On Thursday, YouTube announced that it will limit teens’ exposure to videos that promote a certain fitness level or physical appearance. This safeguard was introduced in the U.S. last year and is now being expanded to teens globally.
YouTube has faced criticism for potentially harming teens by exposing them to content that could encourage eating disorders.
YouTube will limit exposure to videos that compare physical features and idealize certain fitness levels, body types, and weight. They will also limit exposure to videos that show “social aggression” in the form of non-contact fights and intimidation.
The platform notes that although this content may not be harmful in a single video, repeated exposure to teens could be problematic. To address this, YouTube will limit repeated recommendations of videos related to these topics.
YouTube needs to introduce these safeguards to protect teens from being repeatedly exposed to harmful content. The platform’s recommendations are based on what users watch and engage with.
Dr. Garth Graham, YouTube’s global head of health, explained that repeated consumption of content featuring idealized standards could lead teens to form negative beliefs about themselves.
YouTube also introduced a new tool that allows parents to link their accounts to their teen’s account to monitor their activity on the platform. The tool builds on YouTube’s current parental controls that allow parents to create supervised accounts for children under the age of 13.
Other popular social apps like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook also offer supervised accounts linked to young users’ parents.
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