YouTube has announced recently that it will use AI to verify people's age whether they are 18 or not to ensure they don't watch NSFW content. Despite being made in good intentions and in intents to protect children's safety, it goes too far.

If in effect, it will require users to give out their watch history to determine whether they are an teen or adult, however, this infringes on our rights to watch content, regardless of age.

If the system gets it wrong, users will be forced to either give out their ID, face, or credit card to YouTube, which is a serious administrative nightmare, as people could use VPNs or make fake IDs, to try to stop the system. There's also security issues, which I will talk about later. Not to mention, Videos of those under 18 will have to be set to private, which means many videos could possibly be lost.

Parents are the ones responsible to ensure minors don't watch NSFW content. We don't want our watch history to be given out to a company, and it could potentially have a risk of a data breach, posing a severe security risk.

While IDs aren't the only option for the system, it is still an option, and it still poses security risks. The 2nd option, selfie/face-scanning, has been proven to be inaccurate as well, as these systems tend to be less accurate on darker-skinned people (especially Black ones). In addition, some 15-year old who would want to watch 18+ content will instead put up on makeup and accessories to try to beat the system, creating a loophole. The 3rd option, credit/debit cards, could also have loopholes, as kids could possibly commit credit card fraud by stealing others' credit card numbers, and putting it on the system. That is an illegal crime. You can get arrested for stealing other's credit cards.

Instead, we should focus on education, parental guidance, and maybe even making the YouTube Kids app better to ensure we can be treated safely and freely. That doesn't mean YT should infridge on our privacy.

Let's tell YouTube to not test it on August 13 in the United States. It may be a way of protecting children, but it's too strict and invasive. We should find other ways to actually protect children. Let's not let YouTube become a test case for global internet censorship. Sign this if you care.