
YouTube adding controls to help parents monitor their child’s viewing activity
YouTube has become one of kids’ favourite platforms – perhaps more popular and influential than any other TV channel or network. Children love YouTube because they can see funny videos, learn interesting information, or even publish their own creations.
However, YouTube comes with risks, as the popular platform also hosts inappropriate, harmful and dangerous content. That is why, back in 2015, YouTube developed “YouTube Kids”, a dedicated platform for youngsters that runs separate from the main app and doesn’t facilitate links to all YouTube content. But at some stage, older children will be keen to move on, and that can put parents in a challenging position.
In response to this, YouTube has developed a new process that will enable parents to monitor their child’s YouTube activity via a connected experience.
In a blog post, James Beser, Director of Product Management, Kids and Family, wrote: “This generation of tweens and teens has grown up online, and it’s where they go to learn, laugh, and connect. Every family has a different approach to how they use technology, access the internet and set digital ground rules. Over the years, we’ve made investments to protect families and kids on YouTube, such as launching a dedicated kids app, better protecting their privacy, restricting features and improving age restrictions. Today, we are announcing a new choice for parents who have decided their tweens and teens are ready to explore YouTube with a supervised account”.
“Over the last year, we’ve worked with parents and experts across the globe in areas related to child safety, child development, and digital literacy to develop a solution for parents of tweens and teens. In the coming months, we’ll launch a new experience in beta for parents to allow their children to access YouTube through a supervised Google Account. This supervised experience will come with content settings and limited features. We’ll start with an early beta for families with kids under the age of consent to test and provide feedback, as we continue to expand and improve the experience.”
YouTube will give parents the ability to choose from 3 different content settings on YouTube.
- Explore: For children ready to move on from YouTube Kids and explore content on YouTube, this setting will feature a broad range of videos generally suitable for viewers ages 9+, including vlogs, tutorials, gaming videos, music clips, news, educational content and more.
- Explore More: With content generally suitable for viewers ages 13+, this setting will include an even larger set of videos, and also live streams in the same categories as “Explore.”
- Most of YouTube: This setting will contain almost all videos on YouTube, except for age-restricted content, and it includes sensitive topics that may only be appropriate for older teens.
“This option was designed for parents who think their children are ready to explore the vast universe of YouTube videos” says YouTube, adding that it will use a mix of user input, machine learning and human review to determine which videos are included.
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