Developer Builds Tool That Scrapes YouTube Comments, Uses AI To Predict Where Users Live (404media.co)
(Friday May 30, 2025 @05:35PM (BeauHD)
from the heads-up dept.)
- Reference: 0177873553
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/30/2133227/developer-builds-tool-that-scrapes-youtube-comments-uses-ai-to-predict-where-users-live
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/developer-builds-tool-that-scrapes-youtube-comments-uses-ai-to-predict-where-users-live/
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:
> If you've left a comment on a YouTube video, a new website claims it might be able to find every comment you've ever left on any video you've ever watched. Then an AI can build a profile of the commenter and [1]guess where you live, what languages you speak, and what your politics might be . The service is called [2]YouTube-Tools and is just the latest in a suite of web-based tools that started life as a site to investigate League of Legends usernames. Now it uses a modified large language model created by the company Mistral to generate a background report on YouTube commenters based on their conversations. Its developer claims it's meant to be used by the cops, but anyone can sign up. It costs about $20 a month to use and all you need to get started is a credit card and an email address.
>
> The tool presents a significant privacy risk, and shows that people may not be as anonymous in the YouTube comments sections as they may think. The site's report is ready in seconds and provides enough data for an AI to flag identifying details about a commenter. The tool could be a boon for harassers attempting to build profiles of their targets, and 404 Media has seen evidence that harassment-focused communities have used the developers' other tools. YouTube-Tools also appears to be a violation of YouTube's privacy policies, and raises questions about what YouTube is doing to stop the scraping and repurposing of peoples' data like this. "Public search engines may scrape data only in accordance with YouTube's robots.txt file or with YouTube's prior written permission," it says.
[1] https://www.404media.co/developer-builds-tool-that-scrapes-youtube-comments-uses-ai-to-predict-where-users-live/
[2] https://lolarchiver.com/tos
> If you've left a comment on a YouTube video, a new website claims it might be able to find every comment you've ever left on any video you've ever watched. Then an AI can build a profile of the commenter and [1]guess where you live, what languages you speak, and what your politics might be . The service is called [2]YouTube-Tools and is just the latest in a suite of web-based tools that started life as a site to investigate League of Legends usernames. Now it uses a modified large language model created by the company Mistral to generate a background report on YouTube commenters based on their conversations. Its developer claims it's meant to be used by the cops, but anyone can sign up. It costs about $20 a month to use and all you need to get started is a credit card and an email address.
>
> The tool presents a significant privacy risk, and shows that people may not be as anonymous in the YouTube comments sections as they may think. The site's report is ready in seconds and provides enough data for an AI to flag identifying details about a commenter. The tool could be a boon for harassers attempting to build profiles of their targets, and 404 Media has seen evidence that harassment-focused communities have used the developers' other tools. YouTube-Tools also appears to be a violation of YouTube's privacy policies, and raises questions about what YouTube is doing to stop the scraping and repurposing of peoples' data like this. "Public search engines may scrape data only in accordance with YouTube's robots.txt file or with YouTube's prior written permission," it says.
[1] https://www.404media.co/developer-builds-tool-that-scrapes-youtube-comments-uses-ai-to-predict-where-users-live/
[2] https://lolarchiver.com/tos
Burying the lead (Score:2)
The much bigger story is this is proof LLM based systems don’t have thinking capability nor anywhere near sentience because any thinking thing exposed to the equivalent of a billion years of reading YT comments tautologically means it’s brain is gone. Goo. Why do you think my posts are so bad I had no idea I’d brain my damage but before I could turn the algorithm got me and won’t let go.