YouTube Adds New Parental Controls for Tweens and Teens

• YouTube is giving parents more control power over the accounts of their children.
• The video platform had to address a big age gap left between the standard adult content and the “Kids” segment.
• There will be three settings of content collections for parents to choose from for their children.

YouTube wishes to provide a more granular parental control system for its users who have children, so today, the video platform announced the introduction of supervised accounts for tweens and teens. This closes a big gap, as the YouTube "Kids app" that features restricting filters offers content for much younger children. So, this new feature will be a part of the “regular” YouTube and will offer parents the ability to link their children’s accounts to theirs and actively manage their experience.

The parents will be given three content settings choices to choose from, depending on their parenting style and their kids' age. These options will be the following:

• Explore: Suitable for viewers above the age of 9, who are moving to YouTube from the “Kids” space. This tier opens access to safe vlogs, tutorials, gaming videos, music clips, news, educational content, and more.
• Explore More: Better suited for children above the age of 13, this tier expands the selection of videos made available to the viewer and also adds some live streams that are considered safe.
• Most of YouTube: This makes all content except for age-restricted clips available to the viewer. It includes sensitive topics too, so it’s appropriate only for older teens who should be ready to explore the vast universe of YouTube.

Of course, YouTube will deploy machine learning and will also consider user feedback to fine-tune its video selections and restriction filters. Mistakes are bound to happen, but over time, the platform hopes that these will be minimized down to negligible levels.

In addition to the above, YouTube will offer parents the ability to view and search in their children’s search history, set screen timers, and block certain content or specific channels. Also, for starters, YouTube won’t offer children the option of in-app purchases and won’t serve personalized ads - or ads in certain categories.

Balancing online safety and the cultivation of independence on children is a challenging activity for parents, and the only thing that we would advise is that you use the new powers given by YouTube with care. Over-restricting your children will only make them seek methods to bypass your obstacles, taking them down a lot more dangerous alleys.

Also, scrutinizing their browsing history and invading their privacy all the time hurts the trust you’d want them to feel from your side. Do it occasionally instead, just to make sure they’re safe.