this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 94 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard in my life.

In particular if I am online and neurotypical toxic people are thrown off by my ADHD, the VERY FIRST THING they do in their intellectual laziness is assume I am a kid.

The idea that this isn't considered an explicit oppression of neurodivergent adults is laughable to me. These systems will police for neurodivergence, not age. The obvious response from the center will be "just don't act like a kid then" and I would like to send a pre-emptive "go fuck yourself you are destroying everything" to those people.

[–] tonyn@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If I were an AI guessing your age based on this comment... I would estimate your age to be somewhere in the 25-35 range.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 24 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If I were an AI guessing your age based on this comment... I would estimate your age to be somewhere in the 9-9000 range.

[–] hello_cruel_world@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Good thing I'm a potato then. Good luck guessing my age!

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 8 points 3 weeks ago

I am autistic and like 60% of my watchtime is Minecraft smp.

I no longer have an account to proof my age, i download subscriptions using yt-dlp

I hope all the advanced science videos i am downloading somehow balance it out.

chuckles i am in line to get oppressed.

[–] dabaldeagul@feddit.nl 4 points 3 weeks ago

I am autistic and have ADHD (inattentive, aka ADD), and when I was 13 people estimated my age in the mid 40s lmao

And yeah now I'm the opposite, feeling more free to just ramble and stuff, without spending tons upon tons of energy to keep my attention with the conversation. So will I spend 50% of my time making points completely irrelevant to the conversation? Yeah. But I'm happier for it :)

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[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 40 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Accounts used by multiple people enter the room.

By kids often use my account on our shared family TV. We have adults in 30s/40s, early teens, and toddlers all using YouTube for different things.

This is a stupid idea.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I don't think big corp wants you account sharing. "Violates ToS" they say.

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

I don’t want ScreamingMinecraftYoutuber67 on my watch history, and yet, it’ll be there tomorrow morning.

/s

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 31 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Youtube doesn't have the best history for this. One channel makes stop motion animations and showcases Transformers. It got marked as a children's channel. The channel went on to showcase Transformers doing lewd acts.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It annoys the shit out of me that they never made the "kids" section of youtube an entirely separate thing.

Like TV, they could curate the hell out of it and not just allow anyone to upload, but no, they instead made way too much money from elsagate videos and videos of kids swimming. Now that that's gone, it's now making money off of kids from AI slop.

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[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah, at one point Youtube in their wisdom decided that toys are for kids, so anything to do with them got forcefully marked as "for kids". I remember many LEGO and RC channels have issues with it. And having your video or channel marked as "for kids" disables 90% of Youtube features - comments, likes, notifications, saving videos to playlists or watch later, end cards etc.

Even then, Youtube basically has only two age ratings - either the content is suitable for everyone (but you do have to mark if it is specifically aimed at kids under 13), or it's age-restricted to adults only. Imagine if movies only had the options of "G" or "NC-17". But eh, in the end it is FTC and COPPA telling them what they have to do. The alternative is that you'd have to create an account and somehow age-verify that you are over the age of 13 before Youtube was allowed to show any videos.

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[–] db2@lemmy.world 27 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I've never made a single comment or video post so good luck.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 64 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I watch a lot of gun videos on YouTube so they will probably assume I'm in high school.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

or you’re about to go to a high school very soon!

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago

This comment has me in critical condition.

[–] kaitco@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago
[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 weeks ago

They will base it on the stuff you consume. Like 90% of people online lurk and don't comment anything

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 23 points 3 weeks ago

Cool, they poison their own tracking data.

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The highly sophisticated and clever AI has already brilliantly identified several underaged people who have youtube or associated gmail accounts that are older than the minimum age.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Nah, google accounts are a recent thing, no way can that be a thing... Can it?

Oh hell I'm old...

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[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I assume they already did this for advertising purposes, just like every other platform trying to guess your demographics to sell you more useless shit.

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[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean, I've heard of other sites using info like having a saved payment card in your own name, or the age of the account itself to know that the user is over 18 without needing ID.

But this is Google, they want to flex their analytics and get as much additional info on everyone as they can.

[–] gary@piefed.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

This was literally the first thing that came to mind. So many people have android phones with cards already linked to google, paying for YouTube premium would do the same thing. But nope, Skynet is the better way to do it

[–] joelfromaus@aussie.zone 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

YouTube popup: What is Tik Tok?

User: A song by Kesha.

YouTube: Alright, let ‘em through.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

False, that song is clearly by Ke*$*ha

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Pfft, everyone knows it the Ukrainian entry in Moscow Eurovision (the one with the hamster wheel).

[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

How long before a certain orange moron starts complaining that it keeps thinking he's 13 for some reason?

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[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am almost 70 and my wife and have a great time confusing the AI targeted ads. I get tampon ads she gets men’s diaper ads. We never know what we are going to get since we are always feeding misinformation into our phones.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Same same but different here. This algorithm was meant to know my wants better than me but all I get is ads for credit cards, adult diapers & hoodies.

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[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 13 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

They'll be counting the wrinkies on my asshole.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

When you log into YouTube, a patented recog device does read your anus to confirm your identity. Its CCDs convert light into text-based codes, which represent your unique fingerprint of anal terrain.

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[–] Bonifratz@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I think my account is around 18 years old so let's see what the AI thinks.

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[–] UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

Start peppering your responses with archaic terms and slang.... Confuse the hell out of them

[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I watch plenty of penguinz0, This Old House, Smosh, and lawn care videos. Can’t wait to find out what YouTube makes of that.

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 weeks ago

I've got a random living room account that's used for Gen alpha brain rot, 80s R&B music videos, video essays, nature live streams, kids shows, horror stories, and documentaries. good luck.

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[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They already do this. There was a way to check and there may still be. When I checked like 10 years ago it was wrong about everything. Age, hobbies, everything

So good luck yt I guess

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[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I always knew my fascination with redstone would come back to bite me

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[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

Is this why Google sent me an email saying they changed my settings and I can scan in my ID if I want to change them back?

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They wouldn't restrict access to information based on your perceived age, would they?

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I am guessing this is a rethorical question, but, they already forcibly flag videos as "made for kids" against the creators' will (and despite very clear audience statistics proving it's not).

So yeah, they are totally using their magic 8-ball to restrict your content.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

They were sometimes restricting videos for swearing or mentioning mature topics while being "made for kids" even though the videos were clearly not for kids.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 weeks ago

What if you just play a bunch of home repair videos on the background? 🤔

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 7 points 3 weeks ago

The have been thoroughly unable to guess my age for the last 18 years.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 3 weeks ago

Im told the technology can also estimate shoe size and the relative realtion of the two!

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

The system relies on signals such as the types of videos a user searches for and watches, and how long their account has been active, to determine whether they are under the age of 18.

That's not actually AI is it ?

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