YouTube steps up its war on ad blockers: YouTube is strengthening its crackdown on third-party ad-blocking apps, it said in a blog post yesterday. The platform has introduced a restriction that should result in buffering issues or produce an error message saying “the following content is not available on this app” for viewers using third-party ad-blocking apps, it said.

In context: Last year the video streaming service “launched a global effort” to encourage users to allow ads or switch to YouTube Premium, YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton told The Verge back in October of last year. Viewers using ad blockers were presented with the message, “Video playback is blocked unless YouTube is allowlisted or the ad blocker is disabled.”

The rationale: Ad blockers mean that creators miss out on ad revenues, YouTube argues. The platform’s policies “don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership,” it said. “Ads on YouTube help support creators and let billions of people around the world use the streaming service.”

FYI- The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) allows creators who meet certain criteria to monetize their content in a number of ways, including revenue sharing from ads being served on their videos.

Loopholes could still be present: The crackdown targets third-party apps that use YouTube’s API to block out ads. AdGuard says it’s not affected by the restriction because it doesn’t use YouTube’s API.

(Fake) true crime:Obvious signs of AI-manipulation — from mangled and missing body parts and facial features to strange artifacts — have been spotted in Netflix’s latest true crime documentary What Jennifer Did, prompting viewers to question the veracity of the images shown, writes Futurism. The allegations have implications as Jennifer Pan, the subject of the documentary, is currently in prison awaiting retrial for the murder of her parents.

Has our obsession with true crime gone too far? Netflix’s new doc is an example of the “true crime industrial complex” catering to an “all-consuming and endless” appetite amongst viewers for violent content, journalist Karen K Ho writes in CBC. The entrance of AI-manipulated images to tell these stories may indicate that our desire for content has exceeded our need for the truth. Plus, with no specific laws governing the use of AI-generated content, streamer’s like Netflix will face few penalties.

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