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YouTube will start using AI to guess your age.

⁨244⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨HelloHotel@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/13/tech/youtube-ai-age-verification

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Comments

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  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

    In particular if I am online and people are thrown off by my ADHD the VERY FIRST THING they do is assume I am a kid.

    The idea that this isn’t considered an explicit oppression of neurodivergent adults is laughable to me.

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    • tonyn@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

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      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        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.

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    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I am autistic and like 60% of my watchtime is Minecraft smp.

      I no longer have an account to proof my age, i download subscriptions using yt-dlp

      I hope all the advanced science videos i am downloading somehow balance it out.

      chuckles i am in line to get oppressed.

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    • dabaldeagul@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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 :)

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  • UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Start peppering your responses with archaic terms and slang… Confuse the hell out of them

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  • phutatorius@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They’ll be counting the wrinkies on my asshole.

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    • lemmyknow@lemmy.today ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      When you log into YouTube, a patented recog device does read your anus to confirm your identity. Its CCDs convert light into text-based codes, which represent your unique fingerprint of anal terrain.

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    • bhamlin@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And y’all made fun of me for putting sunscreen on my asshole!

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  • Fandangalo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

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    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I don’t think big corp wants you account sharing. “Violates ToS” they say.

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      • Fandangalo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

        /s

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      • foggenbooty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I don’t want account sharing either, except theres things like Google homes where you can’t sign in with more than one account. People sharing the same account in a TV aren’t trying to, it’s just the natural way they use it.

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    • neclimdul@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      👋

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  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The highly sophisticated and clever AI has already brilliantly identified several underaged people who have youtube or associated gmail accounts that are older than the minimum age.

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    • jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Nah, google accounts are a recent thing, no way can that be a thing… Can it?

      Oh hell I’m old…

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      • ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        My Gmail account is old enough to buy drinks in a bar in the US (21)

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  • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I assume they already did this for advertising purposes, just like every other platform trying to guess your demographics to sell you more useless shit.

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    • lemmyknow@lemmy.today ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And that’s not just a win for companies. The fact that my metadata is out there is great for me as a user. Like with targeted ads – I get tons of coupons from cool restaurants.

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      • isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Can’t tell if /s

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  • WanderingThoughts@europe.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

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    • IndiBrony@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

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      • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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    • pleaseletmein@lemmy.zip ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I remember when they first rolled out the “made for kids” video designation, “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” (a horror video) was labeled as children’s content by the AI until enough actual users had pointed out the error on Twitter.

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    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.
      But eh, in the end it is FTC and COPPA telling them what they have to do.

      But 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”.

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  • db2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • tidderuuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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      • kaitco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Oof!

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    • pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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  • Pro@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Article date: Aug 13, 2025.

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Cool, they poison their own tracking data.

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  • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How long before a certain orange moron starts complaining that it keeps thinking he’s 13 for some reason?

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    • lemmyknow@lemmy.today ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Damn, y’all really can’t think 'bout nu’in else, innit?

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      • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Jokes are jokes. Guy wants to be in the spotlight, jokes on him, right?

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  • Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

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  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

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    • gary@piefed.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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

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  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The have been thoroughly unable to guess my age for the last 18 years.

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  • Bonifratz@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • Blackfeathr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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  • veeesix@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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    • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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  • datavoid@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      My planned solution is to use a browser on a proxy that clears cookies after closing.

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  • tdawg@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They already do this. There was a way to check and there may still be. When I checked like 10 years ago it was wrong about everything. Age, hobbies, everything

    So good luck yt I guess

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    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      myadcenter.google.com/controls

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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    • brsrklf@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

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      • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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  • ccunning@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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?

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  • Wispy2891@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’m betting that it’s so “intelligent” that will guess underage even if the Google account was opened in 2004

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    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      IIRC that is one parameter they actually mentioned taking into account.

      I guess my 2006 or 2007 or whatever YouTube account (which, yes, I later connected with my Google account - not all that much later, in fact) will perhaps qualify me for adult-only content finally.

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  • HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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  • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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 ?

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  • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

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    • aceshigh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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      • jnod4@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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

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  • trashboat@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’ve been wondering lately how effective a service would be that takes your credentials for a service, such as YouTube, and starts engaging with content at random so that the data the service has on you is all junk

    Don’t know how meaningful something like this would even be, but if all these companies are gonna try so hard to collect data on me then I’d rather fill that data with useless junk

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    • Nightlight17776@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      With all the data they collect I wish they would target me with the right ads. I don’t want an AI girlfriend, to buy a toyota in spanish, or comemeritive trump merch

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      • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Using an ad blocker I get nothing but the types of ads I wanna see 😌

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  • altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Search… Sponge Bob Ross hand painting practice.

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  • vodkasolution@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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

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