YouTube To Roll Out AI System To Identify Teen Users In The U.S.

YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will extend its built-in protections to more teenage users in the United States. The company explained that it will roll out an AI-powered system to estimate users’ ages and deliver age-appropriate content.

According to the official announcement, YouTube had previously introduced several tools to protect children, including the launch of YouTube Kids 10 years ago, and the development of supervised accounts for pre-teens and teens.

Now, the company will deploy an AI-powered tool that will estimate the user’s age through “signals” such as the types of videos watched, the longevity of the account, and the categories of the viewed content.

“Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to roll out machine learning to a small set of users in the US to estimate their age, so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults,” wrote James Beser, Director of Product Management at YouTube. “This technology will allow us to infer a user’s age and then use that signal, regardless of the birthday in the account, to deliver our age-appropriate product experiences and protections.”

If the system recognizes a teenager, age-appropriate measures will be applied to the account. This includes disabling personalized advertising, limiting repetitive views of certain types of content, and enabling digital wellbeing tools. Adult users who believe they have been incorrectly categorized can submit a government ID to verify their age.

YouTube said it has already tested the age-verification tools with good results in other markets, and that if the system remains successful in the U.S. it aims to expand it to more locations.

Other tech companies are also implementing different age-verification systems to protect users and comply with growing regulations imposed by governments on entertainment and social media platforms.

A few days ago, Reddit rolled out a new age verification system in the United Kingdom to prevent users under 18 from viewing mature content. Instagram also began testing an AI-powered age-verification system to restrict content and ensure a safer environment for children.