The China-centric video sharing platform is expanding with a new international app and an English version of its website – with no identity verification (for now at least)

  • Doom@discuss.online
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    20 hours ago

    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.

  • percent@infosec.pub
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    1 day ago

    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.

  • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    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.

  • Deniz@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    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

  • Smaile@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

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

  • CumbrianCucumber@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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

  • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    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.)

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.