A crack in the wall….? Or papering over the cracks…?
On March 18th 2025 YouTube announced their Youth Digital Well Being initiative. Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube worldwide announced that they had brought together a group of content creators and distributors from ten different countries to support “a unified vision for the development of high-quality, age-appropriate content for young people”.
The announcement continued…
‘The wellbeing of young people on our platform is a top priority at YouTube, and the Youth Digital Wellbeing Initiative builds upon our longstanding efforts. This includes YouTube Kids and supervised experiences. We also continue to collaborate with third-party experts, including our recent work with the American Psychological Association to create a parents’ guide to navigating quality time spent online.”
Note the American Psychological Association is dropped in as though part of the initiative – but is it? Or is the partnership actually a group of companies that are already commercially involved in YouTube – with few parties from outside their fan-base brought in to consult?
On the one hand it’s significant that YouTube is reacting to global disquiet about the way they are serving content – and what they are serving – to children. But on the other it’s disappointing to see that the partners in the project include only two public service broadcasters (in Korea and Brazil). There are so many PS organisations across the world that have huge experience of producing and distributing quality, meaningful, and appropriate content for young people, which adds value to their lives. Many of the partners in the initiative are companies that post streams of repetitive, low-cost content, when younger kids’ addictive viewing on YouTube is of particular concern to parents and potentially the main reason for the initiative in the first place.
There is also no indication that the initiative will deal with the huge distortion in revenue streams which YouTube’s dominance of the children’s market has brought about. No mention of financing professionally produced content up front, or improving revenue share.
This was the CMF reaction released to the press:
The Children’s Media Foundation welcomes YouTube’s recognition of the powerful role it plays in society and in the development of children and teenagers around the world. We’re particularly pleased to see that this comes after the UK government made representations to YouTube and other VSPs to consider how better to surface content that offers positive impacts. We worked closely with DCMS on this approach – the follow up to the Children’s Media Summit this time last year.
However we have reservations about the approach YouTube is taking. Why, for example are no public service content providers anywhere in the world included in the line up of partners. They have decades of experience at dealing with positive, public service content for young people. Once again YouTube is only drawing in commercial approaches to content provision – some of whom have been compliant in the addictive scrolling, low-quality, high-volume content that is one of the issues the younger audience faces on YouTube.
We’d also ask what resources are being put into this project? For example is consideration being given to reshaping YouTube’s revenue share, or even remodelling it to offer up-front funding for content which provides “online good”? The YouTube business model has disrupted and damaged the system of financing for children’s content which existed for years and produced exceptional and invaluable content – factual, entertainment, comedy, drama and animation – and that is now broken. Are YouTube going to help fix it?
CMF plans to write to YouTube UK for clarification, on how the initiative will work, and to suggest a UK based and research-backed study into how to improve the quality of children’s experiences on YouTube.
Which is exactly what the Minister Stephanie Peacock’s team are trying to achieve, and why Secretary of State Lisa Nandy wrote to YouTube asking for change at the end off December ’24.
Gen Z: Trends, Truth and Trust Ofcom’s Latest Media Literacy Research – 7th May 2025