Michigan Users May Need ID For YouTube’s New Safety Features

The world‘s largest video streaming platform, YouTube is the next company to start using AI in order to filter out some of the things that people may see on YouTube that might be inappropriate.

Because of this, people who regularly watch videos on YouTube in Michigan may soon have to provide their government ID in order to watch certain content.

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They’re implementing guard rails that will apply age-appropriate experiences and protections, as they put it that will disable personalized advertising turn on digital well-being tools, and add safeguards to recommendations, which include limiting repetitive views of the same kind of content.

More importantly, it may eventually be mandatory that you show your ID by entering your personal information.

The company, which is owned by Google, sent out a blog post detailing some of these safeguards. As Allison Brisco-Smith, a clinician and researcher and member of the youth and family advisory community for YouTube, explained:

A higher frequency of content that idealises unhealthy standards or behaviours can emphasise potentially problematic messages – and those messages can impact how some teens see themselves. Guardrails can help teens maintain healthy patterns as they naturally compare themselves to others and size up how they want to show up in the world.

As they announced these new steps they've been taking, they made it very clear who would be ID'd:

We will only allow users who have been inferred or verified as over 18 to view age-restricted content that may be inappropriate for younger users