American social media and online video sharing platform, YouTube seems to be all set to introduce a new artificial intelligence system that can detect if a user is under 18 years old, even if they lie about their age while creating an account.
Youtube Using AI To Detect Teenage Users
The platform is planning to commence testing of this AI age estimation feature in the United States starting August 13 further having plans to gradually expand it to more users later.
Timing of this move coincides with the regulations as the governments across the world are urging tech companies to take more responsibility for online safety, especially for children.
In recent times, several countries like the UK, members of the European Union, and several US states have brought in new rules.
As per these new rules, these platforms are required to verify users’ ages and prevent minors from accessing harmful or inappropriate content.
Reportedly, YouTube’s AI will look into several signals in order to estimate the right age for the user.
The platform would also consider the types of videos the user will search for along with the kind of content they usually watch, and how old their YouTube account is.
Considering all these factors, the system will try to figure out if a user is a teenager.
How Does It Affect The Present System?
By checking all these factors, if the system concludes that the user is under 18 then it will automatically apply certain restrictions and this will be implemented regardless of the date of birth they entered while signing up.
While applying these protections, they will block the access to age-restricted videos, turning off personalised ads, showing “take a break” notifications, and reducing repeated recommendations on sensitive topics like body image.
In addition to this, YouTube will display privacy reminders whenever teen users try to upload a video or comment on one.
Further clarifying on the subject, the platform said that the users who feel they’ve been wrongly flagged as minors will be able to prove their real age by uploading a government ID, using a credit card, or clicking a selfie.
In a recent blog post, YouTube’s Director of Product Management James Beser highlighted that the company is rolling out the system to a small group of users in the US first to monitor how well it works.
After its successful execution, the social media platform will bring the feature to other regions as well.
It’s not the first time as earlier also Google, YouTube’s parent company, has spoken about using machine learning for age detection this year.
The company said that its AI would play a bigger role in improving online safety across its platforms.
This would also affect the creators as YouTube has warned creators that they might see a drop in their teenage audience, which could lead to a small decline in ad revenue.
After this implementation, teen users will be shown only non-personalised ads, so, the overall value of those ad impressions may go down.
So far, YouTube expects that the impact from these implementations will be minor for most of the creators.
