[HN Gopher] PeerTube: Free software to take back control of your... ___________________________________________________________________ PeerTube: Free software to take back control of your videos Author : pmoriarty Score : 177 points Date : 2022-02-23 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (joinpeertube.org) (TXT) w3m dump (joinpeertube.org) | ziml77 wrote: | If a video is unpopular, can it just disappear like a torrent | that loses seeders? Or is there some mechanism to incentivize | peers to hold on to videos that get like one view a month? | Animats wrote: | I've wondered about that. I put a video on PeerTube a few | months ago.[1] It's a rendering test, of interest only to some | people I'm working with. I'm curious to see how long it stays | around and whether enough bandwidth is provided for streaming. | So far, it's still up, despite very few views. | | [1] https://video.hardlimit.com/w/qBGD9LF8Ua3T7gLPCkE6vw | HidyBush wrote: | No, if an instance publishes a video it means that it has to | host it as a webseed. The torrent mechanism kicks in only when | the video is being accessed by multiple people at the same time | mdoms wrote: | I have tried to use PeerTube a number of times (when it comes up | on HN, which it does very often). It is absolutely appalling in | both usability (confusing, ugly and borderline hostile design) | and technical (videos buffer constantly - this is table stakes | for hosting video) aspects. I understand the appeal for | uploaders, but I will never consider switching to PeerTube as a | viewer. I won't even click a link to a PeerTube video because I | know in advance it won't play properly. | flerp wrote: | Sounds like porn to me | fullshark wrote: | I was looking at this before and went to https://open.tube/ to | explore the content to see how the community looked. The front | page had a video of extreme violence on it and I never returned. | Looking now the front page is mostly political flamebait. | | A real community growing on the back of this technology will | require either YouTube screwing up royally or some sort of | grassroots effort based on micro payments to content creators (as | opposed to ads) I think. | older wrote: | https://tilvids.com/ is a better instance. | dymk wrote: | > The moral of the story is: if you're against witch-hunts, and | you promise to found your own little utopian community where | witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up | consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians | and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live | even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong. | | https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ... | loudtieblahblah wrote: | Which is why breaking away from the centralized web sucks. | | Rumble, voat, parler, gab, even as I feel like the left has | left me these days, these places still largely look like | dumpster fires to me. | | The centralized web is awful. Getting away from it is awful. | | I don't know what's worse - the endless corporate censorship | or the insanely explicit content, outright bigotry, and anti- | science quacks who fill up spaces rebelling against it. | | My ethics says the Corp censorship is far more problematic | (when taking in the big picture) , but as someone wanting to | participate in a free and constructive community it leaves | one with no where to go. | | Social media was a mistake. Allowing tech companies to become | as big as they are were too. | toyg wrote: | _> The centralized web is awful. Getting away from it is | awful._ | | That's just because a significant amount of _people_ are | awful. And now everyone is on the web, including the awful | ones. | | It's not social media, it's us. | ectopod wrote: | It's both. Social media provides a positive feedback loop | for awfulness. | mistermann wrote: | Maybe someone will eventually take this into | consideration in their design. | OrvalWintermute wrote: | I looked on Rumble to see the videos on the front page. | | Headline was: | | A Vivafrei video on Trudeau rescinding Emergency Orders Act | | Editors Picks were: | | Mudroom Remodel + Vacuum Charging | | Very old COFFE GRINDER restoration | | This Is Why They Did It, by Russell Brand | | Wife CHEATS, Wants CHILD SUPPORT For Illegitimate Daughter? | | In the News Section: Trudeau announces | end of Emergencies Act Shaffer: Biden | Telegraphing Ukraine Moves Trump: Biden's | America is getting bum-rushed Ukrainians | express support for state of emergency | | Viral Puppy gets super excited when it's | time to open presents Mother cat adorably hugs | & kisses her kitten Tired man & his puppies | fall asleep together for nap time Woman | hilariously struggles to fit balloons in her trunk | | Podcasts Freedom Fighters Forced Trudeau | to Revoke The Emergency Powers Act Pfizer | Withdraws Application for Covid-19 Vaccine in India | Stand For Freedom: Why one gym owner pushed back against | tyranny and now is running for Congress Saagar | Enjeti CAUGHT LYING About Russia & Ukraine On Breaking | Points The Dive With Jackson Hinkle | | So, apart from seeing a few folks that got cancelled like | Dan Bongino, looks like Vimeo or Youtube. Where are the | awful dumpter fires? | wvh wrote: | I think you summed it up quite well. At this moment, there | does not seem to be a space between the corporate you-are- | the-product mainstream and the weirdos with an agenda crowd | at the edges for a person to just be, speak and think in a | relatively free and neutral sense without ending up in some | ulterior trap. | dools wrote: | Aren't you having a discussion on just such a platform? | | Also what can't you say on, say, Twitter that you want to | say? | krapp wrote: | There _is_ no such space because there _can_ be no such | space. | | If you want a community without bad actors, bigots, | cranks, etc, then it has to have rules and moderation, | which means censorship. If you want free speech, you're | going to get the bigots, cranks and bad actors. | "Speak(ing) and think(ing) in a relatively free and | neutral sense without ending up in some ulterior trap" | requires curation and tone policing, which is censorship. | Otherwise, the bigots and the cranks are also free to | speak and think in the same way as everyone else, ruin | the community and drive everyone else away. | | You can't have your cake and eat it too, you have to pick | one. | mmastrac wrote: | History is littered with failures when competitors catering to | ejected parts of a community try to make it work. You can't | start a site based on the rejects. | tpoacher wrote: | Tell that to Australia | jka wrote: | Meanwhile, history also rewards communities who support and | listen to the underserved in order to improve collective | wellbeing. You can build a movement based on inclusion. | paxys wrote: | More accurately, if you start a site based on the rejects | then it will only contain the content and community that was | rejected in the first place. You can probably succeed if you | brand it specifically for that crowd, but don't expect anyone | else to switch. | seaman1921 wrote: | absolutely - most people are clueless how much goes around | keeping youtube free from abusers of all kind - its no joke | raro11 wrote: | I clicked and as you said, there is a lot of political video's | and violence but also a shit ton of pedo-talk. | | Added it to my pihole. And now I need some feelgood or else I | can't sleep tonight | Shared404 wrote: | > And now I need some feelgood or else I can't sleep tonight | | https://teddit.net/r/eyebleach :) | jeroenhd wrote: | The problem with these decentralised platforms is that the | first people to flock to them are the people who have been | deplatformed by major services. | | Some services try to capitalize on that (Gab, Trump's Twitter) | while others ignore the problem and end up destined to be | abandoned by normal people. | | Large parts of the Mastodon network are filled with porn and | alt-right accounts that got banned from Twitter. Youtube | alternatives are quickly filled with conspiracy theories and | other content even Youtube doesn't want its algorithm to push. | Hell, even centralised services have this problem; DailyMotion | is the last real Youtube alternative and these days it's mostly | pirated content, from what I can tell. | | Until some major content providers switch, which they won't, | because they'll lose their income, there won't be a transition | to free software. I fear the Fediverse came about 10 years too | late to be successful. | zaik wrote: | > Mastodon network are filled with porn and alt-right | accounts that got banned from Twitter | | I did not notice this at all, even looking at the federated | timeline. | porkloin wrote: | I really hope that activitypub and the federated web end up | becoming the technologies that "win" out of all the nonsense that | is "Web3", but the wildly successful monetization of traditional | web platforms and the "different-but-more" monetization of the | crypto-obsessed vision of Web3 are nearly impossible for | platforms like Peertube and Mastodon to effectively win out | against. | waffle_maniac wrote: | Having a stake in a protocol incentivizes adoption and rewards | network participation. | | The average person doesn't buy stocks. This is a way for them | to not be left behind by the elites. | gue-ni wrote: | This has nothing to do with Web3 | Jiejeing wrote: | Indeed, as it is an open solution and a working product. | littlestymaar wrote: | And actually "web". | indigochill wrote: | I suspect the blockchain nonsense (which I refuse to let have | the "Web3" title) will win out because there's so much | commercial incentive and if there's one thing we've seen from | the internet's history, it's that money and commercial interest | accelerates adoption even when maybe it shouldn't. | | I also think federation has the Google conditioning of the | mainstream working against it. The mainstream's been | conditioned to think of the internet in terms of global | platforms. Switching to interacting with smaller nodes is a | paradigm shift that I don't believe most users are willing to | make, especially given the benefits (like use of personal data | and human-scale moderation) don't seem to matter to the | majority given the apathy towards Facebook's and Google's | business practices. | | That said, much like gopher still exists in parallel with HTTP, | IMO it doesn't really matter which wins because the mainstream | using one is not mutually exclusive with some of us using the | other. | russdpale wrote: | I look through the listing of peers, and I don't see a single | instance which trustworthy enough to devote my time too. For | instance, checking the box "education" brings up a completely non | sensible list that provides no context in which to make a | judgement about the quality or character of the "tube". | | Also, this seems to have the same problem as mastodon, where I | have to create an account