. See how long it is before you’re shut down, blocked or even banned. There’s no free speech rule just because the platform is decentralized.
The only mitigating factors are that you can have a platform for opposing views, but even that isn’t a guarantee here because the instance can be defederated and effectively silenced.
It’s free speech in a federated environment because someone can’t remove your voice.
It doesn’t obligate anyone to listen to you. So federated instances having opinions about who they talk to doesn’t contradict free speech.
People who want to talk about The Second Coming of the Space Pope are free to do so and don’t require any third party to let them do so.
Not familiar with Odysse, how’s they’re content moderation? We don’t need another fascist platform.
I started digging into Odyssey some time ago when I found electro boom and big Clive were posting there. Immediately there was a lot of trash, like mostly trash. I went ahead and created an account where I could actually block content makers. I started off just blocking the wheel offensive ones anyone spouting libtards and woke. Moved into blocking clinate deniers and anti-vaxs, flat earthers. I just sit there and block 40 or 50 every time I logged in. Slowly, the content became less offensive overall. But you start running into the problem where they’re all just videos from the same 30 preppers showing you how to make eggs in a $5,000 freeze dryer. I eventually started blocking the annoying and repetitive stuff. I haven’t checked recently, but in its heyday the content just wasn’t there even if you got rid of all the other crap you didn’t want to see
You had me at the ability to block content creators. The fact that YouTube doesn’t have this is insane.
YouTube has a “Don’t recommend this channel” option. Which, as far as I can tell, does actually get them to stop recommending the channel on the main recommended feed. If you’re subscribed they’ll still show up in your subscriptions and will still show up in search if you look for them (to the extent that anything relevant shows up in search).
The option isn’t prominent, it’s in the “3-dot” menu next to a video on the recommended feed and I’ve been unable to find a way to view or manage the list of blocked channels, but it’s there.
Edit: a word - “able” to “unable”
how’s they’re content moderation
go there, you’ll se it immediately… loads of maga terrorist garbage
ngl i should also post my yt videos on peertube and odysee
ngl you should 😂
I don’t know if PeerTube has the option, but with Odysee, there’s an option to automatically sync your existing YouTube channel with Odysee. It will bring over the video, the description, and will be uploaded in full quality; the comment section will be separate though, so the comments on Odysee are by Odysee users themselves.
ok that is life saving peertube its hard finding a server
I was a big fan of odysee but once LBRY lost to the SEC I figured it would die or change horribly. Im not sure who owns odysee now, how hosting works on it now that LBRY has been dissolved, or whos mining rigs are running the decentralized lbry blockchain that still presumably powers odysee. I need to know the details in clear detail before I trust it again on a technical level. I am more skeptical of crypto now and think a paid patreon membership peertube instance may be the best way to go. Peertubes biggest issue is scaling hosting cost as it gets bigger and donations can’t keep up as well as lifetime of an instance. If I host my videos on your site and a year later it goes dark or they were deleted because the server maintainer just didn’t want them taking up space, thats kind fustrating.
r they were deleted because the server maintainer just didn’t want them taking up space, thats kind frustrating.
Yeah, the onus is on us to keep the backups and perhaps reseed if necessary. The whole part where Youtube is a massive free unlimited hosting library is not sustainable eventually. Crypto has always been a grift with a variable lifespan, it just funds the services while it’s in it’s bubble.
Odysee was owned by LBRY before the LBRY company was dissolved. They were founded by the same team of people who created the LBRY company, and the LBRY network/protocol (the decentralised part), but are not themselves the same company. So the LBRY company going away was never going to dissolve Odysee also, which is why they still exist today. LBRY (the company) dissolving did not affect the content on Odysee because the LBRY network/protocol itself is open-source and decentralised; and LBRY being sued and dying does not somehow make the LBRY network/protocol illegal for Odysee (or anyone) to use. If Odysee had gone away, anyone else could have jumped in and made a new replacement frontend for the LBRY network/protocol (Odysee is a frontend for LBRY, after all).
About a month ago, Odysee announced that they would be moving away from the LBRY network over to the Arweave network. Now, I’m not sure when they are going to do this, but it appears that at the minute they are still using the LBRY network/protocol for content uploads. The reason I think they are still using LBRY at this very minute, is that when I uploaded a video to my Odysee channel yesterday, I noticed in my personal uploads page that it was still using the lbry:// at the beginning of it’s address on the network.
I stopped looking into Odysee after I heard LBRY was shutting down. There doesn’t seem to be much transparency on what the future of the site is. Also echoing the concern that some have already raised, the complete lack of moderation is a double edged sword that seems to have fostered a home for right-wing extremists.
