Parental controls for under 16s are set to disappear thanks to the government’s age minimum, as YouTube details what’s next for teens.
It’s barely a week away from the great social media disconnect for kids under the age of 16, and for parents of those kids, and one service that might not be seen as social media directly but is still under the crosshairs is detailing what’s next.
If you know someone aged 13 to 16 with a YouTube account, or maybe someone even younger, they’re about to lose access, as the video provider looks set to pull the plug on younger accounts.
From December 10, YouTubers under the age of 16 will lose access to being able to log in, meaning features including likes, playlists, and subscriptions will disappear. If the account is part of a family account with a premium YouTube account, they’ll also lose access to the ad-free version of YouTube, with only the logged-out guest edition being available officially to anyone under the age of 16.
For parents, this also means that parental controls will disappear, as well. Up until December 10, parents could set up content blocks or controls on specific YouTube channels, but with no way to support access for under 16s from December 10, these are set to disappear, too.
It’s a situation that will affect kids and teens who view, and kids and teens who create content, with their videos technically still there in the login, but no longer accessible to anyone, and no longer viewable, either.
Google does note that it won’t be removing any content, and as is the case with Meta’s social media services, all the stuff previously found on the accounts will be waiting for when someone turns 16, able to be switched back on immediately.
But YouTube won’t be doing the age verification thing, and will instead simply be pulling the plug on under-age accounts.
Perhaps the spot of good news for young YouTube viewers is that YouTube Kids won’t be affected by this. Parents who still rely on YouTube Kids can keep using the service, which limits access to videos and provides a kid-focused approach to YouTube in a specific app.
However, YouTube Kids doesn’t typically work for YouTube links, and if a child is using YouTube for education or really anything, those videos will now need to be run in a logged out way, as opposed to a made-for-purpose kind of thing.
