PieFed chez MarudSelf-hosting your own media considered harmful - I just received my second community guidelines violation for my video demonstrating the use of LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5, for 4K video playback
www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/self-hosting-you…
YouTube pulled a popular tutorial video from tech creator Jeff Geerling this week, claiming his guide to installing LibreELEC on a Raspberry Pi 5 violated policies against "harmful content." The video, which showed viewers how to set up their own home media servers, had been live for over a year and racked up more than 500,000 views. YouTube's automated systems flagged the content for allegedly teaching people "how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content."
Geerling says his tutorial covered only legal self-hosting of media people already own -- no piracy tools or copyright workarounds. He said he goes out of his way to avoid mentioning popular piracy software in his videos. It's the second time YouTube has pulled a self-hosting content video from Geerling. Last October, YouTube removed his Jellyfin tutorial, though that decision was quickly reversed after appeal. This time, his appeal was denied.
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Comments from other communities
LukePeople need to stop posting content to YouTube. Quit giving them new leverage.
Even the linked article whines about how they don't want to use Peertube because "the audience for the content is 100x smaller" but that's at least partly a self fulfilling situation. Of course they aren't going to have a large audience on Peertube when they don't post anything there. Mirror your old content there. Upload new content there instead. Advertise your Peertube channel instead of YouTube.
There's not going to magically be a huge audience out of nowhere on alternative platforms, it takes content creators to migrate first.
hauiExactly. Thats what I do. Feel free to check it out. https://peertube.giftedmc.com/videos/local
wizardbeardYeah, I don't get this mindset from content creators. It doesn't have to be some big thing if they're worried about losing viewers and money.
Bare minimum: Uploading a video to Youtube, a Peertube instance, and to Archive.org isn't much more work than just uploading to Youtube. Put links to all three in every description with the note that video mirrors are available at these following places.
I think the real issue is that giving up Youtube means giving up a revenue stream. Not a ton of people make video content just to create stuff anymore.
EngywookI'd say to stop making videos altogether instead of written tutorials. Videos for these stuff are an inefficient media. A blog Is 1000x times better. Not everything has to be a video.
That is your opinion. I sometimes prefer a video over a long text. Everyone has their own preference.
Yeah, obviously is my opinion. As well as that people is to lazy to read, nowadays.
Destide
biocoder.ronin"don't do evil"
Thanks for cross posting.
Dear Jeff,
love your channel.
I think the biggest gift of Jeff's channel and others like it in the DiY space outshines far above corporate darlings like LMG and others. The reason I think this about Jeff's channel is that it is a gift of education on how to relay opinions, media, and data ownership in a world dominated by EULAs and advertising.
What Google and Tech don't understand is that the content created on those platforms truly isn't theirs. It may be monetized on those platforms, but the second they start doing things, like feeding digests of political content and reactions to subvert the people and their free speech, the platform becomes part of the digital handcuffs, the "free as in beer" solution that subverts the conversations and the people.
Moreso than LMG or anyone else adjacent in the tech YouTube space, Jeff's bright smile and your good attitude brings something to the table that these corporations can't comprehend the value behind: freedom from popularity contents. Freedom from censorship and platform lock-in.
Thanks.
Sue YouTube. They won't change meaningfully until forced to.
Sue for defamation that Youtube are alleging he is promoting criminal activity of piracy.
I mean maybe if YT said that? The only thing they said is that it's "harmful" somehow. And they won't elaborate anymore than that.
If harmful isn't defined in the ToS, then the Merriam Webster definition will likely be construed to mean to be harmful to YouTube's business or to users. Although YouTube has been selective in this enforcement, ie not banning all videos pertaining to martial arts or fighting clips, drug use, or ad block tutorials.
That just answers a question that no one is asking. This is not an issue of defining words, it's an issue of what the words are referring to, exactly.
Exactly, I haven't read the ToS to see if it is defined or references anything in there. I usually default to the standard definition of a word unless explicitly stated otherwise. For example, Sony changed the definition of purchase to remove any notion of ownership when buying content on their streaming platform.
What? LOL no, not "exactly". Again the definition is not in question. The question is what the word is referring to.
Like google, I'm sure Jeff has a near unlimited supply of money to pay lawyers.
But being a pushover is not the answer, so...
It absolutely is on an individual level in a system where capital decides who writes the laws and who gets justice. The way you push back is by organizing as a class or at least a group.
Neither is throwing money away on a lawsuit.
This kind of crap is driving popular creators, like Geerling, to move to other places. YT / Alphabet has lost the plot.
Yep. Most of my favorite creators are on Nebula now.
The ones that aren't get watched on SmartTube or in Brave Browser.
I love Nebula. I go there to watch Nebula Exclusives but it's not great for browsing or discovering new channels...I found everyone I subscribe to on YouTube first
Was it YouTube or someone else that reported him? I think YouTube is fully automated so it blocked him and is ignoring appeal because of the previous complaint.
I think ripping DVDs is still technically illegal, even though CSS has long since been broken. It is still illegal to circumvent encryption in a copy protection scheme, even if it's for your own personal use and the encryption scheme has been pwned.
I bet if he didn't mention that his videos were ripped from DVD, they might have left it up.
Iirc, you are entitled to have/create a backup of your physical media, as long as it is for your personal use.
But if I remember from back in the day, the DMCA doesn't have any exception for that. This is why CD ripping was legal, while DVD ripping was not. It had nothing to do with fair use or backups, but rather that DVDs have encryption, and CDs do not. Circumventing that encryption for any reason was illegal.
I don't think it has changed, but it's been a hot minute since the Cypherpunks all wore DeCSS T-Shirts....
Perhaps this can a driver of sorts for Peertube.
It's a good thing that I can't stand video tutorials or reviews (with the exception of video games).
I think so. A relatively small subset of the video upload firehose at YouTube who produce rewatchable content is going to require a lot less resources to provide than doing a free-for-all upload-anything video. This might actually be feasible.