There is moderation, the ability to report content and comments, and community guidelines. Odysee having a complete lack of moderation is a myth, and I have personally had content removed by moderators before by reporting it.
Sure looks full of MAGA garbage. Conceptually it’s a good idea, but I’ll be passing since I don’t need that trash in my life.
Internet is full of MAGA garbage. Bittorrent DHT is full of MAGA garbage. What’s your point? There are ways to filter out what you don’t want to see.
If you can’t see the point, then I cannot help you.
The point of course is that if you don’t want to see it, you refuse to use any platform that allows others to see it. Which must make it awfully hard to use the internet. Surprised you manage to even use Lemmy.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance. I was also alive well before the MAGA weirdos decided to spread their fascist Nazi propaganda all over the place. There was once a world war about that – and they lost. I guess they don’t like being losers.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it. Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
Free speech is protection from government oppression. Last I checked, I’m not the government, neither is Lemmy, neither is any other site on the internet that doesn’t end in .gov (typically), and this isn’t a free speech issue despite what MAGA idiots would have people think. If the platform wants that shit there, so be it, and I won’t use it when it’s painted on their front page. I use Lemmy because I was here (on another instance originally) before the MAGA weirdos decided to join to spread their bullshit, so I’ve had time to curate – apparently I have to do it again, or simply leave this instance.
This appears to be an argument against a position I wasn’t taking. You just appear to be upset that alternative video streaming sites don’t ban people you disagree with. Good luck with that.
Just because I use the internet (which I have been doing since only a few years after the WWW was invented), doesn’t mean I have to tolerate bullshit when I see it.
Hey, you may been around longer than I have. Only had the internet since the mid 90s. So it depends on how you define “a few”. It was a very different beast back then, and I for one miss the relative lack of concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness.
Perhaps if everyone was like this, the internet wouldn’t be the shithole it has become.
I chalk that up to said concentrated corporate control and mandatory advertiser-friendliness, but then I don’t think it’s become a shithole because people I disagree with also have a voice, but because of aggressive monetization and the enshittification that that inevitably entails.
And I’m done responding now, because clearly you and many others in this thread will never understand, or even care to understand.
No, you are well understood. You are opposed to alternative video platforms (and apparently some other unnamed Lemmy instance) because those things do not necessarily reinforce your echo chamber, and you consider that reinforcement a vital feature. I’m waaay over on the far end of the spectrum, and chose my instance specifically because they do not defederate, they keep everything available and leave it up to the user to decide what they do or do not wish to see (and I to date have nothing blocked - no users, no communities, no servers).
Most such attempts fail when not enough people subscribe to paying tiers. Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
Good luck to them nevertheless, I hope they succeed.
Personally, I hope the platform that welcomes Nazis crashes and burns.
Freedom goes both ways. I hate nazis, but it’s better to have their bullshit out in the open to be criticized, than have them group up on shady underground places that would only make it worse.
Absolutely fucking not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The Nazis already put their ideas out on the open, and we saw what happened.
The opposite is “the illusion of safety because of moderated platforms”. One might think a platform that removes fake news would only have real news, but that’s obviously not the case and creates an even worse landscape.
Just because moderating platforms to eliminate Nazis only drives them to build their own spaces doesn’t make deplatforming them the wrong move. I prefer them existing in the fringes rather than being accepted into the mainstream.
Tolerance for Nazis is only possible if you are ignorant of history, or if you are actively evil. “Stupid or Evil?” Isn’t a great place to exist, but I have to conclude one way or the other every time I run into this “why don’t we just hear the Nazis out?” narrative…
We know enough about Nazis already to tell them to go fuck themselves before they even open their mouths. Giving them a voice is an act of violence.
You’re doing the same as what others are trying to do to any open platform. You’re claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out. And as long as you believe that is the same, I’d rather not waste time discussing this.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely. If a platform is too heavily moderated and hides stuff like this, not only does it create the illusion that it does not exist, it also sets a precedent for abuse by the platform owners. The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
Filter bubbles are a very new concept and are much worse than coming across people spreading hatred and being able to tell them to suck it.
claiming that me trying to defend absolute freedom of speech is the same as me asking why we don’t hear them out.
On privately operated online social spaces, that’s exactly what you’re asking.
Absolute freedom of speech goes both ways, indefinitely.
That’s why free speech absolutism is a stupid idea that doesn’t make sense.
The biggest example at the moment is how Musk uses X to suppress arguments that don’t fit his narrative.
You think the biggest threat to free speech is Elon Musk moderating Twitter like an idiot? You and I are clearly not worried about the same things in regards to suppression of speech…
I agree with you but so few people think so today. They think censorship is the answer because if they don’t see it, they feel better and can forget it exists.