for each tube, no thanks. Clicking | "English" still brings up non english listings, furthering the | difficulty of using the app. | | Good idea, poor execution. | indigochill wrote: | > Also, this seems to have the same problem as mastodon, where | I have to create an account for each tube, no thanks. | | Creating an account per node is federation working as intended. | The idea is that this is then your identity across the network, | the same way that you create an email address with an email | provider that then lets you send email to users using other | email providers. Each node should then network with other nodes | to provide its users access to videos from nodes it trusts | (same as Mastodon does - you don't have to be on the same node | as a user you follow as long as your node networks with their | node). The trust model is centered around your trust of the | admin of a particular node, which brings a more human scale to | the tech (particularly as compared to something like YouTube). | | Federation is coming back into vogue particularly now as a | reaction to the Facebook/Google problem where a single entity | collects all the data about all users of the platform and can | unilaterally ban a user with no recourse. In a federated | network a node decides what other nodes it federates with and | so self-regulates. But email is an example of federated | technology everyone uses. | grumbel wrote: | > Creating an account per node is federation working as | intended. | | I call that broken by design. Having your identity tied to a | server means somebody else controls it. Email has the same | problem, if GMail changes the ways it handles emails and | makes a provider switch necessary, tough luck, you now have | to tell everybody that you are moving to a new sever and your | email/identity changed. | | Just using a GPG key to represent your identity or something | along those lines would be a much better way to handle it. | seanhunter wrote: | > Just using a GPG key to represent your identity or | something along those lines would be a much better way to | handle it. | | This is something the web3 world is moving towards a user- | friendly solution for[1]. A web3 wallet (something like | metamask which is a browser extension) actually holds a | public/private key pair. Websites can authenticate by | asking the user to "connect their wallet"[2] which actually | means signing a message which the site can validate. To do | this, the browser extension shows a popup showing the | relevant bits of the request with "Approve" and "Reject" | buttons. Once signed you are able to use the facilities of | whatever website even though you don't have any sort of | account. If at a later stage I want to revoke my approval I | can just do that in my wallet - I don't even need to go to | the site and there is of course no account to delete there. | You can easily maintain multiple distinct personas because | a wallet can contain multiple "accounts".[3] | | Something similar might presumably work for the fediverse. | No accounts just an identity service/API that allows sites | to get your public key and ask you to verify things by | signing with the private key. | | [1] I say moving towards because there are plenty of rough | edges, but the basic idea is pretty good and the UX is | already streets ahead of the normal GPG | verification/signing type workflows | | [2] There is an API called "walletConnect" and as long as | wallets and sites implement that, they are able to | interoperate fairly seamlessly (in theory). In practise it | doesn't always work that great. | https://docs.walletconnect.com/ | | [3] These are actually an address and a keypair. The | address is used to perform transactions on the blockchain | so wouldn't be relevant to the fediverse I wouldn't think. | nonbirithm wrote: | Another issue is that if you choose the wrong node and they | decide to shut down for some reason, you lose all your | content.[1] There has already been precedent for this.[2] | All it takes is being out of the loop for too long and | missing a message announcing a shutdown/migration to lose | your data. In practice this makes the largest nodes the | most appealing for registering an account since their | popularity gives you the highest chance of your data living | on, which defeats the point of decentralization. | | Also, if you're Twitter, you can afford lawyers and | moderators to clean up illicit content. If you're operating | a Mastodon instance, that responsibility falls on you. It's | simply a question of who has more capital, human resources, | and free time.[3] | | Twitter being centralized means that it's unlikely that | Twitter will go away in the long term. That's what would | make me choose Twitter over a Mastodon instance if I wanted | a public archive of something. I have to wonder what would | happen if content of more and more importance started to be | hosted on the Fediverse if it was subject to link rot from | the nature of federalization. | | [1] https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/10305 | | [2] https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/103295961293741634 | | [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14290985 | hannasanarion wrote: | > Federation is coming back into vogue particularly now as a | reaction to the Facebook/Google problem where a single entity | collects all the data about all users of the platform and can | unilaterally ban a user with no recourse. In a federated | network