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submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

I've been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I'm logged in via SmartTube account.

So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.

Sorry Google... I'm not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.

EDIT: Rather than removed about it, I did something and made Smarttube work without a google account. If that floats your boat, have at it. It supports direct import of your saved playlists via Google Takeout ZIP file, subscriptions etc without needing a youtube account.

Also, remember the excellent TubeArchivist exists if you want even more control.

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[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 57 points 4 days ago
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[-] Carl@anarchist.nexus 78 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I’m pretty sure my original Google account is over 18 years old. How is that not considered proof of age?

Because its never been about proving ones age.

[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 47 points 5 days ago

Always a bit amusing of steam sometimes still requiring me to enter my birthday on some store pages, when my steam account is 23 years old

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 18 points 5 days ago

Ditto. And, apparently, no.

[-] mp3@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago

Yeah that part is bullshit..

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[-] LordCrom@lemmy.world 48 points 4 days ago

Use a VPN with an exit node in Albania. Youtube cannot force a signin or ads due to Albanian laws.

I use it daily. Try it. It works

[-] Sylence@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 days ago

I did this one day just because Albania was the first country that showed up alphabetically after the exit node in my home country started requiring age verification in many places. Always thought it was dumb luck, not because of anything specific about Albania, TIL. Based 🇦🇱

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[-] topperharlie@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

Everyone here shitting on YouTube, but the AU government is to blame here really. I'm really scared that we are next on this stupid privacy killing trend (we -> Europe). Without privacy there is no democracy.

I wish some hacker activitist would make their life goal to dox the christofascist associations' members and supporting politicians. And publish every fucking detail of them, so they would get to know what risks they are exposing people to on their own skin.

[-] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 92 points 5 days ago

About a year ago I bypassed YouTube's facial recognition by using a YouTube video and just taking a photo of that. So many big youtubers just talk directly to the camera and that made it pretty easy

[-] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 39 points 5 days ago

I was just thinking about using a picture or a video found online. Nice to know it works.

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 53 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I imagine it works "for now". I can see this becoming "verified govt id only" soon enough. There's precedent for that IIRC

[-] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 34 points 5 days ago

When that happens, it’s going to be a great day to de-google permanently.

[-] randomuser38529@lemmy.world 28 points 5 days ago

There no time like the present

[-] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 24 points 5 days ago

Best time was 15 years ago, second best time is now.

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[-] 1984@lemmy.today 50 points 5 days ago

Yes let's send our id cards to an american big tech corporation, what could possibly go wrong there.

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[-] Zerush@lemmy.ml 40 points 5 days ago
[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 days ago

Do be careful about TubeArchivist. If you just go to town on it, there's a good chance they'll just block your IP. I don't get why some get blocked and others don't. The cell phone tower at my kids school has been blocked, you have to log in when coming from that ip, Waiting outside to pick him up, I have to can and bring my own content :)

[-] leadore@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

That happens to me when I use FreeTube. After a few videos, I get an error that my IP address has been blocked.

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago

The blocked my IP some time ago after a binge of yt-dlp. I unplugged my fiber ONT over the weekend and got a new ip, i've been more careful with that one :)

[-] leadore@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I've rebooted my modem to get a new IP, though I have to wait a while before restarting or I'd get the same one. Usually if I just wait a while (a few hours?), YT unblocks me again. But it's irritating.

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[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

How many gigabytes was the binge, out if curiosity? I'm trying to figure out what the download threshold is.

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[-] dropdrip@lemmy.ml 39 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

A static image doesn't bypass this. Vendors want a real-time selfie--access to a internet-connected camera responding to prompts in real-time, such as "turn your head to the right," or "open and close your mouth". It would be trivial on a libre-system to send it a simulated-feed of a puppet-ed prop in such a way that would be indistinguishable from a real human head--if you had capable hardware. This is what intelligence agencies do now, but it's possible on high-end consumer hardware too. For the modest computer user it would be viable to feed it a simplified--but still meeting the criteria of a "face" as deemed by the computer--puppet, akin to what vtubers use. That's on a libre-system. A system that obeys the user and that can not be tolerated, because users lie.

They give you a QR code to scan with a mobile-computer, because mobile-computers are the least free of all computers. The majority of mobile-computers are Google's Android mobile-computer. Google redirects you to a computer that is entirely controlled by... Google. Surprise!

The boot-licking continues. This isn't something forced on Google by authoritarian, nanny-state governments. This is Google's will. Google is an authoritarian corporation that profits via surveillance-capitalism. Keep licking their boots and defending them. How dumb can you be?

Google wants to verify your ID.

Google redirects you to a Google Android slave-computer via a QR code, precisely because there's too much freedom on traditional desktop-computers and outputs can be trivially simulated.

Oh, poor Google for...

...what? Collecting even more data about internet users? This is their bread and butter: surveillance-capitalism.

The unique thing about the Australian-context is that the liberal party began a project: to create a facial-recognition system that would underpin a virtual market of "identity providers". From my perspective this is fraud, because underneath each identity provider was this governmental-department that would send a "yes" or "no" in response to a query: does this face belong to Johe Bloe. Their system doesn't even deserve a critique because it's from the party of blatant grifters and looters, but it's now what we have and things don't just disappear, especially when it's a system that's been in the works for decades and with bipartisan 'support'.

Google is an upstanding corporate-citizen providing identity services in a free-market. It's just capitalism, folks.

Like usual the morons will loudly blame Labor when the fruits of the liberal party turn rotten. The wider, global context is rising fascism which creates an environment where obeying remote prompts to wiggle your tongue and open and close your mouth is deemed 'expected' behaviour when all you want to do is watch cat videos on the internet.

Liberate your computers. Hack your mobile-computers and send dummie feeds. It only gets harder from here on. Push back now. It's rather easy too: don't use Google. Actively avoid it.

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[-] Zensate@lemmy.world 38 points 5 days ago

I love when I get that final push to leave a garbage service behind.

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[-] SpaceCrystal@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 days ago

People just need to stop using American Big Tech bullshit & go with better alternatives.

[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 24 points 4 days ago

"People" unfortunately are still captured by existing systems. As much as I like Curiosity, Odysee, PeerTube etc if the content is locked into Youtube, then we need to build bridges, not walls.

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[-] bedwyr@piefed.ca 11 points 4 days ago

I just went through this with ebay. No. Fuck you.

[-] Kintarian@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

What’s to stop a kid from grabbing his dad’s credit card to sign in?

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[-] myyass@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago
[-] SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone 7 points 4 days ago

I...don't know who that is. Should I be insulted, bemused or .... scaroused?

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[-] muhyb@programming.dev 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Here it's not that bad but it started to ask me to prove I'm not a bot by signing-in. Usually it was passable by when the IP changes by retstarting the modem but it's not for a couple days now.

Edit: This means embedded videos are not public anymore. They finally did it. Great news for many sites! /s

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[-] fatur0000new@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 days ago

choose how to verify your age

use your credit card

huh? why credit card?

[-] minty@aussie.zone 14 points 5 days ago

You can only get a credit card if your 18+, and therefore proves your age. A debit card does not do this since a minor can have a debit card

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[-] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 5 days ago

What happens when you send a selfie of Jeffrey Epstein?

[-] iByteABit@lemmy.ml 16 points 5 days ago

Depends, does the camera point at him or the kids on his lap

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[-] Fleppensteijn@feddit.nl 16 points 5 days ago

So we got to torrent our YouTube videos soon? EU is pushing for this too

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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2026
658 points (98.8% liked)

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