DailyMotion New API – BAD!
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In early June, the video hosting site DailyMotion unleashed a new API and policies which are bad for WordPress.com blogs. Specifically, DailyMotion is now pushing clickbait videos with offensive content via the new API. Unlike before, a vertical list of thumbnails/titles now appears at the right edge of a video embedded in a blog post, once the reader presses play. Some of the videos pushed by DailyMotion include thumbnails of pigs copulating or titles promising nudity or something “shocking” or “viral”.
A more detailed description of the problem (including a screencast) may be found here:
https://ethicsandspirituality.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/dailymotion-new-api-bad-for-bloggers/
Four quick takeaways are:
1. There is currently no known shortcode to suppress these spam videos from appearing.
2. WordPress.com support pages such as this one are affected:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/videos/dailymotion/
3. The change is retroactive, so posts published years ago which embed DailyMotion videos, and which were previously family-friendly, business-friendly, or simply in good taste, may now push offensive content. Check your old posts!
4. We bloggers could really use some help with this. Two forms such help might take include:
a) WordPress.com tweaking their implementation of the DailyMotion API on a priority basis, so that bloggers can use something like rel=0 in the shortcode.
b) Automattic contacting DailyMotion or its parent company Vivendi on an expedited basis to complain about the new policy.
Thanks for listening.
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When we need Staff help with issues Volunteers cannot resolve like this one we type modlook into the sidebar tags on our forum threads. I did that for you. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question
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I included modlook in the 5 tags with my original post, and it seemed to appear. Did I not do it correctly? Thanks.
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Hi @dawntreader72014, thanks for the heads up.
To clarify, does the rel=0 remove ads after the video?
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Thanks for replying, Supernovia. AFAIK, the YouTube code rel=0 doesn’t work on DailyMotion to suppress the videos in question — sometimes called related videos, suggested videos, or next videos.
Again, this wasn’t a problem in prior years, because DailyMotion didn’t used to display a list of spammy videos. Previously, the chosen video would play to the end, and then there would be one “Next video” offered from the same uploader. So as I explained in my post here,
https://ethicsandspirituality.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/dailymotion-new-api-bad-for-bloggers/
Unlike with YouTube, where bloggers can use rel=0 in the shortcode to suppress so-called “related videos,” we found no way to stop the clickbait videos when using DailyMotion on our WordPress.com blog. Prior to June 2018, embedded DailyMotion videos were well-behaved. If you had a blog and a DailyMotion account, you could ensure that only the videos you chose would be displayed. Now you’re at their mercy.
Of course, if you know of a code or syntax that does work with DailyMotion to suppress spammy videos, please tell! I’ll be happy to provide any additional info needed to help solve this serious problem.
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Hi there,
I’ve reported this to our developers to take a look, but I looked through their video player documentation and see no option in the parameters available for that player to hide suggested videos:
https://developer.dailymotion.com/player
If they don’t offer such an option in the player or their API, there’s nothing we can do to block those suggestions from our end.
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Thanks for replying, Kokkieh. I’m not a coder, but the link you gave to the DailyMotion developer page makes reference to a player parameter called endscreen-enable. According to a q&a on StackOverflow answered by the Official Dailymotion API team, setting endscreen-enable to false is supposed to suppress related videos from showing:
This is called the endscreen. When a video is displayed, Dailymotion offers you to watch some related videos. You can disable this by passing the endscreen-enable player parameter (https://developer.dailymotion.com/player#player-parameters): it is a boolean indicating whether to enable the end screen or not. If you pass false, then you won’t have those related videos.
Like I said, I’m not a coder. Just hoping this is of some help. Don’t know if the DailyMotion developer page is up-to-date with their new API, or whether the endscreen-enable player parameter still works. If WordPress developers talk to DailyMotion developers, maybe they could iron things out.
There’s persuasive argument to be made that like YouTube, DailyMotion can “have its cake and eat it too.” YouTube has a horrible clickbait problem, but some people feed off that and use it to make money. However, YouTube also gives end users a way to opt out by using rel=0 to suppress so-called “related videos” from showing. So one argument is that the more DailyMotion embraces the clickbait revenue model (emulating YouTube), the more they need to provide an opt-out in their API for people of taste and sensibility who don’t to be subjected to videos of pigs copulating.
Maybe that opt-out already exists in the DailyMotion API, but is not well-documented in the obvious place one would look. That’s why WordPress devs taking to DailyMotion devs (or interacting with them on StackOverflow) could be a very good thing.
Hope we can keep the thread going and work toward a solution.
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Hi, I’ve posted your latest reply here to the developers. Many thanks for the links to the information at Dailymotion.
We will let you know what they say.
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