a node decides what other nodes it federates with and | so self-regulates. But email is an example of federated | technology everyone uses. | | I swear I read this exact sentence back in 2017 when Mastodon | first came out with a splash and it has only gotten less | relevant in the five years since. | indigochill wrote: | > it has only gotten less relevant in the five years since | | What does "relevant" mean? Hacker News is irrelevant to | people who aren't into the tech scene. Mastodon is | irrelevant if someone doesn't care about federation, but | for those of us who do, it's still as relevant as ever. | | Neither Hacker News nor federation (I expect) are going to | take over the world, but they have their respective | audiences. | hannasanarion wrote: | > Neither Hacker News nor federation (I expect) are going | to take over the world, but they have their respective | audiences. | | You see how this is at odds with the claim that | federation is "in vogue", right? | | Federation is a small and shrinking niche. It had a brief | moment in 2017, and has been in recession ever since. | naasking wrote: | What is the evidence of this recession? | hannasanarion wrote: | What is the evidence that it's "in vogue"? | | The only major events in the fediverse from the last | several years to have any cultural impact is the rise of | federated porn after the Tumblr exodus, and the rise in | federated white nationalist forums after Trump got banned | from Twitter. The fact that federation is becoming | popular among pornographers and fascists is certainly not | backing up the assertion that federation is "in vogue". | altantiprocrast wrote: | Is it really shrinking? Mastodon gained 950k users in | 2021, combining with other platforms they probably gained | over a million. | | https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2021/12/mastodon- | recap-2021/ | | Projects like Matrix.org are also seeing huge growth. Of | course these are nothing on FAANG scale, but still far | from shrinking. | hannasanarion wrote: | Of those 950,000 sign-ups, only 814 users remained active | according to the very same page you linked. | | That's not a cultural wave, that's a fad more swingy than | gym memberships in January. "Vogue" technologies don't | have a 99.93% churn rate. | [deleted] | imwillofficial wrote: | Well you know, without the "back" part of "coming back" | russdpale wrote: | "Creating an account per node is federation working as | intended." | | Ok well that isn't convenient, like at all. So it's basically | a non starter for me. | | "Federation is coming back into vogue" | | Federation is absolutely not in vogue, and never has been | vogue. Not even close to it. Where in the world did you get | that idea? | Double_a_92 wrote: | I wish there was a site that uses videos hosted on Youtube, but | with a better, (community curated?) reccomandation algorithm. | | Kinda like reddit, but the subreddits are topic "channels" that | you can watch. | mistermann wrote: | Or even a service that had some sort of ontological tagging of | channels and videos, that also _reliably_ notified you when new | videos are released on your subscribed channels. | | Would this be vulnerable to a legal attack from Google? | ZetaZero wrote: | When I search for a video, it tries to launch a popup window for | another domain (sepiasearch.org) which Firefox blocks. Seems | confusing for a typical viewer | mdoms wrote: | And then if you click on one of the search results it will open | in yet another popup with yet another weird domain with some | oddball TLD like .win which looks even more sketchy. | onebot wrote: | I hate to say it but brand, ui, ux really matter in terms of | first impressions and overall "love" of a product. I wish they | would put more work in branding and ux on their website to make | it appear more appealing and professional. | HidyBush wrote: | This is just the project's web page, the UI and UX of the | actual hosted instances is pretty good in my opinion | hannasanarion wrote: | Putting things on a peer network is the very definition of | _losing_ control of your videos. Once something 's p2p, can't | ever be modified or taken down. | | It's a great value prop for pirates who want easy access to | illegal movies and trolls who want their inflammatory opinions to | ruffle feathers forever, but it's a pretty lousy deal for | everyone else. | jka wrote: | Can you see any ways in which uploading your videos to one of a | (very) small number of market-leading platforms could be | problematic, in contrast? | hannasanarion wrote: | Certainly. But one thing that they definitely do, and that | p2p hosting does not, is give people control of their videos, | which is what this headline is claiming. | jka wrote: | Ok, thanks - I'm more ambivalent about the situation: I | think it can be unclear, and can depend on people's | perspectives regarding privacy and control, and the | behaviours of the platforms and software available (all of | which can be culture, context and chronology sensitive). | | Perhaps the existence of different options at the moment is | necessary until there's (ever?) any consensus on a | satisfying unified technology and sharing model for | content. | | (if this seems confusing, please consider: it's not a | technological absolute that use of a peer-to-peer platform | means that you have to share your content with everyone; it | can be a choice if the technology caters for it) | imwillofficial wrote: | You can control how they