LogInThose mistakenly identified as under 18 will need to verify their age using a credit card or government-issued ID.
The situation with mass censorship over the past few weeks serves as a somber reminder that when it rains, it most definitely pours. After the widespread removal of adult games from some of the biggest marketplaces, the dystopian Online Safety Act going into effect in the UK, and talks of a similar law being introduced in the United States Congress, YouTube has now decided to hop on this repulsive bandwagon, announcing that it will soon begin monitoring the behavior of US users using artificial intelligence.
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Fueled by the revived "think of the children" mentality, YouTube's new system will use AI to judge whether a user is an adult or a teen based on factors like the types of videos they search for, the categories they watch, and how long the account has existed.
If the machine decides the user is a teen, a number of changes will be rolled out – personalized ads will be disabled, digital wellbeing tools will be enabled, recommendations will include extra safeguards – such as limiting repeated views of certain content – and, most notably, access to age-restricted videos will be blocked.
If you've spent even a day on YouTube, you'll know that it often includes videos that merely mention sensitive topics in passing without even focusing on them, meaning a sizeable chunk of content that common sense says is perfectly fine for teens will end up becoming inaccessible for them.
And to make your blood boil even hotter, if the system incorrectly flags an adult as a teen – which, let's be honest here, is bound to happen frequently given that AI will be in charge – that person will be invited to prove they're over 18 by providing credit card details or a government-issued ID, making it, similar to the aforementioned Online Safety Act, look like a blatant attempt to harvest personal data, all under the convenient cover of "protecting children" to avoid widespread backlash.
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