YouTube now requires EU, EEA, UK & Swiss viewers to physically verify age before they can watch age restricted videos

[GenericFanboy]

1 channel i watch intensively gets marked for 18+ a lot. So when this was put in i got so annoyed. I've been getting that notification for 2 months, idk why others didnt have it.

 

Its finnicky, but you're allowed to block your ID card foto luckily.

[Akolyte]

1 minute ago, jagdtigger said:

Or what if parents instead of giving a phone to the kid so they will keep silent would do their efing job and actually act as parents?

That sounds like a great idea, but you and I both know that's an unrealistic outcome.  Partially because the job of being a parent is a secondary job and they still need income on the side. 

 

I think it's good for a society to be thoughtful enough to implement safeguards for the children of that society. 

 

Being as apolitical as possible - children who watch radicalized content of any form could potentially do damage to a society, so it's in the governments best interest for the stability of the country to ensure people are restricted from seeing radicalized content until they are old enough to be able to use reasoning to determine whether something is true themselves. 

[captain_to_fire]

9 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Or what if parents instead of giving a phone to the kid so they will keep silent would do their efing job and actually act as parents?

That would be easy if mom and dad isn't working at home to keep the lights on and put food in the table.

[NeuesTestament]

I don't know why YouTube asked me for my age verification, in my bio it cleary states I was born in 1871. I am not that good at math, but I think that means I am above 18 years old.

[Ashleyyyy]

just a workaround as i've had this happen to me for quite a while now, if you copy the video link and open it in VLC, it plays just fine. 

[jagdtigger]

13 minutes ago, Akolyte said:

Partially because the job of being a parent is a secondary job and they still need income on the side. 

Then first we should fix this bs, being a parent is anything but a neglegable secondary job. (both in the civil and corporate world)

 

11 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

That would be easy if mom and dad isn't working at home to keep the lights on and put food in the table.

Excuses, excuses. If you dont have time to raise a child responsibly do not "make" one.....

[Master Disaster]

56 minutes ago, GenericFanboy said:

1 channel i watch intensively gets marked for 18+ a lot. So when this was put in i got so annoyed. I've been getting that notification for 2 months, idk why others didnt have it.

 

Its finnicky, but you're allowed to block your ID card foto luckily.

Could you explain how you received the notification? Did you have to click on a blocked video to see it? Did blocked videos show in your notifications or main feed?

[GenericFanboy]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

Could you explain how you received the notification? Did you have to click on a blocked video to see it? Did blocked videos show in your notifications or main feed?

It was indeed a 'blocked' video that gave me the error. As soon as i clicked on it it asked for verification.

[XWAUForceflow]

Mhm... anybody has a 18+ video link ready? I'd like to see if I can still watch those in Germany or not...

[Kilrah]

I had reached a few blocked videos simply through browsing suggestions before but didn't want to bother, then eventually did. So it doesn't cause them to be completely blacklisted/not suggested before you enter your age, seems to be presented to you like others, just that you have to enter your details to watch if not done before. 

 

That would contradict the "Google uses it for censoring!!!" argument.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

 

 

My Thoughts

The EU is at it again, as pointed out in the video I mentioned, YouTube has already started using this as a tool to silence videos they don't like.

Whoa there pardner, not everything is a conspiracy to censor things.

 

Here's the thing. Back when the internet was a bright shiney new thing in 1992 for everyone. The adult content industry was the first to ask for credit card verification as a form of age gating. If you age gate the content, that means it's either:

a) Porn

b) Disturbingly Violent

c) Potentially illegal in some jurisdiction (it only takes one)

 

Now, Youtube is not a host for content A, or even B, but C is where I think the problem is. Gay content? illegal in what was it, 150 countries?

 

It's not censorship when a private/public business is complying with the law, and when they are a multi-country entity, that means they are subject to all the laws of all the countries they can be reached in, simultaneously. That means that one countries corruption, or regressive policy can harm a multinational company from operating legally inside the country.

 

Now, here's what I think. The GDPR did a lot of harm, spamming everyone with cookie and advertisement popup messages about GDPR, even for those outside the EU. This is what's known as "shotgun" policy. It's not a surgical carveout, it's just firing shot and hoping you put enough holes in the target to affect change.

 

We have nobody to blame for this escalation of self-censorship but the very trolls that created the content that youtube gets blamed for spreading hate for in the first place. They cry censorship, but really, what they are mad about is losing the money when the platform they don't pay for doesn't want to suffer the consequences of their bad content.

 

So these pay/ID walls? They are likely, on the surface a way to completely neuter piracy burner accounts (literately someone will make a new account for every episode of a HBO show), by ensuring that everyone has to be logged into to watch hot content, but also a way to combat the amount of hate/terror recuritment that happens in the context of youtube.

 

There is no "think of the children" here. In fact there were some well-known work-arounds for "kids" and people who wanted to keep using the private browsing feature of their browser to view age-restricted video. This might just be youtube closing that door for good by making sure the videos can not even be embedded and viewed on kodi boxes and such.

