I’ve been having some weird issues over the last few days with not being able to search for things in YouTube when I’m logged in via SmartTube account.
So I decided to try accessing it directly. Well guess what? It looks like YouTube now requires age verification in AU.
Sorry Google… I’m not uploading my passport, drivers licence or govt id to watch your shit. I am however now very incentivized to use Tube archivist and Jellyfin, plus cron job to scrape your shit with gleeful abandon.
EDIT: Rather than bitching about it, I did something and made Smarttube work without a google account. If that floats your boat, have at it. It supports direct import of your saved playlists via Google Takeout ZIP file, subscriptions etc without needing a youtube account.
Also, remember the excellent TubeArchivist exists if you want even more control.
It’s really bad for governments to force this sort of thing. If you really want age verification, this is the wrong way to do it. Teaching people to upload their ID to all sorts of websites enables identity theft, and age verification by a photo of your face is incredibly unreliable and easily faked.
If governments want age verification, they have to provide an online eID service that can do so anonymously.