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A comment on Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play.

Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by intothemild on Sunday July 20, 2025 @07:19PM (#44630311)
As a parent I really like googles family controls, all of it. Except ONE thing.. I cannot block or limit YouTube Shorts.

Whenever my daughter watches regular YouTube there's a good chance she might watch something creative or educational or something that ends up with her suddenly making something out of paper, or drawing or anything physical. Learning about something amazing and getting excited.

YouTube Shorts is just AI slop, and horrible content I wish never existed.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by j1elo on Sunday July 20, 2025 @08:07PM (#44630598)
You could access via web browser and try this uBlock Origin list [1], props to this commenter [2] who helpfully posted it a while ago. Or if you must use a native app, on Android use a patched version of YT that supresses shorts from the view (to be honest the user agency it still allows, is for me worth enough to prefer Android over its competition)

[1]: https://github.com/Harren06/ublock-yt-shorts

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43848253

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by OneDeuxTriSeiGo on Sunday July 20, 2025 @08:03PM (#44630575)
In general there needs to be a way to disable Youtube Shorts. It's a massive attention hole that preys on people in a very addiction forming way. Doubly so for people with ADHD, etc.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by senectus1 on Monday July 21, 2025 @12:04AM (#44631698)
you can turn it off on a PC browser with an extension.

but yeah on a device or on the network no :-( I have the same complaint

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by OneDeuxTriSeiGo on Monday July 21, 2025 @05:57AM (#44633425)
Yep you can use extensions but tbh they are of varying quality and youtube changes their site so much in an attempt to fight adblockers that most youtube extensions tend to be really brittle.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by Clamchop on Monday July 21, 2025 @03:35PM (#44639468)
If you're using Android, then you have access to Firefox and its library of extensions.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by d0100 on Sunday July 20, 2025 @07:35PM (#44630418)
> YouTube Shorts is just AI slop, and horrible content I wish never existed.

This is only what you watch, for me I get short form of the same content I watch on youtube video (music, games and podcasts)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by intothemild on Sunday July 20, 2025 @08:00PM (#44630560)
I'm talking about my kid here. I think you're missing the point of what I'm talking about here. YouTube is ok for the most part, where as shorts is mostly not ok, and there's no way to turn it off.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by apwell23 on Sunday July 20, 2025 @09:54PM (#44631104)
kid reels might be AI slop
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by phyzix5761 on Sunday July 20, 2025 @09:29PM (#44630985)
I use brave browser and block anything related to shorts. The sound still plays in the background but the videos don't play which makes it unenjoyable. Helped me give up shorts.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Australia Wants to See Your Papers Before You Press Play by osn9363739 on Monday July 21, 2025 @03:54AM (#44632744)
For phones. If you use the YT app (Or logged in I think). If you disable your watch history it removes the shorts. But I wish there was another way. I use Unhook browser plugin on my computer browser.
[ Parent | on HN ]