Google+ account is now required to post comments on YouTube

[Sigma]

Google flipped the switch on this last night. You can't leave a comment unless your YouTube account is linked with a G+ account. Also, you can't reply to any comments made before this change was made, nor can you give them a thumbs up/down. Comments are sorted by "top comments" by default now. You can switch to "newest first", but only on a per-video basis. The inbox feature on YouTube is gone too.

Some say that this is designed to cut down on all the trolling and bullshit that gets posted in the comments on YouTube, but I think it's designed to boost G+ usage. You can link your YouTube account to a G+ account that's not under your real name, so I don't see how it stops trolls. The only way it might work is if they ever force you to use your real name, but I can't see that happening. The "top comments" stuff doesn't seem to do much either. Maybe it gives content creators better filtering options though - I haven't looked into that.

I'm in 2 minds about the change. I don't post many videos on YouTube and the ones that I post rarely get replies, so I like the new comment notification system. A lot of people are whining about these changes though.

[ChaMerZ]

in a few weeks everyone will get used to it. i remember i never used to like the new google look, or the automatic search feature, but now it seems like both features don't bother me as much as they used to. i'm just glad that the comments section works again. for the longest time, it was incredibly flaky: 'Comments are unavailable'. I know a lot of you must have been frustrated with that.

[Philaflava]

shit linked my work gmail account when i was searching for youtube videos. annoying as fuuu.

[chapter thrive]

im already sick of this random logins with a first name account that some how was made without me knowing from my gmail information,

I have about a 100 playlists compiled as reworkings of my radio show that are probably gonna be innaccessible now or something. fucking google. it's never an ask situation, its always here it is, this is how its going to be suddenly.

[Sigma]

This is working great to stop trolling and dumb comments.

The character limit is much higher now, so you can see comments like this: -



The formatting is different and supports ASCII "art", so you'll see comments like this: -



And you can post proper clickable links now, so it's already being abused by spammers and scammers.

What a fucking mess, haha.

[Moolah]

[ChaMerZ]

they just need to iron out the kinks. but yea, i don't appreciate having my private google mail info being linked to my youtube. mostly due to all the nefarious crap i've uploaded on the tube over the past couple of years.

[intuition]

seems bad for youtubers. i haven't quite put my finger on it yet, but i know a lot of big youtubers have been complaining about views decreasing over the last few months from the google+ transition, and this final straw is going to be a major shift.

i just hate how many chances are there are to fuck up and log in under the wrong name currently. google+ sucks

[Sigma]

After using the new system for a few days, I think it's dog shit.

The "top comments" are decided by algorithms, not by people. Tons of comments are getting marked as spam automatically when they're not spam. Tons of spam comments are not getting marked as spam. I always want to see newest comments first, but there's no way to do that. It's done nothing to stop all the trolling and arguing. If you comment on a video, it's posted on your Google+ page by default unless you uncheck a box, which you have to do every single time as there's no global check box for it.

The notifications system is crap. You have different types of notifications all bundled into one long list, including notifications about comments, people +1ing your videos and people sharing your videos. There's no way to opt out of certain notifications - you can only opt out of receiving email notifications or notifications on your phone - not on YouTube itself.

I have 2 YouTube accounts. One is under my DJ name and it's linked to a Google+ page I created just so I could still post comments on YouTube. That account still works fine, but I have another YouTube account that's under my primary email address. I linked that YouTube account to a Google+ account that's under my real name and I chose to use my real name on YouTube. Everything worked fine for a couple of days, but now every time I log in I get a pop-up that says "Use YouTube as", but the only option it gives me is to use my real name anyway. Why is that pop-up appearing? How do I get rid of it? I unlinked the YouTube account from Google+ and deleted the Google+ profile, but I STILL get that pop-up appearing every time I log into YouTube.

Google+ itself doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. I went to my page while logged in under my primary account. I was automatically logged into Hangouts and there was a list of some of my friends there, except on that list was my own personal non-Gmail email address and it was listed twice. How did that even appear there? Why is it there and why is it there twice? There's no way to remove it either.

Also, on my Android phone I had signed into Google+ in a couple of games. Riptide GP 2 is one example, as you can't earn achievements in the game unless you sign into Google+. I deleted my Google+ profile, but the next time I tried to launch Riptide GP 2 it just force closed straight away. I launched it again and this time it worked, but at the end of every race a box pops up prompting me to log into Google+ and if I click cancel, there's a pause for about 10 seconds and then a box appears that says "Unknown Error" that just has an "OK" button on it. I have to go through that process literally every time I finish a race and there is nothing in the settings that says "stop prompting me to sign into cunting Google+!".

For me, this system has just been a disaster. When I originally linked my DJ account to Google+, back before it was forced upon you, my videos disappeared, my channel was gone, my avatar disappeared and under "Switch Accounts" it listed 3 accounts - 2 of them under my DJ name and 1 under my email address. I had to unlink my YouTube and Google+ accounts and delete the Google+ profile in order to get things back to how they were. Whoever designed this is a fucking mong.

This image that someone posted on Reddit sums up my experience with it: -

http://i.imgur.com/p4ZGVGi.jpg

[chapter thrive]

this is the turning point, when the people turn against google, and google releases the t1000 to save us from ourselves.
where the fuck is christian bale when you need him.

[ChaMerZ]

i turned away from google a long time ago. just the fact that they're the only ones running the industry right now. just rubs me the wrong way.

[Moolah]

The new comment system is asscheeks.

