YouTube’s new safety feature for teens gives parents more control

Damien Wilde / Android Authority

YouTube has felt a little less family-friendly in recent years, with everything from inappropriate thumbnails to adult-themed ads making an appearance. Understandably, this has led some parents to ditch YouTube and switch to alternatives like Jellyfin. But for as unsettling as having a kid watching YouTube can be, imagine what it’s like for parents of teen YouTube creators. In what seems to be something of a response to these recent concerns, YouTube is introducing a supervised experience for teens, which builds on its existing safety features for young users.

The streaming service announced its new Family Center hub, explaining that this feature will allow parents and guardians to link their accounts with the accounts of their teens. This way, all parties involved will receive notifications about the teen’s online activity and can encourage safe practices when creating content and interacting with strangers online.

Once that’s all linked up through the hub, parents will receive notifications when a teen starts a livestream or uploads a new video. They can also access the teen’s total number of uploads, as well as their comments and subscriptions.

YouTube is rolling out this solution to families globally, starting this week. The company noted that this is only the first iteration of this sort of experience, which means we’re likely to see more features added in the future. YouTube went on to emphasize in its blog that the company has “invested in a range of features to protect” young users over the years, and this is just the latest of the lot. If you already have access to it, let us know what you think.

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