I didn't know that was still something the sift was doing. @lucky760 are not all sift members allowed to use all the same sites/embeds to sift from.

According to this it's a silver star privilege. "May submit Flash videos from any video source"

Facebook?

Huh... Is that similar to MySpace or maybe Friendster? It should be expected that some lesser-known websites wouldn't be on our list of accepted video hosts.

@speechless - Can you PM me the embed code you're trying to use? Please enclose it in <code> code tags </code> so it will be properly formatted.

ok thanks Lucky!

After reviewing your PM, the problem is Facebook's embed code is JavaScript, which is globally unaccepted for submission on VideoSift for the inherent security implications.

The supposed object/embed type of code you provided is not valid, perhaps because they disabled that.

In short, Facebook does not provide a portable way to embed their videos. This kind of makes sense because they are not a general purpose video host, and they have a lot more, higher priorities like supporting tons of controls regarding who can view what and how.

Just one more reason to hate facebook.
Thanks Lucky.

@lucky760

ok, I was just about to embed a video from VS as a comment to another sift, but the embed code provided by siftbot is:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://videosift.com/widget.js?video=53349&width=500&comments=15&minimized=1"></script>

So, I'm confused now about javascript embeds being globally insecure and VS providing them as embed code.

Believe it or not, we are somehow able to have 100% confidence that there is no malicious content in our own JS code written for us by us, used on our own website, hosted on our own server, and linked via our own domain.

Go figure!

lmfahs

But isn't the embed you provide intended to be used on other sites as well? When you hover over the embed button it says "embed this video on your blog or website".

Yes.

What does that have to do with VS allowing the submission of JavaScript from other sources?

Just struck me as weird that VS considers JS as globally unaccepted from external sites, yet it's the only type of embed you provide to external sites.

I mean, why should any other site accept VS JS code as an embed? If it was just meant to be used internally, I would understand. But, the message when you hover over the embed link seems to suggest it's meant to be shared elsewhere.

But, I know fuck all about any of this, so please forgive my ignorance.

It's a user-by-user decision. Some people may not care/worry about inserting our JS embed into their sites. We, as a site, do care/worry.

Iframes can also be potentially harmful, which is why we never used to accept any, but now accept just a few (from sources we feel are very unlikely to have anything malicious in them).

I don't feel we'd need to take an anti-JS-embed stance as a general principle just because we don't want to risk using JS embeds of unknown origin ourselves.

Think of it this way: If my kids received apples on Halloween, I'd throw them out for fear they contain razor blades. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't necessarily hand out apples myself. And if I did that and recipient kids' parents threw my apples out, I wouldn't hold it against them.