are shared, if at all. | | It's not a binary choice. | | I run a self hosted instance and don't share anything with | anyone. | vorpalhex wrote: | That's a feature. Youtube (read Google) should not be the | global police on what videos are allowed. | | Yes, what is posted on the internet can not be taken back. That | has always been and remains true. | | No, I don't think piracy/trolls/whatever needs peertube, they | do just fine without it now. | hannasanarion wrote: | But that's not what this headline is claiming. It's claiming | that PeerTube will give _you_ control of _your_ videos. That | 's the one thing that p2p services do not and cannot ever do. | Putting content on p2p is synonymous with giving up control | of it forever. | eitland wrote: | On YouTube you cannot control anything: | | - YouTube can remove it | | - people can store offline copies | | On Peertube at least YouTube can't take it down which means | you have more control over it. | hannasanarion wrote: | You don't think that youtube channels have the ability to | take down or edit their own videos? | | What exactly do you think "control" means? | betwixthewires wrote: | This argument is weaksauce. Putting anything publicly on | the internet immediately means relinquishing control of it. | P2P has nothing to do with that. | | "Take back control" is geared towards _hosts_. You can run | your own tube site. That 's what the slogan is talking | about. | | Also, peertube is no more p2p than bitchute. It uses webRTC | to offload server load onto clients for popular videos, | that's it. | waffle_maniac wrote: | When I run 'youtube-dl' on your YouTube video will you live in | fear for the rest of your life? | hannasanarion wrote: | No, but youtube-dl isn't being marketed at video owners as a | way to "take back control of your videos". | xmprt wrote: | I've deleted/privated/unlisted a few cringy YouTube videos | from about 10 years ago. I have fairly high confidence that | even in the insanely rare case that my other videos become | popular or I become a celebrity, no one will find those old | videos. That's not possible with a P2P service. | amelius wrote: | This is not about controlling which videos are taken down. This | is about controlling that video's can't be taken down. | hannasanarion wrote: | The headline is "take back control of YOUR videos". | | Videos that you downloaded from other people aren't yours. | You might own a copy, but that's no different from any other | system of distribution. The difference between p2p and | standard distribution is that the owner _loses_ control. | [deleted] | infogulch wrote: | Who owns it when it's on YouTube? | | "The people who can destroy a thing, they control it." - | Dune | | Google owns it. | | With peertube and the like, maybe you don't own it, but at | least Google doesn't either. | hannasanarion wrote: | > With peertube and the like, maybe you don't own it, | | _Then why are they advertising with the slogan "take | back control"???_ | infogulch wrote: | Maybe the answer would be more clear if you read the end | of that quote. | hannasanarion wrote: | And maybe you would understand why that statement makes | absolutely no sense if you read the headline of this | thread. | | It doesn't say "take control away from Youtube and | Google", it says _take back control of your videos_. p2p | is the _ultimate_ destruction of control, that 's the | entire point of it. Saying that peertube gives you | control is like saying that playing a slot machine gives | you ROI. | altantiprocrast wrote: | > owner loses control | | the owner retains control of distributing their voice | without a major platform getting in the way | hannasanarion wrote: | The owner retains control of nothing. From the instant | you first seed to p2p, there is nothing you can do | anymore to change what might happen next. You completely | lose all agency over your own material. That is not | "control". | | If you want to get off a platform, you can do that with a | website. You don't need to give up editorial and | retractive control forever (which you must do in order to | use p2p, which is why this headline is so wrong) just to | step off a platform. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | > It's a great value prop for pirates who want easy access to | illegal movies and trolls who want their inflammatory opinions | to ruffle feathers forever, but it's a pretty lousy deal for | everyone else. | | Not _everyone_ else; it 's a good deal for anyone who wants | their content to be censorship-resistant, which is _not_ just | trolls and pirates. | karmanyaahm wrote: | > can't ever be modified or taken down. | | > but it's a pretty lousy deal for everyone else | | Is it really a lousy deal for anyone who doesn't agree with | YouTube/Facebook/Twitter's moderation (political or otherwise)? | | Or do you think that everyone the big platforms disagree with | are 'trolls who want their inflammatory opinions'? | hannasanarion wrote: | Why in the world would someone who wants "control" of their | content use p2p instead of youtube? | | If you're worried about platform censorship, the solution | that gives you more control is to self-host, not to | completely resign all editorial power for the rest of | eternity by handing your content over to a peer network. | | p2p doesn't give you control of content, it takes away all | control of content by ossifying it as-is. | hidudeurcool wrote: | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-23 23:00 UTC)