YouTube has introduced new parental controls specifically designed for teens, enhancing its existing safety measures for younger users. The platform's new "Family Center" allows parents to link their accounts with their teens, giving them insights into their child's activity on YouTube. This includes access to data on video uploads, subscriptions, and comments. The feature also sends proactive email notifications to both parents and teens when certain actions, such as uploads or livestreams, occur.
This update builds on YouTube's previous supervised experiences designed for pre-teens and is part of a broader initiative to promote responsible content creation among teens. To support parents, YouTube has collaborated with Common Sense Networks to develop resources that offer guidance on digital citizenship. Notably, YouTube’s supervised experiences and YouTube Kids together reach over 100 million active viewers monthly.
The Family Center is now live on both Android and iOS devices, with global rollout ongoing. Despite these new controls, YouTube has clarified that linking accounts will not affect the personalized content recommendations that teens receive.