#boycott updates

A: Yes!

Full answer below

A: Internet Archive (links below) or if a friend has the episodes downloaded!

A: Yes!

Most obviously, Louis Rossmann made the video titled "Change your profile picture to clippy. I'm serious", which is why we are now using Clippy and paperclips in general as a logo for the YouTube boycott. He has continued to make videos in opposition of invasive policies across tech companies as a whole, but they are all on YouTube, unfortunately.

CaptainSparklez made a video discussing these sorts of policies on the internet as a whole.

Athena P is supporting the boycott, trying to reach out to journalists, and is uploading videos to Glomble.

Bettina Levy is supporting and participating in the boycott, and has stopped uploading on YouTube.

A: Well, for YouTube, traffic almost directly translates to profits (it just takes a little time).

YouTube doesn't make their money from video hosting. The most obvious way that YouTube brings in revenue is paid services, such as YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, channel memberships, tips, etc. But they make their money via advertising, same as their parent company, Google. And YouTube is able to convince advertisers to advertise on their platform via your traffic.

The more traffic YouTube gets, the more slots they can sell to advertisers, and the more they can boast about their high traffic. By refusing to engage with the platform, we can remove any money they could potentially make off of us.

A: Yes!

This is not a competition. This is a group effort. Do the best you can reasonably do. If the best you can do is completely de-Googling, that's enough. If the best you can do is boycotting YouTube, that's enough. If the best you can do is using downloaders or front-ends, that's enough. If the best you can do is minimizing the amount of YouTube you watch, that's enough. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to take away as much traffic from YouTube as we can, for as long as we can.

A: To paraphrase Louis Rossmann, as annoying as Clippy may have been, he never stole your data.

On August 7th, 2025, YouTuber Louis Rossman posted a video titled: "Change your profile picture to clippy. I'm serious" where he discussed unethical and invasive practices in tech companies at the present.

Since then, the video has garnered over 4 million views.

In the video, Louis discusses how, despite all of Clippy's flaws, he just wanted to help. "There were no ulterior motives. If you told Clippy that you were having a bad day, he wasn't going to use that information to try and figure out which advertiser to sell you to, nor was he trying to sell your personal data, or get you to purchase other Microsoft products. He had no ulterior motives. He was simply there to help."

This is in complete contrast to modern tech practices, where everything is subscription-based, or tracks you for targetted advertising, or has a machine-learning algorithm (because that's all these purported "AI"s actually are) go through your private data. Whether that's is in order to train an AI or to censor content, it's an unethical breach of privacy.

"If you are tired of companies changing the terms of the sale after the sale, and getting away with it, turn your profile photo to a Clippy. If you're tired of companies that have the ability to reach into your house and ransomware your products, so that they stop working unless you pay them again, claiming that that's legal, but then when somebody tries to give you back access to what you paid for that's illegal, change your profile photo to a Clippy. If you're tired of sex bots invading the comment section on a regular basis, and their comments always posting with no problem, but your comments being censored even if you're not saying anything that bad, change your profile picture to a Clippy."

While Louis did not specifically call out YouTube's new policy, he pointed out in this video many of the same issues that we have been calling out for ages.

If you'd like to watch it for yourself, it is archived on PreserveTube here.

A: The current companies/platforms that I currently know of that are going to or have already implemented similar policies are:

YouTube

Google (including Chrome, Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc)

TikTok

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Whatsapp)

Twitter/X

Bluesky (only in the UK)

Spotify

Reddit

Discord

Dailymotion

Xbox (only in the UK)

A: It depends.

If the alternative you are asking about is included on the YouTube and Google Alternatives Directory under the "YouTube Front-Ends/Proxies" section or the "YouTube Downloaders" section, then, unfortunately, the answer is yes. Downloading is better than using a front-end, because it only gives YouTube the traffic once while you are actively downloading it, not when you watch it. This includes archive sites such as PreserveTube.

Front-ends, while giving YouTube less data and protecting you from being tracked, still give YouTube traffic. The goal of the boycott is to minimize the amount of traffic you give YouTube, so use front-ends sparingly or not at all.

Additionally, YouTube is attempting to block things like adblockers, VPNs [1], downloaders, and front-ends from working, and relying on those sorts of things will encourage YouTube to disable those workarounds faster.

When considering one of these alternatives, ask yourself: "Can I use a completely distinct platform (ex. PeerTube, Glomble) for this?" If the answer is yes, do that. If not, ask "Can I use a YouTube downloader?" If the answer is yes, do that. If not, then use a front-end or proxy. Do everything you can to avoid interacting directly with the YouTube app/website, even if signed out, using an adblocker, or incognito mode.

Full links and screenshots of sources

[1]: https://x.com/rayariot/status/1952616591058964735