UPDATE 2 It seems that starting today, uBlock Origin is working to combat this Youtube Block. Mine started working again! Lets all thank the devs of UBO for fighting this fight!

UPDATE So as new info comes out, I’ll be posting it here. It seems as if this Rollout Has Several Parts.

Part 1

You get a popup message over top of your video, blocking the screen:

  • This is the first sign. If you see this popup AND are logged into a YouTube account, your account has been selected.
  • At this stage you can likely close or block these messages with an adblocker.

Part 2

This message will change, indicating that you have 3 remaining videos to watch without ads.

Will insert photo once one has been found

  • At this stage your adblocker will imminently stop working in 3 videos time.
  • Personally using Firefox + uBlock Origin and tweaking filters and updates does not even fix it.

Part 3

None of the video loads now, everything looks blank.

  • At this stage you must tred new ground to avoid ads. I have posted methods in the comments. If you want to bypass this end page, read down there.

End of Update


YouTube has started rolling out anti-adblock to users inside the United States, which means that they are preparing to roll this out to the entire country. Personally, I have been blocked already. I want to gauge how common this occurrence is.

  • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I genuinely think that advertising should be illegal at this point. It’s a ridiculous concept.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        How do you define “advertising”?

        Is it advertising if a community government makes citizens aware that bus service will be changing?

        Is it advertising to tell people that there’s a suicide hotline available if they need help?

        Is it advertising to encourage people to volunteer for a local festival?

        What about telling people that the festival exists using a poster? Is that an ad? Does it depend if the festival is free or non-profit?

        Advertising is just fundamentally about bringing people’s attention to something. The spectrum can range from a municipal government “advertising” its monthly meeting so that local people can participate in their local democracy, to spam emails hyping a pump-and-dump cryptocurrency.

        Different people will have different ideas where the cut-off should be. The extreme libertarians will say that nothing should be banned. Others will say that it’s ok to ban ads for alcohol and cigarettes but not for makeup or coffee. Even totalitarian states and supposedly communist states where one entity controls all companies have ads. Some of the most striking ads ever made were for Mussolini.

        So, the question really isn’t about banning ads, it’s just where to draw the line.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          An increasing number of states are banning billboards along highways. Travelers do need a low tech method for finding certain services though, such as food, lodging, fuel and restrooms. So you’ll see those blue signs that says “FOOD NEXT EXIT” with a Waffle House and Burger King logo. In order to put the logo on that sign, the business has to meet certain criteria (which vary from state to state like all highway laws), for example a restaurant must be within 3 miles of the highway, be open for at least 12 hours a day and feature public restrooms and telephones. The sign itself may include a distinctive logo and the name of the business in legible font but no slogans or ad copy. “This burger restaurant is nearby.”

          This I see as an appropriate amount of advertising.

        • bobman@unilem.org
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          1 year ago

          Paying to tell others that they should buy something they otherwise would not.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            So, the government of Florida advising people to stock up on emergency supplies ahead of the oncoming hurricane – banned?

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It is a great example of how an industry can survive with only self-reported effectiveness. I remember a freakonomics episode where it was shown that very infrequently do companies get a positive return on marketing spending. It will be very interesting if that industry ever collapses.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Advertising is about creating trends, and catching some impulse buyers. Effectiveness is likely overstated, but on the other hand it’s difficult to quantify the effectiveness of a trend. I don’t think it’s likely to ever collapse, people will always want to believe they can influence others more than they actually can.

  • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Remember when some people said we’re nuts thinking Google will try to ban ad blockers with manifest v3? Yeah.

  • speq@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    For those who don’t know: VLC also takes a YouTube video address as input (in the menu: Media | Open Network Stream…).

    • mayo@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      I’m ready for that. When being a youtuber started looking like a job I think the site lost something.

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        That is something you just cannot avoid with a new medium. Eventually there will always be professionalization. It just sucks that youtube now just gives us the same shit over and over instead of making it easy to find new creators, like it used to be.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I remember one of the early Youtube sensations was this teen chick’s vlog that turned out to be a fictional soap opera basically. Because it hadn’t occurred to anyone to do that yet.

        This was BACK IN THE DAY, around the same time Boxxy became a sensation, or that one chick who just sat still in front of the camera because the Japanese liked her huge eyes.

        • mayo@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          I’d say just smaller, less scripted content. Maybe that’s what tiktok is.

  • cosecantphi [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Youtube’s use of A/B testing is very smart in that it’s actually nothing about testing user response and all about limiting the number of people they piss off at once with their god awful changes.

    The day I can’t block ads on the internet is the day I stop using the internet.

    • energetic695@lemmy.ko4abp.com
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      1 year ago

      targeted ads have broken the Internet, saturated our subconsciouses, hijacked the attention economy, and continue to erode what’s left of our dwindling privacy

      advertisers are the de facto gatekeepers of larger and larger swaths of online content.

      it wasn’t always like this. it’s gotten so much worse in recent years.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Advertising is poison.

        The entire concept is intolerable, and it breaks whole industries. We’ve ruined televisions - not the medium of television, the physical rectangle in your living room - for the sake of cramming ads into the menus. They can show ads over your home movies. Paying for content to avoid ads is impossible because they just add ads. The siren song of slightly more money must not be ignored!

