In honor of Safer Internet Day, YouTube has expanded measures to help keep our youth users safe. This includes updates to in-stream “break” prompts, broader rollout of content restrictions on potentially harmful topics, and a new report on digital wellbeing created in collaboration with youth health experts. Masu.
First, break reminders are YouTube’s in-app alerts that keep users aware of the time they’re spending within the app. YouTube’s break and bedtime reminder tools are now available in all regions and are turned on by default for teens and younger.
According to YouTube, both “break” and “bedtime” reminders will now appear as follows: Full-screen alerts appear for both short and long-form videos, but “Take a Break” has a default trigger setting of every 60 minutes.
Additionally, autoplay is set to off by default for teens and supervised accounts.
YouTube is also expanding content protection measures to more regions to better protect vulnerable users.
“We are working with the Youth and Family Advisory Council to identify categories of content that are OK to watch as a single video, but that repeated viewings may be problematic for some teens. We developed a safety net by identifying physical comparison content that idealizes certain physical characteristics, fitness levels, or weights compared to others, as well as showing non-contact fights or threats. Contains real-world socially aggressive content. We are currently restricting repeated recommendations of videos related to these topics for U.S. teens, and these updates will be added to other videos in 2024. It will soon be available in other countries.”
The YouTube rabbit hole can be particularly problematic, and this measure will help prevent young people from falling into a dangerous spiral of content being repeated in certain categories.
Finally YouTube We have partnered with you to publish a new report. World Health Organization (WHO) and British Medical Journal (BMJ)Which Outlines principles for appropriate mental health content for teens and provides guidance on communication strategies to do so.
This measure builds on the strong protection tools YouTube already has for teen users, giving parents more control over what their children are exposed to within the app. Masu.
Of course, part of the challenge is to keep kids from subverting these systems. Children have grown up in the digital age and are very adept at this system. But if you’re concerned and looking for ways to keep your kids safe, it’s worth considering the various tools YouTube offers here.
Learn more about YouTube’s child safety tools..
