this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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I just got randomly subscribed to another YT channel without my knowledge, this has happened several times in the past, I know that more people have seen this, but does anyone know the reason? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 17 hours ago by stoy@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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I am seriously starting to question if YT have started selling packages where you can buy subscribers to your channel...

A few weeks ago I noted that I had been subscribed to three smaller channels of generic corporate slop videos, I unsubscribed naturally.

Today I was watching a video on my phone I suddenly noticed that as I was closing the video a pop up saying that I had subscribed to the channel, I was very confused as I was already subscribed to the channel I was watching, Hidden In Sweden (btw, the last video was very interesting), and I checked my subscriptions...

I had been subscribed to a random holiday home rental company in Spain's channel....

Are there ads that immediately subscribe you to a channel? What is going on?

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[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 25 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

So a couple possibilities come to mind:

  1. Someone else has your password. Do you have kids and do they have access to devices which may have your Google account linked? You may want to change your password (use something long, hard to guess and unique).
  2. Your local system is compromised in some way. This would be a really odd way for someone to use that access, but it's always possible. Take a look at the apps and any browser extensions you have installed and make sure there isn't anything you don't recognize.
  3. There is some sort of Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability which is being leveraged to subscribe you to stuff. I would expect Google to be better than to have an XSS on YouTube (they bought Mandiant a while ago, FFS). But, big companies doing stupid things is common enough. When you got the pop-up, was it in the YouTube app or a web browser. Did you have other tabs open? Other background processes from sketchy apps?
  4. It is Google, them doing shitty things to their product (that's you) for their customers (the advertisers paying for your eyeballs) is basically their business model. Don't like it, de-google your life (warning: this is actually really hard).
[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
  1. No kids, I live alone.
  2. Doubtful, my main computer was turned off at the time.
  3. Possible, this was in the YT app on my iPhone 12 mini.
  4. Absolutely.
[–] marduk@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 15 hours ago

I'm with @Ftumch@lemmy.dbzer0.com , could be channels you were subscribed to being hijacked and renamed? The only subscription shenanigans I've directly observed is being silently "unsubscribed" from channels