YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok representatives are meeting with lawmakers in the US today. The reason for the meeting in question is consumer protection, product security and data security on social media platforms. Just before this meeting took place, the video content site stated that it had removed 7 million accounts. Meanwhile, YouTube has a total of more than 2 billion active users.
Here’s why YouTube removed these accounts…
YouTube detects child users
Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, will sweat in the US Congress today. Platforms, which will face tough questions from lawmakers, especially about data security and publications on children, have completed their preparations.
In the first nine months of this year, YouTube removed 7 million accounts it identified as belonging to young children and adolescents. In addition, 3 million of these removals took place in the third quarter. This data comes from an online child protection statement that company representatives will present to US attorneys today.
However, YouTube stated in its statement that they were doing the video removal process quickly. The company emphasized that 85 percent of the videos it removed for violating child safety rules in the second quarter did not reach 10 views. Meanwhile, about 75 percent of all videos YouTube removes have been seen by 10 people or less.
According to a 2019 study, content for children is usually in the category of the most watched video on YouTube. As such, there are so many issues that the company needs to pay particular attention to in this type of content. Children’s rate of watching video content is quite high.
According to YouTube’s terms of service, it is necessary to be 13 years or older to open an account. However, there are also apps with limited access like Kids. However, many age-restricted online platforms, including YouTube, have been criticized for not enforcing age restrictions strictly enough.
A year ago, the platform announced that artificial intelligence would automatically age-restrict videos. However, the algorithm only determines whether a video is suitable for people over the age of 18. Apart from that, it should be noted that YouTube has been hit many times before for publishing images containing child abuse.
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