The public debate often targets digital restrictions as a primary solution for the safety of young people. Yet research shows that what young people want is guidance and balance — a perspective shared by global rights and safety groups who want to make the digital world better for young people, not outside of them.
A focus on specific, actionable solutions to systemic problems took center stage yesterday at the “Growing Up in the Digital Age” summit in Dublin. Hosted by Dublin’s Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC), the event featured talks with child and teen safety experts, educators and policymakers who are actively working to build the kind of online world that protects, respects and empowers young people online.
Here are six key themes we heard at the summit:
1. Continuous redefinition of baseline protections
Parents understandably expect their children’s online experiences to come with built-in safeguards. Protected search is turned on by default on Google Search. On YouTube, uploads are private by default, and wellness features including “Take a Break” and “Bedtime” reminders are automatically turned on for users under 18.
In addition, we have developed and implemented additional content protections for Gemini Apps users under the age of 18 that cannot be turned off. For example, we designed the experience to avoid language that simulates intimacy or need, or acts as a companion, or that claims to be human. We discussed what we have learned with civil society partners in Dublin this week and look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks.
2. Empowering parents with customizable controls
We are always working to give parents the tools to make decisions for their families. In Dublin, we unveiled improvements we designed to make it easier for parents using Family Link to manage their child’s device settings, view usage overviews and adjust screen time limits on a single, simple page. On YouTube, parents of teens with supervised accounts can set the amount of time their kids spend scrolling Shorts. As we announced earlier this year, they’ll soon see an option to set the timer to zero – an industry-first feature that puts parents firmly in control of the amount of short-format content their kids watch.
3. Support for a new global initiative for adolescent digital well-being
We announced that Google.org and YouTube are collaborating on a first-of-its-kind $20 million USD strategic global initiative to address teen digital wellness. This funding will power a brand new, multilingual, open source resource center and curriculum, supported by a global Ipsos survey of more than 9,500 teenagers to ensure we are meeting the needs of young people, especially in the age of AI. It will feature content ranging from seeking help, to preventing digital stress, to understanding how to interact with AI in healthy ways, and will be brought to life through nonprofits and YouTube creators focused on supporting young people in their daily work.
4. Redefining high-quality, age-appropriate content
We often hear from parents and experts that people need clearly defined standards for age-appropriate content online that ensure children’s and teens’ experiences are informative and uplifting. To steer teens toward YouTube content that’s fun, age-appropriate, and more enriching, we recently introduced new principles and a creator guide developed in collaboration with third-party experts. The principles also support YouTube’s recommendation system, allowing us to curate high-quality videos and increase the frequency with which they are shown to teens. These standards, along with our previously introduced children’s quality principles, are why YouTube is widely recognized as the place to find high-quality family channels – such as BBC Studios, who joined us in Dublin and whose flagship programs Bluey and Doctor Who has been a source of inspiration for children and parents around the world.
5. Development for smarter and safer old-age insurance
Crucial to making all of this work is how to check age online – a debate that is often cast as a false choice between flimsy age inputs and invasive ID scans. Our research supports a risk-based approach, where the level of security matches the potential risk of the content or function. (To use an analogy we heard in Dublin: you wouldn’t expect the credit card company to check whether you’re old enough to buy a pint of Guinness; the pub should do that.) Google also supports the adoption of global and interoperable standards and open source technology to make it safer and easier for services to introduce privacy-protecting age checks where necessary.
6. Appreciative nuance vs. one-size-fits-all for restrictions
It was a continuous refrain in Dublin that blanket bans, while well-intentioned, can push young people into less regulated online environments instead – and reports confirm this is already happening. They also remove the very parental controls and supervised experiences designed to protect children and give parents choice.
We believe in protecting children in the digital world, not from the digital world, by offering age-appropriate experiences and flexible parental controls. By working with parents, experts and especially the young people themselves, we remain steadfast in our belief that it is both possible and necessary to help the next generation learn, grow and thrive online.