Join us Invalid date for This Week In Privacy #14, to catch up on the latest Privacy Guides updates and to discuss trending news in the privacy space.
During the livesteam we’ll answer viewer questions. If you have a question for us, please leave a comment in this forum thread or the YouTube chat.
5 PM what time zone?
The time is determined by the timezone on your system. If you click the time it show in will different timezones - it sounds like for you it’s at 5pm.
I’m curious what adverse effects Youtube’s age verification will have on alternative frontends. Peertube, Invidious, etc.
Putting on my tinfoil hat here. I think that’s part of the endgame for youtube (and many large service providers as a whole). They’re starting off with the “protect the kids” thing because it’s easy to sate peoples’ concerns with that argument. The initial wave of verifications will pass and then some months later a new boogeyman will be created that they say more verifications will solve. It’ll come in waves until everyone’s encountered the ID checkpoint and youtube will become inaccessible without it.
I really, really, really so badly hope that isn’t ultimately what’ll happen. But I have a hard time believing that such a behemoth like youtube/google is totally content only carding a fraction of the population and letting the rest of us roam free without handing over the keys to our anonymity
After KOSA passes, it’ll happen. The point is to 1) raise the wall on all the walled gardens online, 2) ensure that it’s YOUR data that’s being collected, 3) manipulate you to such a degree that Google has a say in every single purchase you make in your entire life.
I’m not sure where you got the idea this is Youtube’s endgame. AFAIK age verification (“adulthood estimation” may be more precise?) is not Youtube’s idea, “protect the children” is not Youtube’s narrative but is today’s government boogeyman, and Youtube is being or will be forced by governments to estimate viewers’ age.
At the same time, Youtube has long had its own agenda for watching viewers: surveillance capitalism. Not just age estimation but collecting/estimating all sorts of info.
The following is pure conjecture. The “protect the children” narrative may provide Youtube with a little more cover to do surveillance and AI, but may hurt their profit motive by forcing Youtube to block viewers who are estimated as “child” and discourage people (viewers and channels) affected by blocking.