 

Then again, this could also just be youtube mis-applying some new rule on age-restriction to their own content as a counter-intuitive way to protest EU activities against them.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

(just in this, ^ is hyperbole, not meant to be taken literally)

Excuse me while I go comb the desert

[AndreiArgeanu]

x

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

Whoa there pardner, not everything is a conspiracy to censor things.

 

Here's the thing. Back when the internet was a bright shiney new thing in 1992 for everyone. The adult content industry was the first to ask for credit card verification as a form of age gating. If you age gate the content, that means it's either:

a) Porn

b) Disturbingly Violent

c) Potentially illegal in some jurisdiction (it only takes one)

 

Now, Youtube is not a host for content A, or even B, but C is where I think the problem is. Gay content? illegal in what was it, 150 countries?

 

It's not censorship when a private/public business is complying with the law, and when they are a multi-country entity, that means they are subject to all the laws of all the countries they can be reached in, simultaneously. That means that one countries corruption, or regressive policy can hard a multinational company from operating legally inside the country.

Yeah, I don't think I was clear enough in the OP TBH.

 

I'm not saying age verification is a bad thing, in fact I think it is pretty much necessary these days. My argument is that Google took something that was designed to protect users and implemented it in such as way as it now means they can censor any video they like simply by adding the age restricted flag to it.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Yeah this has been a thing for over a month at this point and I find it really annoying. Also what happens if you're a content creator who made an age restricted piece of content and are not of age. Can you literally not watch your own videos?

Yep, the creator I heard about this from had to verify his age to watch his own video on his own creator dashboard...

[Kilrah]

28 minutes ago, Kisai said:

If you age gate the content, that means it's either:

a) Porn

b) Disturbingly Violent

c) Potentially illegal in some jurisdiction (it only takes one)

 

Now, Youtube is not a host for content A, or even B, but C

Youtube very much has lots of B, that's the type of content I needed to enter my details for. "Dark docs" type of stuff, documentaries about tragic events that get into detail about the "how and why". Or things about the dark/deep web.

[Vishera]

It has been that why for months,

I don't like it,giving personal information just to view videos is not OK.

And i think that many Europeans think the same,I didn't and won't give them that information,never.

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Let me guess, other sites, you know the ones, are still totally accessible no issues or age verification required? 1 + 1 = 3 going on here a bit I think.

Only YouTube do that,They are the only ones to implement it.

[Master Disaster]

17 minutes ago, Vishera said:

It has been that why for months,

I don't like it,giving personal information just to view videos is not OK.

And i think that many Europeans think the same,I didn't and won't give them that information,never.

I'm confuzzled why everyone else has been noticing this and I haven't. I wonder if they might already have my card details from back when I used the play store?

[Kilrah]

Might just not be watching that kind of videos?

[Master Disaster]

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Might just not be watching that kind of videos?

Well recently I watched an amazing documentary on the Boxing Day Tsunami which featured people dying, in fact it featured lots of people dying (Its called Tsunami: Caught On Camera if anyone is interested, starts off pretty slow but after 20 mins you're gripped).

 

I'm going to guess that that video would have been age restricted.

[Murasaki]

I've seen this verifying process with credit cards before and gave it a laugh, didn't watch the video. Doesn't really prompt on anything other than shitpost meme videos anyway.

[Quackers101]

4 hours ago, Akolyte said:

I think overall this is a great idea to prevent minors from watching potentially damaging content, which is incredibly easy today.  

oh god, just like its on suitable content.

Like some of the "suitable" content is a lot worse than age restricted content.

At least youtube have cleaned some of it, but still some nightmares in the "suitable" section.

 

As for the age, could make it harder, but I feel this is just going to turn silly at some point.

Also show the last 3 digits for extra Vbucks when watching adult stuff, yay!

[Zodiark1593]

5 hours ago, kirashi said:

YouTube isn't using this as a silencing tool - they're legally required to comply with AVMSD in certain countries.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/protection-minors-avmsd

Considering there’s really no viable competition to YouTube, I wonder what the viability would be of Google ignoring the applicable law, and perhaps bumping up ad pricing a bit to pay for fines?

 

Lack of alternative means that attempts to block YouTube are likely to be met with hefty backlash. 

[TetraSky]

Well, that's one way to ensure people watching age restricted videos are indeed old enough to watch them, I suppose.

 

It's an extra hassle, but I wouldn't be surprised if this became standard everywhere.

Also, you should be able to blur out any other irrelevant info on your ID. Only keeping the name and birthday visible. It's what I did with Facebook when they asked for an ID to verify my identify. 

[Doobeedoo]

It's a really lame thing from Google especially in example where I made an account way back that obviously would make me 18+ yet it thinks I'm not. As well as aggressive "sing in before etc.." thing they do, like on Android.

There's desktop FreeTube to circumvent this BS though.