{"id":866759,"date":"2025-08-20T23:16:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/youtube-ai-can-predict-if-youre-under-18-and-restrict-your-account-accordingly\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T23:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T04:16:24","slug":"youtube-ai-can-predict-if-youre-under-18-and-restrict-your-account-accordingly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/youtube-ai-can-predict-if-youre-under-18-and-restrict-your-account-accordingly\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube AI Can Predict if You\u2019re Under 18\u2014and Restrict Your Account Accordingly"},"content":{"rendered":"<section itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_327023\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-327023\" src=\"https:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/youtube-ai-age-verification-predicts-users-under-18-1024x576.png\" alt=\"YouTube AI users under 18\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\"  ><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-327023\">Photo Credit: Christian Wiediger<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>YouTube is testing AI age-verification technology in the U.S. to predict if you\u2019re under 18, regardless of the birthday entered on your account.<\/h2>\n<p>If you\u2019re the parent of a kid who watches YouTube\u2014or if you\u2019re a YouTube-loving kid yourself\u2014you might find certain restrictions appearing on your account. The Google-owned video platform is <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/digital\/news\/youtube-ai-age-verification-automatically-restrict-under-18-users-1236488309\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener noreferrer\">testing AI age-verification technology<\/a> in the U.S. that can predict users under 18 and place restrictions on their accounts as a result.<\/p>\n<p>According to YouTube, this is part of a move to provide better protections for younger users. The company\u2019s \u201cage-estimation model\u201d started rolling out in the U.S. on Wednesday to determine if someone is under 18\u2014regardless of the information entered on their account.<\/p>\n<p>The initial rollout of the feature covers only a \u201csmall set of users\u201d in the U.S. to estimate their age. \u201cThis technology will allow us to infer a user\u2019s age and then use that signal, regardless of the birthday in the account, to deliver our age-appropriate product experiences and protections,\u201d says James Beser, senior director of product management for YouTube\u2019s youth products.<\/p>\n<p>If this system\u2019s AI-based system calculates that someone is likely to be under 18, it will place restrictions on the account and add other security measures. YouTube says users will \u201chave the option to verify [their] age\u201d through \u201cgovernment ID, selfie, or credit card,\u201d if they believe the age estimation model is incorrect.<\/p>\n<h4>According to Beser, YouTube has already used machine learning to estimate users\u2019 ages in other countries \u201cfor some time,\u201d and that it is \u201cworking well.\u201d Now, in the U.S., YouTube will \u201cclosely monitor the user experience and partner with creators to ensure that the entire ecosystem benefits from this update,\u201d says Beser.<\/h4>\n<p>YouTube\u2019s age estimation model uses a variety of signals, including YouTube activity and the longevity of the account. Users determined to be likely under 19 will be notified, while \u201cstandard protections for teen accounts on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/2025\/07\/29\/youtube-music-tiktok-add-to-music-app-support\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"follow\">YouTube<\/a> will automatically be enabled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These include showing only non-personalized ads, enabling \u201cdigital wellbeing\u201d tools like \u201ctake a break\u201d and bedtime reminders, showing reminders about privacy, minimizing recommendations of content that could be \u201cproblematic,\u201d and blocking access to videos that are age-restricted.<\/p>\n<p>For creators, additional protections as a result of this change will include setting uploads as private by default and restricting the ability to earn from gifts on vertical live streams. YouTube says the changes are expected to have \u201climited impact\u201d for most creators, but noted that \u201csome creators may experience a shift in their audience categorized as teens,\u201d which may result in a decrease in ad revenue.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/2025\/08\/13\/youtube-ai-account-predictions\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo Credit: Christian Wiediger YouTube is testing AI age-verification technology in the U.S. to predict if you\u2019re under 18, regardless of the birthday entered on your account. If you\u2019re the parent of a kid who watches YouTube\u2014or if you\u2019re a YouTube-loving kid yourself\u2014you might find certain restrictions appearing on your account. The Google-owned video platform [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":866760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22127,49,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-866759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-predict","8":"category-youtube","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}