SAN FRANCISCO: YouTube has brought in artificial intelligence to help work out if users are really adults or children pretending to be adults on the popular video-sharing platform.
This step, aimed at stopping children from getting past age checks, is part of a bigger effort to keep younger users from seeing content meant for older viewers.
The new safety tool is being launched in the United States as Google-owned YouTube, along with platforms like Instagram and TikTok, faces pressure to protect children from adult content.
A kind of AI called machine learning will be used to guess a user’s age by looking at different things, such as the types of videos watched and how long the account has been active, said James Beser, YouTube’s Youth Director of Product Management.
“This technology helps us figure out a user’s age and use that information—no matter what birthday is in the account—to give them the right age-based content and protection,” Beser said.
“We’ve already been using this method in other places, and it’s been working well.”
YouTube says the age-guessing model improves the tools already in place to figure out user ages.
If YouTube thinks a user is underage, they’ll get a message and can prove their age using a credit card, selfie, or government ID, the company explained.
Social media sites are often blamed for not keeping kids safe online.
Australia will soon use its new social media rules to ban children under 16 from using YouTube, a top minister said recently, warning about the risks of “predatory algorithms.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells said that four in ten Australian children have seen harmful content on YouTube, which is one of the most popular websites in the world.
Australia said last year that it was creating laws to stop kids under 16 from using social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
“Our view is still the same: YouTube is a video-sharing site with lots of free, top-quality content that’s now mostly watched on TV screens,” the company said at the time.
“It’s not social media.”
On paper, the new ban is one of the world’s toughest.
It’s set to start on December 10.
Other countries are watching this law closely, and many are thinking about doing the same.