[Sigma]

I was a big fan of Google's services, but they're getting too greedy.

Google Shopping - Used to be a decent place to search for prices on goods. Now they rank the search results by how much the retailer has paid them, so I don't necessarily see the best prices in the top results - I see the retailers that have paid Google the most money.

Gmail - They read all of your email in order to target ads at you. Obviously, a person isn't reading your mail, but still.

Google Search - They're testing large ad banners in search results, which will no doubt get rolled out soon. They use all of the information you type into Google Search to market things to you. There's a new "feature" where any reviews you've written, along with your profile picture, may appear in other people's search results if they search for the product that you reviewed, so it's basically saying "Sigma endorses this product". They're using things I've written to advertise to people I know. You can opt out, but they've opted everyone in by default.

YouTube - The comments system is fucked because they're trying to boost numbers for their shitty social network. Again, they use what you search for to market shit to you. Search for some different artists, then go to the Google Play store on your Android phone and you'll see those artists' albums being recommended in the music section.

Android - It's never been truly open source, but the latest version (4.4) integrates more of Google's services and in some cases, it restricts what you can do with the phone. For instance, there's a Google search bar on your home screen that you can't remove. Sure, you can use a different launcher or root the phone, but your average Joe doesn't know about that stuff.

Chrome - I don't use Chrome on my PC, but it's alright. What I hate about it though, is the way Google tries to get people to use it. For example, if you download Adobe Flash player, a box is checked by default to install Google Chrome along with Flash and to make it your default browser. I don't mind bundled software as long as it's not malicious, but any boxes to install it should be unchecked by default, otherwise I think it's a shady way of getting that software on to people's PCs.

I don't mind a few ads when I'm using a free service, but when the service starts to take a turn for the worse too, it makes me think about switching to something else.

[Dan]

Gmail - They read all of your email in order to target ads at you. Obviously, a person isn't reading your mail, but still.

All e-mail providers read your e-mail. How do you think spam filters work?

Chrome - I don't use Chrome on my PC, but it's alright. What I hate about it though, is the way Google tries to get people to use it. For example, if you download Adobe Flash player, a box is checked by default to install Google Chrome along with Flash and to make it your default browser. I don't mind bundled software as long as it's not malicious, but any boxes to install it should be unchecked by default, otherwise I think it's a shady way of getting that software on to people's PCs.

Pretty much all freeware is going this route. I've made it a habit to always do a custom install no matter what I'm downloading.

[Sigma]

A spam filter is doing something positive for you by getting rid of unwanted spam emails. It's impossible for a spam filter to work without it reading your mail. Google are reading your mail in order to target ads at you though, which is a different thing altogether.

I've never seen another web browser bundled into the installer of another program. It's a shady tactic that a company the size of Google shouldn't be co-signing.

[ThaJim2]

Google is a shady ass company. Fined a half billion dollars for there part in drug dealing and they still continue to do it. They make more money off of ads on pirate sites then the legit music industry makes at this point. Steal other companies IP all the time. Funny how I have never seen porn once on Youtube yet I have seen countless number of videos with the tag I don't own the Copyright that has been on the site for years.

[Combo7]

I was bored one day and created a profile on Google +. Didn't realize that it automatically synced with my Gmail account, so the candid, goofy photo I used for my Google + profile picture got tagged on the Gmail account I used for business and would appear to everyone I corresponded with. Couldn't get rid of the photo even after tinkering with the settings and deleting my Google + profile, so I had to manually change it to a generic picture of some dude's silhouette.

Then the other day I find out that my Facebook profile pic is showing up to people I email with my Gmail account. Ready to just tell Google to fuck off at this point and find something else.

[Sigma]

I emailed Google about the "Use YouTube as" issue I was having and I got a reply that appeared to come from a real person, except it didn't properly answer my question. I replied to the email asking a couple of further questions, but then I got another reply and it became totally obvious that I wasn't talking to a human being at all. They are obviously using a system that searches your email for certain terms and then sends a canned reply based on them. Fucking useless.

[LilLeftBrain]

☻/ This is Bob . Copy and paste him
/▌ all over Youtube
/ \ so he can take over and take down Google+

[ChaMerZ]

i switched to chrome spring this year, just to see what the fuss was about and now i feel like it's more trouble than it's worth. i think i'll go back to using firefox. it's the total lack of control that gets me with chrome. For example, i can't really finetune the history settings. Also, downloading and installing an extension is more convoluted than it should be. You have to login, and then there's endless pages of crap you have to plow through before you get what you need.

Like many of you, I thought i was scrupulous with how i was separating my gmail with my youtube. a couple of months ago though, i remember my friend was really having a laugh over a supposed 'profile pic' that was being linked to my contact info on his phone. turns out it was a totally tasteless pic i was using for my youtube account. the worst thing is that up to that point i'd been using my gmail for months, emailing all kinds of important people (setting up interviews, following up with my professors) and i didn't know about that pic.

This whole Google taking over everything doesn't even really bother me tbh. All i want is CONTROL. I want to know where my information is going and what it's being used for. I also want to compartmentalize and separate all the different aspects of my online life. I want my youtube account to stay where it is. I want my gmail to just be my gmail, i don't want it linked to anything else. and if they're going to unite everything, then making everything elegant instead of messy like it is now is the least they could do.

[Moolah]

It looks like they've reverted back to the old comment system.

[Sigma]

It looks like they've reverted back to the old comment system.

Are you sure? I'm not seeing that when I log into YouTube here in the UK.

[ChaMerZ]

same