SO... YOUTUBE AI AGE VERIFICATION
For anyone that is a little lost about this topic, I'll do a quick summary: This August 13th, Youtube implemented in the US an AI that goes through your search history, to determinate if you're under 18 or not, and the only way to appeal against the AI, is to show a selfie, your ID or similar. Which is BAD, link HERE
This has to do with other stuff, mainly in the UK about political bills, stuff that I don't have the capability to talk about.
First thing clear, DO NOT GIVE ANY OF THIS SENSIBLE INFORMATION TO YOUTUBE, you'll put yourself in risk if any information gets leaked out, similar case that happened recently was the "Tea app" data breach, that was hacked and leaked lots of IDs and drivers license of multiple women.
Second, this gives place to censorship (Reporters can get banned or have their channels linked to their IDs, to give an example), limits places of artistic expression and affects people who watches "childish" videos, besides is completely HYPOCRITAL with the types of ads that youtube sometimes has and the inappropriate videos in youtube kids.
That's why people wants to boycott youtube, starting today, August 13th.
I don't live in the US, so why am I joining? Cause this is REALLY WORRYING as a precedent of how things can turn out later and I don't want more people to go through this ridiculous censorship.
Before giving tips that I found around of how to deal with this, I want to give a warning:
DO NOT harass people who can't join, some people really need stuff like youtube to study and sometimes can't afford other mediums, besides, you'll push away people from the boycott, we need to bring people in, no push them away.
This is not a "won't be in youtube for a day", this most likely can take weeks to months, or even not work out, but if we don't try then we would definitely lose the battle.
If you're learning about this after the 13th, don't feel bad, you can still join anytime
Now that you know about this, what you can do? I searched for tips to the boycott to make a list (Still search about this if possible)
The majority of the tips comes from HERE, credits to him
Cancel Youtube Premium Subscription and if possible, list the AI age verification as the reason.
Refrain to use/watch Youtube (Or use it in your desktop with an ad-blocker and/or VPN)
Support content creators in social media, merchandise, kofi/patreon and similar (Only if you can afford it)
Download and archive stuff for you to watch
Use alternative websites to watch stuff
Use physical media if possible to watch content (Have an old mp3 that I filled with my music, other examples are CDs, DVDs, VHS, videogame consoles, etc)
Spread the word to family and people around you, especially vulnerable people like kids and elderly
I've never written a serious post and English isn't my main language, if I made any grammatical mistakes or misinformed, please call me out.
