The public debate often frames digital restrictions as a primary solution for youth safety. Yet, research shows that what young people want is guidance and balance — a perspective shared by global rights and safety groups who would like to make the digital world better for young people, not off limits to them.
A focus on specific, actionable solutions to systemic issues took center stage yesterday at the “Growing Up in the Digital Age” Summit in Dublin. The event, hosted by Dublin’s Google Safety Engineering Center (GSEC), featured conversations 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. Continuously redefining baseline protections
Parents understandably expect their children’s online experiences to come with built-in safeguards. SafeSearch is on by default on Google Search. On YouTube, uploads are private by default and wellbeing features including “Take a Break” and “Bedtime” reminders are automatically turned on for users under 18.
Plus, we have developed and deployed additional content safeguards for Gemini Apps users under 18 that cannot be turned off. For example, we’ve designed the experience to avoid language that simulates intimacy or needs or acts like a companion, or that claims to be human. We discussed what we’ve learned with civil society partners in Dublin this week, and look forward to sharing more in the weeks ahead.
2. Empowering parents with customizable controls
We’re always working to provide parents with the tools to make decisions for their families. In Dublin, we presented improvements we’ve designed to make it easier for parents using Family Link to manage their child’s device settings, view usage summaries and adjust screen-time limits in 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-form content their kids watch.
3. Supporting a new global initiative for teen digital wellbeing
We announced that Google.org and YouTube are partnering on a first-of-its-kind $20 million USD strategic global initiative to address teen digital wellbeing. This funding will power a brand-new, multilingual, open-source resource center and curriculum, backed by a global Ipsos study
of more than 9,500 teens to ensure we’re 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 who are focused on supporting young people in their daily work.
4. Redefining high-quality, age-appropriate content
We frequently hear from parents and experts that people need clearly defined standards for age-appropriate content online, ensuring that kids’ and teens’ experiences are informative and uplifting. To steer teens toward YouTube content that is fun, age-appropriate and more enriching, we recently introduced new principles and a creator guide that were developed in partnership with third-party experts. The principles also inform YouTube’s recommendation system, allowing us to raise high-quality videos and increase the frequency they are shown to teens. These standards, alongside our previously introduced kids’ 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 have been a source of inspiration for kids and parents around the world.
5. Developing for smarter and safer age assurance
Critical to making all of this work is how to check age online — a debate often pitched as a false choice between weak age gates and invasive ID scans. Our research supports a risk-based approach where the level of assurance matches the potential risk of the content or feature. (To use an analogy we heard in Dublin: you wouldn’t expect the credit card company to check if you’re old enough to buy a pint of Guinness; the pub should do that.) Google is also supporting the adoption of global and interoperable standards and open-sourcing technology to make it safer and easier for services to adopt privacy-preserving age checks where necessary.
6. Acknowledging 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 to less regulated online environments instead — and reports confirm this is already happening. They also strip away the very parental controls and supervised experiences that have been designed to protect kids and give parents choice.
We believe in protecting kids in the digital world, not from the digital world, by providing age-appropriate experiences and flexible parental controls. By working together with parents, experts and especially young people themselves, we remain firm in our belief that it is both possible and necessary to help the next generation learn, grow and thrive online.
