Will teens without accounts be safe on YouTube under social media ban?

“I accidentally joined a gang in GTA 5.”

That is the title of the first clip recommended to me when browsing a version of YouTube supposedly meant to hide videos that are not appropriate for users under 18.

For those not abreast of the world of gaming, GTA, or Grand Theft Auto, is an open-world game where users play as three different criminals. It is rated R18+ in Australia.   

The thumbnail, meant to entice viewers to click on the video, features the content creator surrounded by masked men brandishing knives and guns.

I watch the video for a few moments before clicking on.

After 10 minutes of browsing, my homepage is a mix of gaming videos, vaping videos and plenty of behind-the-scenes tours of the world’s most dangerous prisons.

Overwhelmed by inappropriate choices, I click on a video titled Top 5 STREETBEEFS KOs. Its thumbnail features a young man passed out, presumably as the result of a sickening blow to the head.

The video begins with a title card that reads “5 BRUTAL KNOCKOUTS NOT ALLOWED ON YOUTUBE”.  

It is slightly incongruous. Not only is this video allowed on the platform, but it is also allowed to the extent that YouTube deems this video appropriate for viewers under 18.

I scroll through YouTube for about 45 minutes.

Twenty minutes in, I watch a video titled How to Make a Simple Flamethrower. 

Twenty-five minutes in, another video poses an interesting question: Can You Run A Car On Jack Daniel’s (sic)?

“You get that first hit and you’re like, ‘Ahh, so relaxing, and then you never get that again,'” laments American podcaster Joe Rogan, as he takes a puff of a tobacco vape. This video was recommended to me after half an hour of scrolling.

Come December 10, under-16s will only be able to have an account on YouTube Kids, a significantly stripped-back version of the platform that requires a parent to set it up for them.

Otherwise, they will need to browse YouTube without an account. 

A late addition to the social media ban 

In July, following advice from eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, YouTube was added to the federal government’s social media ban for under-16s.

But unlike popular platforms, such as Instagram or Snapchat, YouTube will still be accessible without an account.

For Lucy, 15, this is concerning.

“There was a time when I didn’t have an account and I was scrolling and there were some things that were, like, not appropriate for me,” she says.

“It just means there’ll be a lot more things that are out of our control from seeing because we can’t like, we can’t dislike, we can’t report or anything like that because we don’t have an account.

“It’s kind of like taking the control out of our hands on what we can and can’t see.

“Obviously, if we see something and we don’t like it, we can just scroll, but it takes us a minute to process what we’re seeing. So we can’t just scroll immediately.” 

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YouTube’s community guidelines act as the framework for what videos are permitted on its site.

If a video violates its laundry list of policies, which cover things like violent or graphic content, hate speech, nudity and sexual content, then it may be taken off the site, and the creator may have their account terminated.

If a video does not violate YouTube’s community guidelines, but is deemed “not appropriate for viewers under 18”, then it may be flagged with an age restriction.

According to its website, videos that may be age restricted include “adults participating in dangerous activities that minors could easily imitate”, videos “focused on violent or gory imagery”, and harmful videos containing “regulated substances and drugs”.

Videos that are age-restricted will not be viewable to users who are under 18 or who are signed out of an account.

The latter is the only way that under-16s will be able to access the platform once the social media ban is in place.

Mark Johnson, a senior lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, said age restrictions were not applied comprehensively.

“I don’t think that reducing the capacity to have accounts is something that is going to have a significant effect on accessing this kind of content,” Dr Johnson said.

“I think that there is a very high chance young people will still be recommended content, which maybe we would think should be or we would expect to be age restricted.

“This might be violent content or things on drugs or things on sexual content.” 

No way for teens to report videos 

If under-16s do encounter videos they find inappropriate, they will not be able to report it themselves.

In YouTube’s step-by-step guide to report a video, short, channel, comment or an ad, the first step listed is to “sign in to YouTube”, a feature that is being stripped from many young Australians in the coming weeks.

According to research from the eSafety commissioner, YouTube is the most used social media platform for young Australians, with almost three-quarters of Aussies aged 13 to 15 saying they use it.

It is also the place where kids experience the most harm, with 40 per cent of 10 to 15-year-olds saying they had been exposed to content including misogyny, violence, dangerous online challenges and content promoting disordered eating.

These stats are part of the reason why, back in July, after a bit of tossing and turning, YouTube was added to the federal government’s social media ban for under-16s.

“Very few of these technologies and platforms were created with children in mind or with safety as a primary goal,” Ms Inman Grant said during a national press club address back in June.

For many students, a ban on accounts is unlikely to deter them from using YouTube.

“When I use YouTube, when I’m watching on the TV, we don’t really use an account for it because it doesn’t really matter,” Maddie, 14, said.

“But then when I’m watching it on my iPad, I have an account, but I don’t think it impacts it too much because I can still find whatever I like.” 

Tyler, 14, does have an account, but he reckons that after December 10 nothing will change.

“I feel like it doesn’t make any difference at all. It’s not going to change anything at all, I don’t think,” he said.

By YouTube’s own admission, teenagers will be less safe if they are using their platform without an account.

“The legislation will not only be extremely difficult to enforce, it also does not fulfil its promise of making kids safer online,” said Rachel Lord, public policy senior manager for Google and YouTube Australia, at a Senate committee hearing in October.

“YouTube has invested heavily in designing age-appropriate products and industry-leading content controls and tools that allow parents to make choices for their families.

“Forcing kids to use YouTube without an account removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them.”

In a statement, a government spokesperson said that these were issues for YouTube to figure out.

They said: “YouTube needs to explain why this content was hosted on their platform.”

In conjunction with the social media ban, the government will also legislate a “digital duty of care”.

According to the government, the legislation will “put the responsibility on services to prevent harm from occurring in the first place”.

If social media sites are found to not be taking reasonable steps to prevent harm, they may face fines of up to $50 million.

Dr Johnson said it was too early to tell whether these measures would lead to significant change.

“We need to keep in mind that all of these sites are owned by multi-billion-dollar people, and you don’t become that wealthy by caring about people, you just don’t.”

“I don’t think any social media platform cares about young people to any significant degree.

“I think we need to always … keep in mind what the profit models, and what the profit motives, of these sites are.

“The profit models of these sites are maxing out how many people see everything and maxing out how many people spend time on that site.

“Any restriction by definition reduces those numbers a little bit and thus reduces how much money that website gets from its viewers and from the time that they spend there.”

YouTube’s secret sauce

YouTube’s algorithm is shrouded in secrecy.

“YouTube keeps track of what you watch, in essence, and it tries to judge what videos you might want to watch based on a number of things,” Dr Johnson said.

These include the titles of videos, the comments, the length, and what videos people watched after watching a specific video.

The algorithm also does not change whether you are logged in or not, but it does take away functionality, such as liking videos or commenting on them.

“So the specific system by which it’s done is not publicly known, but what is clear is that YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t distinguish between the types of content,” Dr Johnson said

“What I mean is that if you’re watching a video-gaming video, let’s say, and lots of people who previously watched that video also watch something from a kind of extreme right influencer, YouTube doesn’t distinguish in the algorithm between safer content and far more concerning content,” he said.

Dr Johnson said it was unlikely the social media ban would change the content dished up by YouTube because it ignores the real issue.

“Those foundational issues come down to the platform owners, who have shown to have very little interest in keeping these sites in general safe and well-moderated places, and that’s the real issue.

“And so something like this social media ban for young people tackles the effects. It doesn’t tackle the cause.”