Freedom of speech also means noone is obligated to listen to bullshit.
Reading your comments is Nazis Nazis Nazis. I think you need some help.
Alright snowflake
Let the hate flow through you.
If anyone does want to support them, even by a small amount, and don’t have much money, I personally recommend subscribing for a month or two to the Premium+ subsciption, which is only $2.99/month. It’s all I can afford atm personally, so that’s what I’m going to be doing. They deserve support just for this action alone.
I don’t understand how that’s much different than YouTube. If you pay for YouTube then you don’t get ads either.
The point of the post is that Odysee no longer has ads. I’m not trying to say you needed the subscription to remove ads. That’s how it was previously, until today. Free users don’t see ads anymore.
The difference between YouTube Premium and Odysee Premium is mainly in it’s reason for existing. YouTube Premium exists for the sole purpose of providing features that used to be free, with some extra things that most people don’t givea hoot about and never use; and, you know… to make themselves richer. It exists so that people buy it for the value it specifically brings them.
So essentially; people buy YouTube premium for the features, while people buy Odysee Premium to support the growth of the platform, help fund the platform, and support free speech. The extra features they get are just a little bonus as thanks. Not only that, but the features Odysee provides are “Early-Access” features, which means that most, if not all of those features will become available for free users eventually. At that point, I’m not sure what Odysee Premium will provide if all the features become free; they’ll have to figure something else out to give it more incentive. But as it currently stands, Odysee Premium is more like a donation than a service; which gives you extra features as thanks.
You’re reading obnoxious levels of goodwill into the actions of a company that doesn’t deserve it. This is just the video platform equivalent of “critical support to Russia.”
Honestly, after all the shit YouTube is pulling with their ad systems, I wouldn’t mind those old tiny banner strip ads that used to occasionally pop up at the bottom of a video. Compared to the current standard of 3 minutes of unskippable ads interrupting every other video, those little banners are downright unobtrusive.
Don’t forget that ads used to be context aware instead of user aware. Which was perfect for privacy.
focused on free speech
Is this like…an actual commitment to free speech, or is “freeze peach” I.e. the right claiming they are being silenced online with no evidence and demanding they never be held accountable for what they say?
Unfortunately, it’s probably the latter.
Executive Julian Chandra wrote to Odysee site moderators that “a Nazi that makes videos about the superiority of the white race” was not grounds for removal from Odysee.
They have actively defended far-right content, even videos that have openly called for genocide.
For balance, though, they haven’t purged left wing content like some “free speech” people do (not that there’s much of that there anyway)
Good luck to them
How do creators generate income? Is it just Patreon type stuff? YouTube is probably one of the few services I actually don’t hate using other than its terrible algorithm.
I’ve never cared to generate income on my own channel, so I’m not sure how all of it works. But the main way that I know of is through channel tips. There’s a ($ Support) button below every channel and content upload, which lets you directly tip the creator. You can use Patreon or anything else if you want to, but the functionality is built in. Odysee gets a 5% cut of all the tips sent to channels. There may be other ways of making money, but I’m not aware of what they might be.
Edit: Heres’s their help page about monetization: https://help.odysee.tv/category-monetization/
This is extremely helpful! Thank you for the insight.
Are they still using LBRY? Or did they switch to a different protocol?
They officially announced they were switching to the Arweave protocol in a post a little under a month ago, but I’m not sure if it’s happened yet; haven’t looked further into it yet, and it was revealed by other sources a little while prior to that.
I was curious what Arweave was, so I went to their site.
Turns out it’s yet another crypto scheme.
I thought this statement on their landing page was particularly funny:
The Arweave protocol is stable, mature and widely adopted.
It’s a blockchain system, but that doesn’t mean it’s related to cryptocurrencies in any way. Maybe it is, idk, but blockchain != cryptocurrencies, many cryptocurrencies use blockchains though because it’s useful for what they’re trying to do.
I am aware that blockchain is not the same thing as cryptocurrency.
And they do have a coin:
I think that Chandra has a point - media platforms do often devolve into ad companies, once they rely on advertisement money to survive. Because once someone is paying for a platform’s continued existence, they can dictate the terms, by simply threatening to stop paying for it.
And, granted, Odysee is a Nazi and crypto bro haven, but the point still stands - let us not be fools saying “Hitler ate bread so bread bad”, and ignore a message that also applies to environments that [correctly] tell the Nazi to fuck off.
Legitimately first time hearing about Odysee… Impressed, this could actual be a YouTube replacement.
I’m glad my reaching out has helped find people who’ve never heard of it. It’s got quite a lot of users, but has been growing very slowly in user-base the last few years, simply due to not enough people talking about it and allowing natural growth of the platform.
