Technology

I trust this as much as I trust big American tech platforms.

Google is such a bully, I want china to succeed.

YouTube's censorship has become worse than cable TV's (in the US). I have a feeling that BiliBili will only further normalize the aggressive censorship, like TikTok did.

Unless I can make A whole channel dedicated to 1989 Massacre Im not interested.

I can't wait for this to be announced as a threat to national security after creating mild competition for YouTube.

thats good news youtube was mainstream so looong that it becomes to eat itself slowly seeing some competitions maybe lead the long form video market better

Oh boy coyote urine over coyote urine my fave.

I mean. This is… Not worse than now, I guess?

Any entity that can take a chunk out of YouTube’s dominance is a good thing.

But I’m not going to celebrate another corp making a shamelessly monetized video site. They’re independent-ish now, yes, but for how long? It’s just a different flavor of attention gaming and enshittification in the long run.

And I’m skeptical they have the muscle to significantly displace YouTube’s iron grip on everything, even with Google tightening the screws.

I'm all for it, America needs to be reminded of what capitalism actually is.

BRB, gonna upload something about Tianaamen Square.

I just downloaded it. No sign up necessary but it asks for a birthdate. (I just picked June 4 1989 randomly, ofc.)

It uses AI to translate from Chinese to your selected language. The image below shows available languages.

You don't need to login to upvote videos. However, you not be able to comment or reply. Also, viewing comments is limited.

To create your account, you have to provide your phone number, which is an automatic "not happening" for me.

Once your phone number is "bound", you can link your Google account for your login. This will make it easier for East-West cooperation in data mining and mass surveillance.

You can also use an email and password of your own choosing.

Overall, I can't see me actually binding my phone number to make an account.

Anyway, here's what my feed looked like when I opened the app and skipped account creation/login:

Some AI looking slop, of course.

Of the first dozen or so, only two seemed interesting - the Rick Roll meme history and a Brazilian explaining how to use "lá ele" in conversation. (I speak Brazilian Portuguese so this was actually very cool to see.)

I've heard of Billibilli. It's great for pirated films and TV shows that you can't get anywhere else.

I don't really trust it to be much better at respecting privacy than YouTube, but at this point, I'd be surprised if it was any worse, and YouTube has been getting worse for lack of competition for over a decade now

Good. Seriously - enough with YouTube’s vs censorship and making predators like Jake Paul and mr beast into millionaires

Edit: Ugh… checked on bilibili and noticed he also has a channel there. The guy is like a parasite to humanity

They're going to need to drastically change how the platform looks if they want to succeed. In typical Chinese app fashion the UI is incredibly bloated and overwhelming, not what a Western audience wants at all. They also won't be able to match YouTube's CPM so creators won't bother switching either.

Cool. If they allow views while using ad-blockers I’m in.

Hey, I welcome any serious competition. Youtube has devolved into a much more censored platform than what we used to make fun of the Chinese for. "Unalive", "grape", and several topics that are demonetized on sight.

Won't last. Youtube offers financial incentives and originally when Youtube got big it had lax as fuck censorship which is what gained it's initial popularity. Unless China is going to be entirely lax in the same way, there is no incentive for people to move over.

People in this thread having a normal one, predictably. Like even if (or especially if) you genuinely believe that China is the evil monster you were raised to believe, wouldn't you be at least a little bit curious to get a window into their online culture? Don't you want an opportunity for more interaction between Chinese and US/Western netizens?

Good.

Americans are left with such a terrible, enshittified digital information economy that we must entertain even our enemies for alternatives.

Well more competition is good and we really need more alternative platforms. Can they make a browser as an alternative to chrome.. Or push Firefox?

I think we should be looking for decentralised alternatives not something prone to enshittification.

As a gay Uyghur I wonder how this platform is going to work for me?

Cool, I'm gonna upload Tienanmen massacre documentary as a first thing.

I've been using a VPN to watch stuff there for years