"YouTube's New Measures for Teen Online Safety"

YouTube, the popular video-sharing platform, has announced new measures to limit the exposure of teenagers to potentially harmful or inappropriate content

Age Verification: YouTube is taking steps to protect teenagers from potentially harmful content by requiring users under 18 to provide their date of birth during account sign-up, applying age-based restrictions on certain videos.

Reduced Inappropriate Recommendations: In a bid to create a safer digital environment for young viewers, YouTube will decrease video recommendations with violent, drug-related, or sexual themes, aiming to offer more appropriate content suggestions.

Support for Mental Health: As concerns about the impact of online platforms on the mental health of adolescents grow, YouTube aims to safeguard young users' well-being. They plan to provide parents and guardians with resources and tools to monitor and control their children's YouTube activity.

Industry-Wide Concern: YouTube's actions are part of a broader industry trend. Major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, have introduced similar features and policies to protect young users' mental health. For instance, Instagram now allows users to hide likes on posts to reduce social pressure, while TikTok collaborates with mental health organizations to support users facing mental health challenges.

Collaborative Efforts Needed: Experts emphasize the need for comprehensive, coordinated efforts involving online platforms, governments, educators, parents, and mental health professionals to address the mental health challenges faced by young people online. They advocate for greater transparency and accountability in platform practices and the involvement of young users in feature design and evaluation.

Here’s the catch: the action has been taken because there is industry-wide concern about the effect of social and online platforms like YouTube and Facebook. However, in reality, the algorithm of YouTube is such that if you are watching something harmful, it will recommend even more harmful content to you. So, if you have an interest in guns, it will show you even more gun videos, to the extent that you will feel that everybody is talking about guns. Similarly, if you have hatred against something and you watch a few videos about it, your suggestions would be filled with such hatred-related content. It will literally block you from seeing the good outside that hatred.

All this is to make sure you stay hooked to the platform and invest more time on it. Do you think they will sacrifice their business by limiting all those algorithms which keep people hooked to the platform?

It’s important to note that the algorithms of these platforms are designed to keep users engaged and on the platform for as long as possible. Therefore, they are optimized to show users content that they are likely to engage with, even if it is harmful or negative. However, it is also important to remember that these algorithms can be adjusted to prioritize positive and informative content over harmful or negative content, but question is, will they do it ?