• by Colin Kirkland , September 4, 2024

YouTube is making an effort to strengthen teen safety on its video-sharing platform by incorporating more parental oversight. This week, the Google-owned company is rolling out the option for parents to link to their teen's account without altering their individual algorithms.

“This new experience is designed to keep parents informed about their teens’ channel activity on YouTube and help them provide encouragement and advice on responsible content creation,” the company wrote in a blog post

This new functionality, which builds on YouTube's existing supervised experience for pre-teens, will offer parents shared insights and notifications about their teen's active experience on the app.

Through the platform's Family Center, parents are able to see the number of uploads, subscriptions and comments on their teen's channel. Parents and teens will also receive proactive email notifications at key events, the company says, including when teens upload a video to start a livestream.

Parents will be alerted to new uploads across YouTube Shorts, whether or not they are private or unlisted videos, and also be able to see when video privacy settings have been changed by their teen.

YouTube hopes this will provide an opportunity for parents to offer advice on responsible creation, with talking points provided by resources created in partnership with Common Sense Networks, an affiliate of nonprofit organization Common Sense Media.

Notably, linking accounts will not influence the YouTube algorithm determining which content is being suggested to each individual user, maintaining the personalization involved in both the teen's and parent's in-app experience.

YouTube's introduction of new parental controls aligns with competing social platforms' approach to teen safety.

As regulators, watchdogs and government officials become more publicly concerned about use of social media -- especially among younger people, social media giants like Meta, Snapchat and TikTok have implemented supervised app precautions designed for underage users.