If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: https://archive.ph/zyhax
The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
“This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “No one should fear a knock at the door from police simply because of what the YouTube algorithm serves up. I’m horrified that the courts are allowing this.” He said the orders were “just as chilling” as geofence warrants, where Google has been ordered to provide data on all users in the vicinity of a crime.
Broadly speaking this is terrible in its implications and I am NOT defending this practice based on “wont somebody think of the children” because of the slippery slope argument.
However, there is a almost hidden in plain sight emporium of borderline CP buried in the YT servers. Videos of peoples kids in dance/gymnastics/swimming costumes and the comments are disturbing in their “sanitary” nature… its mostly timestamps. Timestamps of when the 8yo girl has her legs spread as part of a dance routine and stuff like that.
Its a shame that for the people to be protected from broad govt surveillance we also have to protect that shit.
I would suggest the adding of said time stamp would be an action, that would be actionable by CP or laws that protect the children. But also we worry to much and the state goes too far. They have been for years trying to get porn online banned (or gated), and its for the children, but it would be much better and simpler to make a .kids domain and make it a walled garden, then you could show intent by adults to get in there. Then the parents that want their children in the safe area, support it and pay for those things and those companies could be better monitored for data issues and tracking instead of the other way around (not that I like my data being stolen 100’s of times a day, but its my choice if I want to use more secure means or not).
I imagine that the viewer count far exceeds the comments, Im not going to look for examples to cite because I dont want to wind up on a list myself.
Point is that the act of wanting to identify people based on some content they watched is simultaneously incredibly worrying and absolutely understandable, the problem is that if you allow it for one thing then adding on second thing doesnt seem like such a stretch and then the slippery slope happens and hypothetically you cant get a government job because you watched a video on communism.