The Youtube Problem

[Shaktool]

you already know where im going with this.

For people who havent heard the news: Basically ooh goverment make act to protect children from pedos and porn and they removed 18+ games from steam (which might be understandable, but still outrageous for people who play them everytime) And now they're demanding Youtube to use AI to search for people under 18 to be blocked and you need ID to continue, which wtf...

how do you react to this?

[PizzaNoob]

WHAT??!! IS STEAM/YOUTUBE CRAZY??!! I get it's being done to protect younger people, but why, just WHY???

[kr4k1n]

It sucks when stuff gets taken off Steam or when platforms start ID-checking, but imo this isn’t some new world order thing when it’s been building up for years. YouTube, Steam, all of them have been slowly tightening stuff to stay on the good side of lawsuits and international laws (especially around minors and explicit content, since those under the minimum age still create accounts and pretend to be of age to bypass rules.) It’s not ideal, but it’s not them necessarily going “evil” either. This situation is more like digital growing pains where the internet’s finally being treated like the real world, where IDs and age restrictions are expected.

That said, the execution is always messy. If they’re using AI to autoblock people and it ends up punishing innocent users or throwing up constant roadblocks, then yeah, I’d be just as pissed. But I’d rather critique how they’re doing it than act like the entire idea of age gates is evil.

[Locus]

It's whatever. Good intentions probably. Difficult to actually execute. They are going through with it anyway so I'd assume they'll figure out ways to balance things out. Mostly just concerned about data leaks if anything. Age gates are necessary in some shape or form but the idea of giving up very sensitive information is difficult for me not to have OCD thoughts about. It is what it is though, nothing anyone can really do about it.

[ShadowStarX]

It sucks when stuff gets taken off Steam or when platforms start ID-checking, but imo this isn’t some new world order thing when it’s been building up for years. YouTube, Steam, all of them have been slowly tightening stuff to stay on the good side of lawsuits and international laws (especially around minors and explicit content, since those under the minimum age still create accounts and pretend to be of age to bypass rules.) It’s not ideal, but it’s not them necessarily going “evil” either. This situation is more like digital growing pains where the internet’s finally being treated like the real world, where IDs and age restrictions are expected.

That said, the execution is always messy. If they’re using AI to autoblock people and it ends up punishing innocent users or throwing up constant roadblocks, then yeah, I’d be just as pissed. But I’d rather critique how they’re doing it than act like the entire idea of age gates is evil.

The primary problem is that bigoted right-wingers and a notable portion of wishy-washy centrists want to use this kind of legislation to basically monitor the whole population. At least in the case of the USA and UK, but trust me most of the EU would also love to follow suit.
Make no mistake, they will wish to expand what falls under the 18+ category too. Right-wingers for instance wanna consider ANYTHING queer as NSFW, thus their goal is to outlaw the LGBTQ+ community from existence, but if they do not succeed in that, they will still aim to make your lives way more difficult. Conservatives' and especially fascists' mixture of prudence and authoritarian thinking knows no bounds.

I'm not necessarily against the idea of more censorship, but I do not trust the current world leaders to handle this in good faith.
A way simpler solution would just be to pass laws that parents are mandated to cooperate with the ISPs on blocking certain sites either on the whole router, or at least on select devices and/or anything that has a wireless connection.

Never trust the government and especially never trust corporations!

[kr4k1n]

It sucks when stuff gets taken off Steam or when platforms start ID-checking, but imo this isn’t some new world order thing when it’s been building up for years. YouTube, Steam, all of them have been slowly tightening stuff to stay on the good side of lawsuits and international laws (especially around minors and explicit content, since those under the minimum age still create accounts and pretend to be of age to bypass rules.) It’s not ideal, but it’s not them necessarily going “evil” either. This situation is more like digital growing pains where the internet’s finally being treated like the real world, where IDs and age restrictions are expected.

That said, the execution is always messy. If they’re using AI to autoblock people and it ends up punishing innocent users or throwing up constant roadblocks, then yeah, I’d be just as pissed. But I’d rather critique how they’re doing it than act like the entire idea of age gates is evil.

The primary problem is that bigoted right-wingers and a notable portion of wishy-washy centrists want to use this kind of legislation to basically monitor the whole population. At least in the case of the USA and UK, but trust me most of the EU would also love to follow suit.
Make no mistake, they will wish to expand what falls under the 18+ category too. Right-wingers for instance wanna consider ANYTHING queer as NSFW, thus their goal is to outlaw the LGBTQ+ community from existence, but if they do not succeed in that, they will still aim to make your lives way more difficult. Conservatives' and especially fascists' mixture of prudence and authoritarian thinking knows no bounds.

I'm not necessarily against the idea of more censorship, but I do not trust the current world leaders to handle this in good faith.
A way simpler solution would just be to pass laws that parents are mandated to cooperate with the ISPs on blocking certain sites either on the whole router, or at least on select devices and/or anything that has a wireless connection.

Never trust the government and especially never trust corporations!

I think you make a good point. I’m not losing sleep over age gating itself, that’s nothing new. But I do get concerned about where this stuff could go if the wrong people are in charge of it. If they’re using AI or the algorithm or whatnot to auto flag “18+” content, then yeah, it’s not hard to imagine them sliding all sorts of stuff into that category that’s not even remotely related to porn or gore. LGBT topics, politics, art, etc.. Once the system exists, it’s just a matter of who decides the rules, and history hasn’t exactly shown those people to be trustworthy. One won’t hold the other accountable, and both will bend the rules if it benefits them.

I think the real fight is making sure these tools are transparent, appealable, and limited in scope, because otherwise, this isn’t “protecting kids”. If this was actually about safety, we’d see the same people pushing for it go just as hard on child poverty, underfunded schools, child labor, or corporations marketing garbage directly to kids. But no, it’s always about controlling what they can see online. The second you put a transgender character in a game or a video, suddenly they consider it “dangerous for children.” Conservatives want to sanitize culture to fit their worldview, and they’re completely fine dragging everyone else down with it.

[Shaktool]

then theres a absolute army of clippies everywhere on youtube and now they're """boycotting""" Youtube for this. Honestly, I do understand why! Youre esentially giving their drivers licsence (Which gives a lot of personal info) and a data breach could happen at any minute.

What happened to privacy as a whole in the internet? it looks like it is kept to a minimum...