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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:28:04 JST Aral Balkan

   Hey, maybe the good #Google folks at web.dev can write an article about how the #Firefox slow-down trick on YouTube works so other sites can implement it too.

   https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/17z8hsz/youtube_has_started_to_artificially_slow_down/

   #google #web #dev #firefox #antitrust #surveillanceCapitalism #siliconValley #assholes

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:43:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Evan Hahn

     @EvanHahn In the video the person has uBlock Origin active so I’m wondering if it’s ad-blocking detection code that is being run (perhaps only on non-Chrome browers, given Google will be blocking uBlock origin from working).

     But, yeah, beyond the screencast evidence it’s hard to tell since we don’t have algorithmic transparency. They could be serving different code by location, A/B testing ,etc., etc. I have no way of knowing I’ll get the same page the person recording the screencast did.

   • Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:43:44 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     @aral has anyone verified this? I'm curious to look through the code to see if there's an explanation or "smoking gun"...

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:45:23 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Evan Hahn

     @EvanHahn So all we can say is that at least for the person who was recording the screencast, changing just one variable (the user agent from Firefox to Chrome) removed the 5-second delay. So, we have at least one documented piece of evidence that YouTube behaved in this way.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:47:30 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • freediverx

     @freediverx No idea; see https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/111443169013720395

     (YouTube is closed source. They could be serving ten different versions of the same page based on ten different criteria for all we know. If we want to know for sure the entirety of what they’re doing we have to pass alogrithmic transaparency legislation that forces them to have their code audited.)

   • freediverx (freediverx@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 20-Nov-2023 22:47:31 JST freediverx

     in reply to

     @aral
     Are they not doing something similar with Safari? If not, is it because they can more easily circumvent privacy protections there vs. Firefox, or because of lower market share/perceived threat?

   • oatmeal (oatmeal@kolektiva.social)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Nov-2023 00:49:42 JST oatmeal

     in reply to

     @aral does it apply also when proxying via invidious? I never access YouTube directly.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Nov-2023 00:49:42 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • oatmeal

     @oatmeal More thoughts: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/111443169013720395

     Likely related to ad blocking and a happy side-effect (or at least plausible deniability). Who knows. Without algorithmic transparency we have no idea what YouTube serves to whom and based on which criteria. All we have is a screen recording that’s evidence that it happened in that one instance (as well as the anecdotal evidence of others chiming up saying they’re seeing the same behaviour).

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Nov-2023 23:03:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • settima

     @12pt9 Thanks for documenting your experience. Appreciate it + could be useful for regulators.

   • settima (12pt9@social.horrorhub.club)'s status on Tuesday, 21-Nov-2023 23:03:18 JST settima

     in reply to

     @aral I used Safari (with ad-blocker) yesterday for once to access YT and noticed the same. I use Sudeep Biswas' #Firefox add-on Alter and let any #YouTube link automatically filter through an #Invidious instance. No ads, everything loads quickly, no autoplay if not desired. I still need to test if that way music playlists can run uninterrupted.

     Oh, and I live in the EU.