YouTube and industry leaders announce the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative
A message from Neal Mohan, YouTube CEO :
Today, YouTube is pleased to join over a dozen regional content creators and distributors representing ten countries to participate in the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative, supporting a unified vision for the development of high-quality, age-appropriate content for young people.
The wellbeing of young people on our platform is a top priority at YouTube, and the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative builds upon our longstanding efforts. This includes YouTube Kids and supervised experiences. We also continue to collaborate with third-party experts, including our recent work with the American Psychological Association to create a parents’ guide to navigating quality time spent online.
Read on to learn more about the shared goals of the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative and how YouTube is doing its part to create an even more enriching online experience for kids.
— Neal
A shared vision for Youth Digital Wellbeing
The power of online content to educate, entertain, and connect young people is undeniable. To maximize this potential, it's crucial to harness the strength and impact of local companies leading in content development and distribution for kids.
That’s why the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative brings together market leaders from around the globe to support a unified vision for the development of high quality, age-appropriate content that can have a positive impact on young people’s lives.
We are committed to positively shaping the online content experiences of young users, not only by promoting healthy and enriching content for youth, but also actively limiting the reach of low-quality content. This work includes enabling greater access to content that promotes media literacy and digital citizenship, fosters learning in and outside of the classroom, and supports development and wellbeing.
Through responsible product design and content creation tailored to local needs, we will collaboratively advance the following vision to raise industry standards and positively shape the online experiences of youth around the world, across a diverse set of languages:
Empower youth with age appropriate choices & protect against online harms
- Consider the unique developmental needs of kids and teens from the outset of product design and content development to protect and empower a diverse population of youth.
- Set age-appropriate defaults, where applicable, for sexually explicit content and graphic violence, in line with existing standards and reflective of educational, documentary, scientific and artistic context.
- Invest in research-backed resources for families and parents, inclusive of media literacy and digital citizenship.
Promote youth wellbeing & high quality content
- Support the development and accessibility of high-quality, age-appropriate content that is enriching, engaging, and inspiring.
- Where relevant, enable settings and offer controls that support healthy screen time for youth.
- Point youth toward crisis resources when viewing content that may include the discussion of sensitive mental health topics such as suicide and self-harm.
- Implement content safeguards for youth by limiting exposure to low quality, potentially harmful content.
The Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative includes Animaj, Benesse, BouncePatrol, ChuChu TV, CoroCoro Comic, EBS, Japan Football Association, Kedoo, Khan Academy, El Reino Infantil, MSP Estúdios, Miraculous Corp, Moonbug, The Pinkfong Company, The Wiggles, TV Cultura, WildBrain and YouTube.