      • bobman@unilem.org
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        1 year ago

        It’s only going to get worse.

        Shoving more ads in people’s faces just desensitizes them to it so you can keep adding even more ads into the mix.

        “You were okay with 2 ads, why not 3?”

        “You were okay with 3 ads, why not 5?”

        Repeat until the end of time, or until the masses stop being dumbasses and work together to topple the ruling class.

        P.S. I have no respect for anyone in the advertising industry. They are all scum worth less than the gum under my shoe.

        • Mini_Moonpie@startrek.website
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          1 year ago

          There’s constant fixes for it btw from the ublockorigin team now! :D

          Ads would have happened anyway like it’s happening on the streaming services. They’ve got people paying subscriptions *with *ads. Double the money, double the fun, right?

    • PeterPoopshit@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      This. When YouTube finally succeeds in making it impossible for anyone to use their website without watching ads, they probably still won’t succeed in preventing people from downloading for offline viewing. When this happens I’m going to invest in making scripts that autodownload stuff ahead of time and I’ll only watch whatever videos are in my home network.

      Im not watching their brainwash bullshit ass propaganda. I’ll find other stuff to do for entertainment before I give in to ads.

      • Steak@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Fuck ads. I put in a decent amount of effort to make sure I see exactly 0 seconds of ads per day. So far going strong.

  • Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to start a discussion in the comments here about methods to bypass the message. I will add suggestions here, so leave comments if you find a method!

    Methods to bypass Youtube Anti-Adblock:

    • The easiest method is simply to comply and turn off your adblock extension.

    My Method

    • My method, and the one that will likely work universally is as follows:

    Install Extension Enhancer for YouTube™

    Go to the extensions settings and ensure that under the Ads Management section, “Block Ads” is turned OFF

    Now find the Custom Script box at the very bottom and enter the following script. I did not write this code, it comes from egaudette on GitHub

    (function() {
        'use strict';
        var clickInterval = setInterval(skipAds, 5);
        var ytpAdModule;
        var miniAdd;
        var skipButton;
        var currentVideo;
    
        function skipAds() {
            ytpAdModule = document.querySelector('.ytp-ad-module');
            skipButton = document.querySelector('button[class*="ad-skip"]');
            miniAdd = document.querySelector('.ytp-ad-overlay-container');
    
            if (ytpAdModule !== null && ytpAdModule.innerHTML !== '') {
                ytpAdModule.style.display = 'none';
            }
    
            if (skipButton !== null) {
                skipButton.click();
                return;
            }
    
            currentVideo = document.querySelector('video[class*="main-video"]')
            if (currentVideo !== null && currentVideo.duration <= 5) {
                currentVideo.muted = true;
                currentVideo.play();
                currentVideo.currentTime = currentVideo.duration;
            }
        }
    })();
    

    Lastly, ensure the “Automatically execute the script when YouTube is loaded in a tab” box is checked, and press Save


    I’ll add more methods as they are discovered!

    • Farent@lemmy.scam-mail.me
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      1 year ago

      Please note that posting the script has html-encoded && <> and similar characters so you’ll have to replace those with the correct ones (or just get the script from GitHub)

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Why would this work when others get blocked? Is it a novel way to block YT ads that’s not popular? Because I think YT isn’t looking for specific extensions but looking for certain kinds of behavior.

      • Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        1 year ago

        This method lets ads load for half a second but then get skipped instantly. i have not personally found a way to 100% block ads once ive gotten their block page.

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Here’s a rule for uBlock Origin.

    Credit: https://lemmy.one/comment/597479 && original link: https://lemmy.nz/comment/446556

    ! Anti-Youtube Anti-Adblocker https://lemmy.one/comment/597479

    youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)

    youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

  • DrQuint@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Freaking ironic that I get an ad on strawpoll stopping me from seeing the results.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

    If this is the change that really sets them financially straight, then I would say they have a failing business model.

    • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

      Making their service more attractive to customers is precicesly what they’re trying to do.

      It’s just that an advertising agency’s customers are not the folk who watch, read or hear the ads, it’s the folk who pay for the ads.

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I am not sure if it will work out like this though. The amount of ads they are forcing down peoples throat is isane. Eventually it will make people consume less videos and with that less ads overall.

        • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          I am not sure if it will work out like this though. The amount of ads they are forcing down peoples throat is isane. Eventually it will make people consume less videos and with that less ads overall.

          Sure, could be - but keep in mind that they have all the relevant usage data at hand. Any decrease in service popularity among users (or indeed any kind of user behavior) is immediately visible to them. They have the means to know exactly what annoyances the market will bear.

          And considering that YouTube still holds a de-facto monopoly on video discoverability within the entire anglophone internet I feel like it’s safe to say that the market will likely bear a lot more annoyances :P

    • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      If premium cost $5per month I’d pay for it, u use YouTube all the time

      No way in hell it’s worth $15 a month though, their pricing is completely brwindead

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Just make a (digital) trip to India and get family of 5 accounts for about 1$ a month per account. This the way I did it.

      • IIIIII@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I agree. It’s around $22 NZD and that is just too steep. They have a slightly cheaper one but you can’t background play with it. I’m sick of being nickel and dimed at every possible opportunity and then hearing about how these companies are making record profits.