Hey Creatorverse readers,
It’s no secret that YouTube, a major platform for creators, has a kids problem. Even though viewers aged two to 11 years old make up about 17% of YouTube’s audience, the platform has been called “impossible to monitor” by some parents, and for good reason. YouTube estimates that a staggering 20 million videos are uploaded to the platform every day.
But starting Wednesday, YouTube has taken its children’s safety precautions a step further, implementing an AI age verification tool in the U.S.
The new tool uses YouTube activity and how long the account has been active to determine the potential age of the user. If they’re deemed under 18 years old, YouTube will notify the user and put in safeguards to make the account more age appropriate. That means implementing non-personalized ads, limiting posting and implementing the platform’s digital well-being tools. Users who are incorrectly identified as under 18 will have to prove their age using a government ID, selfie or credit card.
YouTube is far from the first company to use AI to ramp up its age restrictions in the wake of the Online Safety Act being passed in the U.K., a law that requires websites and apps to verify users are over 18. Roblox has them for its unfiltered chat option. Both Bluesky and Discord are using facial recognition technology to confirm their users’ ages (That’s led to some tricksters using video game characters, like Norman Reedus in “Death Stranding 2,” to bypass the system).
For all their good intentions, these more invasive measures have left a sour taste for some. Albert Fox Cahn, an anti-surveillance advocate and lawyer, called facial surveillance and ID checks a “flawed” idea in The Atlantic.
“A website with sensitive content arguably becomes less safe to use, because the stakes of a breach become much higher,” Cahn wrote.
Yet, specifically when it comes to YouTube, it’s difficult to think of better ways to protect kids from this virtual wild west. The company does offer the safeguarded YouTube Kids, one of the company’s youth products that roughly 100 million users interact with each month. But before this new age verification policy, there was very little preventing a kid from potentially seeing something they shouldn’t.
“Our first responsibility, always, is to create a safe experience for our youngest, most vulnerable users,” Katie Kurtz, global head of youth and learning for YouTube, told me last year. Here’s hoping this new measure works.
Now onto what you may have missed the rest of the week.
Kayla Cobb
Senior Reporter
kayla.cobb@thewrap.com
P.S. You don’t want to miss a livestream roundtable I’ll be moderating, “Creator Power: The Business of Influence presented by Adobe,” at noon PT on Aug. 26. Sign up today here.
What’s New
Alan Chikin Chow launches a new scripted show with Laneige
“Beauty and the Beat” is more than just a new shortform series. This partnership between Chow and the Korean beauty company Laneige marks a step towards the future as brands are trying to figure out how to monetize scripted content. Once the industry figures that out, Hollywood really needs to start watching its back.
Travel videos just got easier thanks to TikTok Go
Creators can now get hotel vouchers through the platform. It’s all part of TikTok Go, a new creator monetization program that lets local merchants, such as hotel and restaurant owners, either pay creators a commission or offer them vouchers for promoting their business. Creators have to be over 18 years old and have at least 1,000 followers to qualify. But it’s a big step in letting creators monetize services rather than just relying on products. For now, only hotel bookings are available in the U.S., but the program in Indonesia and Japan includes vouchers for restaurants and local experiences.
Tubi taps former TikTok head Kudzi Chikumbu as its VP of Creator Partnerships
Do you know who in Hollywood really gets the creator space? Tubi. And the Fox-owned ad-supported streamer is betting even more on this industry by hiring TikTok’s former global head of creator marketing, Kudzi Chikumbu. The company also announced its adding several titles from MrBeast, CelinaSpookyBoo and more to its Tubi for Creators program. It’s a win-win. Tubi gets new desirable content for its 100 million monthly users, over half of which are millennials or Gen Z, and in turn these creators get to stand out from the YouTube pack.
By the Numbers
StubHub says creators, podcasters and authors sold nearly 500% more tickets this year
This is compared to sales in 2024 and continues the trend of creators turning their digital followings into real-life events. The most in-demand creator tours were a slew of podcasting favorites — Alex Cooper’s “Unwell” tour, the Crime Junkie’s podcast tour and Mel Robbins’ “Let Them” tour. Additionally, creator tour prices were about 40% less than traditional live events. That lower cost and the fact that creator tours are more likely to travel to areas often ignored by bigger artists are major reasons for the uptick.
YouTube has removed over 179 million videos from its platform in the past six years
That’s not all that a new report from Video Advertising Bureau found. YouTube also removed 139 million channels and 25 billion comments from its platform, all of which violate the company’s community guidelines. YouTube noted that some of the top reasons for removal are child safety issues, harassment and hateful or dangerous speech. Really puts into perspective just how massive YouTube is.
2025 may set a new record for mergers and acquisitions in the creator economy
In the first half of the year, 52 M&A deals were completed, a 73% increase compared to the first half of 2024 according to the advisory firm Quartermast Advisors. Publicis’ $150 million acquisition of Captiv8 was one of those big deals. As brutal as this landscape may seem, it’s another sign that the creator economy is maturing to become a media powerhouse rather than just a big number. But speaking of big numbers, an eMarketer report found that if all U.S. creators moved their brand deals to a single imaginary app, that app would be worth $10.5 billion and would be the fourth-largest social platform in the country based on brand investments.
Who to Watch
Areq
Little is known about the TikTok creator Areq other than they are a hell of a great editor. So far the creator’s “Creed” edit has amassed over 114 million views and nearly 15 million likes, and it’s easy to see why. It slaps.
Areq’s other edits are equally as impressive as the “Creed” one, and the creator has even sparked a TikTok trend of other creators editing shows and movies to LoVibe’s remix of Kendrick Lamar’s “untitled 05” (The “Snowfall” edit from farquaad.films is also remarkable). I’m not in the business of hiring editors, but if I was I would be sliding into some DMs, pronto.
Bonus Content
- A Right-Wing Influencer Tried to Be a Tradwife. It Almost Broke Her (via The New York Times)
- Why Creators Are Building Hollywood-Style Studios to Make TV-Ready Content (via TheWrap)
- Nobody Wins on “Surrounded” (via The New Yorker)
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This report provides a weekly deep dive into the creator economy. It highlights key trends, political and technological developments, data points and industry leaders all with the goal of making you smarter about this constantly evolving space.
