this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 1 points 4 minutes ago

The system relies on signals such as the types of videos a user searches for and watches, and how long their account has been active, to determine whether they are under the age of 18.

That's not actually AI is it ?

[–] joelfromaus@aussie.zone 2 points 42 minutes ago* (last edited 42 minutes ago) (1 children)

YouTube popup: What is Tik Tok?

User: A song by Kesha.

YouTube: Alright, let ‘em through.

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 1 points 1 minute ago* (last edited 1 minute ago)

Pfft, everyone knows it the Ukrainian entry in Moscow Eurovision (the one with the hamster wheel).

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 2 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

It's going to be really hilarious if my account gets flagged by the AI.
I made it in 2004, it's old enough to drink.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 1 points 36 minutes ago (1 children)

The account is, but it doesn’t say anything about the person using it.

[–] jnod4@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 minutes ago

Youtube/Google is bowing down to a government that is funding some very negative actions towards children across the ocean. Why aren't they using this AI to solve this? /s

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 1 points 39 minutes ago

The day it starts I'm gonna upload a bunch of old videos in a playlist, looking to monetize

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 hour ago

What if you just play a bunch of home repair videos on the background? 🤔

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I am almost 70 and my wife and have a great time confusing the AI targeted ads. I get tampon ads she gets men’s diaper ads. We never know what we are going to get since we are always feeding misinformation into our phones.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 2 points 22 minutes ago (1 children)

Same same but different here. This algorithm was meant to know my wants better than me but all I get is ads for credit cards, adult diapers & hoodies.

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 minutes ago

Spruce things up a bit. Talk in front front of your phone and say how much you always wanted a pet zebra or you want an auto car wash for your house. Stuff like that.

[–] Pro@programming.dev 20 points 6 hours ago

Article date: Aug 13, 2025.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 19 points 7 hours ago

Cool, they poison their own tracking data.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 70 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (3 children)

This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard in my life.

In particular if I am online and neurotypical toxic people are thrown off by my ADHD, the VERY FIRST THING they do in their intellectual laziness is assume I am a kid.

The idea that this isn't considered an explicit oppression of neurodivergent adults is laughable to me. These systems will police for neurodivergence, not age. The obvious response from the center will be "just don't act like a kid then" and I would like to send a pre-emptive "go fuck yourself you are destroying everything" to those people.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 2 points 13 minutes ago

You were on 69 upvotes. Sorry for making that 70.

[–] dabaldeagul@feddit.nl 1 points 56 minutes ago

I am autistic and have ADHD (inattentive, aka ADD), and when I was 13 people estimated my age in the mid 40s lmao

And yeah now I'm the opposite, feeling more free to just ramble and stuff, without spending tons upon tons of energy to keep my attention with the conversation. So will I spend 50% of my time making points completely irrelevant to the conversation? Yeah. But I'm happier for it :)

[–] tonyn@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If I were an AI guessing your age based on this comment... I would estimate your age to be somewhere in the 25-35 range.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 13 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

If I were an AI guessing your age based on this comment... I would estimate your age to be somewhere in the 9-9000 range.

[–] hello_cruel_world@lemmy.world 2 points 6 minutes ago

Good thing I'm a potato then. Good luck guessing my age!

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 30 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Accounts used by multiple people enter the room.

By kids often use my account on our shared family TV. We have adults in 30s/40s, early teens, and toddlers all using YouTube for different things.

This is a stupid idea.

[–] hello_cruel_world@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago

My reddit account got perma-banned because someone logged into an account on my pc that later on got banned. I know who it was, that's not the issue and frankly I don't care, but despite me telling them it's a shared pc, they still maintained the ban.

I guess they get that excuse a lot, but I'm more annoyed that it was a 50k account that got binned more than anything 😂

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I don't think big corp wants you account sharing. "Violates ToS" they say.

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

I don’t want ScreamingMinecraftYoutuber67 on my watch history, and yet, it’ll be there tomorrow morning.

