YouTube will attempt to divine users' age with AI to automatically instate restrictions

Of course, YouTube doesn’t seem to be accounting for the ways this sort of AI oversight would violate their own users’ privacy in turn. According to the company, the AI bot will be fed information such as a user’s activity and the longevity of the account to make its determination. At least there’s allegedly a way to remove the restrictions if you are, in fact, a card-carrying grown-up. Users will “have the option to verify your age (through government ID, selfie or a credit card) if you believe our age estimation model is incorrect.” Teens have famously never found a way to get around ID checks, so that should all go according to plan. 

The new model will only cover a “small set of users” initially, the company said, but it did note that it has been using machine learning to determine users’ ages in other countries “for some time, where it is working well.” In the U.S., the AI system will “closely monitor the user experience, and partner with Creators to ensure that the entire ecosystem benefits from this update,” said James Beser, senior director of product management for YouTube’s youth products, per Variety. He also reiterated that this whole experiment is meant to protect teens, at least in the company’s view. “YouTube was one of the first platforms to offer experiences designed specifically for young people, and we’re proud to again be at the forefront of introducing technology that allows us to deliver safety protections while preserving teen privacy,” he said. “Families trust YouTube to provide a safe and enriching experience, and we’ll continue to invest to protect their ability to explore safely online.”

Other parties disagree. Gerfdas Gaming, a YouTube creator with nearly 5,000 followers, started a Change.org petition earlier this month titled “YouTube’s AI Tracks Everything You Watch — Stop This Now” that has over 75,000 signatures as of this writing. “This isn’t just about age restriction—it’s about mass surveillance and data control,” the petition reads. “We cannot allow YouTube to quietly implement AI surveillance that violates privacy and autonomy. Once these systems are normalized, they rarely go away—they expand. If we don’t speak up now, we risk losing our ability to browse, create, and enjoy content freely. This is about more than YouTube. This is about digital freedom.”