Обзор YouTube’s crackdown on non-age-verified accounts seems to be picking up steam

[Обзор]

TL;DR

• YouTube has started trying to verify if its users are adults or not.
• When the system can’t make a prediction on its own, users have been asked to provide documentation proving their age.
• For those who haven’t, many have started seeing their YouTube accounts locked down to child settings.

YouTube offers probably the deepest video content well in the history of entertainment, and with such a massive library to draw from, not all of that content’s going to be appropriate for everyone. The site has long struggled to take appropriate measures to protect its young and vulnerable users, while still letting adults enjoy more mature material — within reason. Most recently, those efforts have taken the form of attempts to verify users’ ages, and right now it looks like enforcement is stepping up.


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Google announced this past summer that it would start targeting US YouTube viewers with these age checks, using multiple data points to try to automatically characterize users based on things like viewing history. When that fails, or Google’s unable to make a guess with much confidence, YouTube offers these users the opportunity to manually establish their age by submitting something like an ID or credit card.


If that doesn’t happen, YouTube has been clear about the consequences: if it’s not convinced you’re an adult, it’s going to start treating you like a child — and limiting your account’s access, accordingly.


Some users are just utterly disinterested in working with Google to establish their ages, whether for privacy reasons or just as a matter of principle, and this week we’re noticing a spate of posts on Reddit’s YouTube sub of these users now finding their accounts limited. Posters like Basic-Opposite-4670 and YoungMrBlue share their disappointment at finally running into this restriction, and we’re sure they’re far from alone, based on all the other commenters chiming in.


Like we said, Google has minced no words about its intentions with this effort, and viewers who weren’t interested in playing ball are just going to have to live with these consequences. It would certainly be nice if we had a solid privacy-preserving system for establishing your age of majority, but in the absence of such a solution, those of us who want to drink from the YouTube well are just going to have to put up with these requirements.


Have you been resistant to proving your age to YouTube? Let us know what’s inspiring your fight down in the comments.


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