/s

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 25 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Youtube doesn't have the best history for this. One channel makes stop motion animations and showcases Transformers. It got marked as a children's channel. The channel went on to showcase Transformers doing lewd acts.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 points 56 minutes ago* (last edited 54 minutes ago)

Yeah, at one point Youtube in their wisdom decided that toys are for kids, so anything to do with them got forcefully marked as "for kids". I remember many LEGO and RC channels have issues with it. And having your video or channel marked as "for kids" disables 90% of Youtube features - comments, likes, notifications, saving videos to playlists or watch later, end cards etc.

Even then, Youtube basically has only two age ratings - either the content is suitable for everyone (but you do have to mark if it is specifically aimed at kids under 13), or it's age-restricted to adults only. Imagine if movies only had the options of "G" or "NC-17". But eh, in the end it is FTC and COPPA telling them what they have to do. The alternative is that you'd have to create an account and somehow age-verify that you are over the age of 13 before Youtube was allowed to show any videos.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 18 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It annoys the shit out of me that they never made the "kids" section of youtube an entirely separate thing.

Like TV, they could curate the hell out of it and not just allow anyone to upload, but no, they instead made way too much money from elsagate videos and videos of kids swimming. Now that that's gone, it's now making money off of kids from AI slop.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 points 52 minutes ago* (last edited 48 minutes ago)

It annoys the shit out of me that they never made the “kids” section of youtube an entirely separate thing.

That's exactly what they did. Ten years ago.
It's just that the FTC and COPPA force them to also mark anything that gets uploaded to regular Youtube and is "targeting" kids as such, because they aren't allowed to collect data from anyone under the age of 13.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 27 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I've never made a single comment or video post so good luck.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 hours ago

They will base it on the stuff you consume. Like 90% of people online lurk and don't comment anything

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 53 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I watch a lot of gun videos on YouTube so they will probably assume I'm in high school.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

or you’re about to go to a high school very soon!

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

This comment has me in critical condition.

[–] kaitco@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours ago
[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 9 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

I watch plenty of penguinz0, This Old House, Smosh, and lawn care videos. Can’t wait to find out what YouTube makes of that.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 4 hours ago

I watch cartoons meant for kids. They're gonna think I'm 7.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I mostly watch true crime, live trials, art videos and long form interviews. Yt will flag my post when I try to search for yoga videos because it’s afraid I’ll break a hip.

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago

I've got a random living room account that's used for Gen alpha brain rot, 80s R&B music videos, video essays, nature live streams, kids shows, horror stories, and documentaries. good luck.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, I've heard of other sites using info like having a saved payment card in your own name, or the age of the account itself to know that the user is over 18 without needing ID.

But this is Google, they want to flex their analytics and get as much additional info on everyone as they can.

[–] gary@piefed.world 7 points 9 hours ago

This was literally the first thing that came to mind. So many people have android phones with cards already linked to google, paying for YouTube premium would do the same thing. But nope, Skynet is the better way to do it

[–] Bonifratz@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I think my account is around 18 years old so let's see what the AI thinks.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 1 points 45 seconds ago

Yep I've had my account since 2006. It's old enough to vote.

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 1 points 3 minutes ago

The system relies on signals such as the types of videos a user searches for and watches, and how long their account has been active, to determine whether they are under the age of 18.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 7 hours ago

Im told the technology can also estimate shoe size and the relative realtion of the two!

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

They wouldn't restrict access to information based on your perceived age, would they?

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I am guessing this is a rethorical question, but, they already forcibly flag videos as "made for kids" against the creators' will (and despite very clear audience statistics proving it's not).

So yeah, they are totally using their magic 8-ball to restrict your content.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 hours ago

They were sometimes restricting videos for swearing or mentioning mature topics while being "made for kids" even though the videos were clearly not for kids.

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 8 points 10 hours ago

Is this why Google sent me an email saying they changed my settings and I can scan in my ID if I want to change them back?

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I always knew my fascination with redstone would come back to bite me

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