YouTube is updating its live streaming age restrictions in July, but will still allow for younger teenagers to appear on the website when accompanied by an adult.
According to an updated support page, YouTube is increasing its minimum age requirement to stream on the site to 16 beginning on July 22nd. An archived version of the webpage previously listed 13 as the youngest a user could be without breaking terms of service. Users between the ages of 13 and 15 will still be allowed to appear on the site, but they’ll need to be “visibly accompanied” by an adult at all times. That’s not an entirely new policy, as previously, the same rules applied to users younger than 13.
YouTube does seem to be allowing for a small grace period, however. After July 22nd, live streams featuring children between 13 and 15 years old without an adult will lose access to live chat, both on their stream and on the affected account. That said, it doesn’t sound like unaccompanied users will immediately face harsher punishments. While YouTube does say it plans to remove live streams or temporarily disable the ability to live stream on accounts breaking this policy, the company’s support page says this is happening “in the future,” and not immediately on July 22nd.
Along with this warning, YouTube has included a list of best practices for live streaming with minors, seemingly targeted specifically 16 and 17-year-olds who can continue streaming under this policy. The list includes keeping personal matters private, relying on privacy settings, making sure an adult knows you’re streaming, moderating chat, and keeping it “positive and fun.” Again, this list was not in a previous version of this support page from last month, showing Google is thinking about making the site safer for all minors, not just younger teenagers. YouTube also continues to offer things like Family Center, to give parents more data over what their children are doing on the site.
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