In addition, YouTube said it will also begin to remove “overly commercial content” from YouTube Kids, such as videos that only focus on product packaging or directly encourages children to spend money. YouTube Kids has never allowed ads or paid product placements. In addition, the company says it will expand safeguards to prevent “age-sensitive ad categories” from being shown to teens. Google will block ad-targeting based on the age, gender or interests of people under 18. “Of course, removing an image from Search doesn’t remove it from the web, but we believe this change will help give young people more control of their images online,” Mindy Brooks, GM of Google Kids and Families, wrote in a blog post. In another big change, Google in the next few weeks will introduce a new policy that lets anyone under 18 - or their parent or guardian - to request the removal of their images from Google Image results. (Kids under 13 are barred from signing up for a regular YouTube account, although critics have complained that prohibition can be easily circumvented.) “We want to empower parents to be able to choose an autoplay setting that’s right for their family,” Beser wrote.Īnd to promote “digital well-being,” YouTube will turn “take a break” and “bedtime” reminders on by default for users 13-17. The platform will add an autoplay option on YouTube Kids, its curated-content experience for kids 4-12, but that also will be turned off by default. In addition, YouTube also will turn off the video autoplay feature for all users 13-17. At the same time, YouTube will provide prompts to kids informing them of who can see their videos. YouTube users who want to make their content public can change the default upload setting, Beser added.