YouTube announced the expansion of parental controls for pre-teens and teens. The next feature is for those who may have already crossed YouTube Kids limits. YouTube will open a public beta for the supervised accounts feature in the coming months.
Through supervised Google Accounts, parents will be able to choose from three content settings. When you are comfortable enough to allow your children to access a wider range of videos on the site than for young children, you can enable the Explore setting. This will unlock a series of videos that YouTube claims are generally suitable for children as young as nine years old. They include vlogs, video clips, video clips, news and educational content.
The Explore more setting is geared towards teenagers. This will include a larger set of videos, including live streams for the type of content that appears in the Explore setting. The Most of YouTube option is self-explanatory. It blocks age-restricted videos, but otherwise gives older teenagers access to almost everything on the platform.
YouTube is using a combination of machine learning, user feedback and human reviewers to determine which videos are enabled for each setting. He acknowledged that the system will not be perfect and some inappropriate videos will escape, but it will evolve and improve the supervised experience over time.
Along with content settings, parents will be able to see their children’s viewing and search history. They can still activate other restrictions through Google’s Family Link, including time limits. YouTube plans to add more controls, including the option to block certain videos.
In addition to content, the feature will limit teen and teen accounts in other ways. YouTube will not serve personalized ads or certain categories of ads, and in-app purchases will be disabled. Some comments and parenting features will be disabled, although YouTube eventually plans to enable some of them “using an age-appropriate and parental-controlled approach”.
With the help of the National PTA, Parent Zone and Be Internet Awesome, YouTube has created a guide to help parents determine the best way to supervise their children on the platform. It is also teaming up with creators to run a campaign that will lead them to discuss topics such as disinformation, intimidation, harassment and digital well-being.
The service says it will continue to operate on YouTube Kids, which it claims is a better option for younger children than supervised accounts, expanding the resources and tools available to parents. Among them will be the option to allow access to certain videos or channels.