How we choose
How videos get onto BrighterTube
Last updated
BrighterTube looks like a normal video site, but nothing gets in on its own. These are the rules, in plain words.
What gets in
- ✓ Teaches a real concept or skill
- ✓ Explains how something works
- ✓ Shows a craft or method step by step
- ✓ Documents a subject with real depth
- ✓ Is honest about what it knows and doesn’t
What stays out
- ✕ Slop: AI content farms, padded or recycled explainers
- ✕ Clickbait titles and thumbnail bait
- ✕ Reaction, gossip, drama and celebrity videos
- ✕ Motivational filler, get-rich-quick pitches and disguised sales funnels
- ✕ Unsupported claims presented as settled fact
- ✕ Shorts, livestream replays, trailers and promos
The rules
- Education only. The question for every video is “does this teach something real?” Entertainment that happens to mention a fact doesn't count.
- Zero slop creators. Channels that churn out low-effort, AI-generated or padded videos aren't included, even when one video looks fine.
- No clickbait titles. ALL-CAPS hooks, “you won't believe”, mystery titles that hide the subject and shock superlatives stay out. A fun, descriptive title is fine (“Making transparent wood”).
- Whole channels when they earn it. A channel that is honest, careful teaching from end to end is included in full (minus Shorts, streams, trailers and promos), whatever its size. Everything else is picked one video at a time.
- Every pick has a reason. Each watch page says why the video is here, or that its whole channel was included.
- High-stakes topics get a closer look. Health, money, law and contested claims are never approved automatically; they always go to an editor.
- Popularity doesn't decide anything. No sorting by views, likes or trending. We count views quietly (only to size the review threshold below) and don't put big numbers on thumbnails.
How a video gets in
- Candidates come from lists careful people have already made: HackerTube (Andrej Karpathy's dataset of the YouTube videos Hacker News keeps recommending), community-curated lists of educational channels and courses, Reddit recommendation threads, the Nebula creator roster, university and institution channels (MIT OpenCourseWare, Stanford, Yale, the Royal Institution, Gresham College and more), and suggestions from people like you.
- Being on a list never gets anything in on its own. Each channel is vetted, then included in full or picked from video by video.
- An AI reviewer does a first pass on new uploads from watched channels (educational value, depth, clarity, credibility, originality, clickbait risk) and writes its reasoning. When it can only see a title and description, it says so and the video waits for a human.
- Only approved videos appear anywhere: home, subjects, search, channels, playlists and “related”. If a video is taken down on YouTube or its embedding is switched off, it drops out of BrighterTube automatically.
Your part: flags, reports and suggestions
- Every watch page has a Flag button with a short list of reasons, from “not educational / slop” to “broken or unavailable”. When enough viewers agree a video doesn't belong (more votes are needed for widely watched videos), it goes on the editor's review list. It stays up while it waits.
- Anyone can suggest content: paste a link to a channel, playlist, video or other source. One suggestion is enough to put it on the same list.
- The editor decides every item. Nothing changes on the site from votes or requests alone, so no person or group can add or remove videos by themselves. Voters whose flags tend to hold up count a little more over time.
Recommendations without the slot machine
“Related” videos come from the curated catalog by subject and quality, with a cap per channel for variety. We don't optimize for watch time or clicks. There are no Shorts and no autoplaying feed. Search only returns approved videos; if nothing matches, we say so.
Playback
Every video plays in YouTube's official embedded player (privacy-enhanced mode), with the creator's attribution, controls and any ads intact. BrighterTube doesn't download or rehost anything. Creators who'd rather not be listed can ask to be removed.
Think something's missing or shouldn't be here? Suggest it or get in touch.