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Youtube AI Technology

YouTube Will Use Tech Updates To Better Enforce Age Restrictions (axios.com) 25

YouTube said Tuesday that it has updated its technology to enable the tech giant to better enforce its age restriction policies. From a report: The company has been criticized and penalized for its policies and architecture that displayed harmful content to kids and violated children's data privacy. The company is announcing three new changes: It will begin using machine learning to automatically apply age restrictions to content on its platform around the world. It's using technology to identify age-restrictive content so that when viewers discover age-restricted videos embedded on most third-party websites, they will now be required to log in to watch those videos in order to verify their age. It will start to request that some users in Europe verify their age with a valid ID or credit card, in response to new EU regulations, like the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
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YouTube Will Use Tech Updates To Better Enforce Age Restrictions

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  • What are they good for?

  • Who wouldn't want to provide a valid ID or credit card to Google? Or every website that has "child-unfriendly" content?

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Simply a lie, they want to push more unadvertising friendly content off the platform, more censorship but not of advertising. On no, they will target children with all the junk food advertising they can and feel good messaging about how it is OK to be fat sick candy gobbling idiot (too much sugar bad for the brain of children but great for corporate profits and advertising friendly corporations).

      Google we had to destroy the children with targeted excess sugar and artificial flavour consumption (will Googl

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @04:37PM (#60532942)
    not me
    Log in = data mining, tracking spying made very easy producing high quality telemetry.
    No log in = data mining, tracking spying just lessor quality telemetry.

    But this is about the children, yea right!
    • Precisely this. If anyone thinks they haven't been feeding nearly all the data they collect to ML, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
    • This might be related to that nagging pop-up that asks you to log in. The one that you sometimes have to click "NO" on, two or three times, before it'll go away. Incidentally, if anyone knows a way of getting Ublock Origin to block it in a manner that doesn't hang the playback, I'd like to hear about it.

  • by Ceseuron ( 944486 ) on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @04:38PM (#60532946)

    I'll never understand why the developers at YouTube believe that logging in is sufficient to verify one's age. My date of birth has been January 1st, 1900 whenever I've been presented with some meaningless age check for the better part of 20 years now. If Youtube tries to block me from seeing a video without signing in, then I simply use nsfwyoutube to play it and bypass their age check.

    Requiring ID or a credit card might put an end to some of that, but even that's dubious at best. I'm sure there's more than a few kids out there willing to pilfer their parents credit cards and IDs to set up fake accounts to circumvent age gates. Hell, there was an article I read not long ago about how bored kids are using TikTok to record themselves dressing up in disguise as elderly people so that they can buy alcohol with less chances of being carded.

    • by Toonol ( 1057698 )
      I don't think YouTube believes this, and that's not why they're doing it. Lawmakers believe this. Google knows this won't stop kids, but it allows them to avoid the liability and blame... they can talk about all their efforts to keep children safe the next time they're hauled in front of Congress. It's all a show, and I don't really blame them. They don't have a choice.

      I've had to set all my kids up with accounts that show they are late teens. Practically fake identities, because if they get one acc
  • even if you don't login. I mean, this is the (don't be evil unless you don't think you'll be caught) company.

    Still, I never, ever login to youtube.

    There are apparently sites that you can just grab age-restricted videos from if you don't want to log in.

  • What is "harmful content"? Do pictures harm? Do words? What's harmful is people making creative phrases for censorship.
    • by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      Do pictures harm? Do words?

      Yes, they can. Or are you of the mind that it should be ok for kids to watch videos of snuff films, dog fights, porn, etc?

      • You mean things that already shouldn't be on YouTube as per YouTube's TOS? Why do kids/non-kids matter here, then?
        • I understand that this article is about YouTube, but OP asked specifically for examples of harmful content. I would argue that WAP should be categorized as harmful content, and that (unless it's been removed for copyright infringement) is for sure on YouTube.
          • Shoot, I forgot a part in my statement. I understand that the article is about YouTube, but since OP wasn't referring specifically to YouTube I was giving general examples
  • It must be frustrating for Google to be serving videos without knowing for sure who is watching them. The data is more valuable when it can be attached to specific people.

    I'm sure the database of which person watched which video when will be kept completely secure.

  • We don't need to babyfy the net. If parents can't control their kids, then they shouldn't have kids.

    I'm tired of these stupid covert attempts to usurp free speech and slapping on a "Think of the children!" label.

    Let;s see it for what it is, an attempt by the power elite to protect their rule.

  • Can anyone explain how this can be compatible with GDPR? Especially for third party websites offering content that isn't seen as adult in the country in question?

  • According to some youtubers, this is a back-door way to implement censorship of channels that express or report views or events that are contrary to YouTube left-wing orthodoxy. Apparently, it will be easy to get age-restricted, even for only a small fraction of posts, and then your content will no longer be discoverable.

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