YouTube’s chief says he limits his kids’ social use - a telling signal for platform priorities

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan joins a growing list of tech leaders who say they restrict their children’s social media and screen time. Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Snap’s Evan Spiegel have made similar points in past interviews. The context is hard to miss: youth safety and mental health are now front-and-center for platforms, parents, and policymakers. Under rules like the EU’s Digital Services Act, platforms must assess and mitigate risks to minors, and we’re seeing a steady move toward “safety by default” for teen accounts.

The key takeaway here: when the people running the platforms treat youth usage cautiously at home, expect product roadmaps and policy enforcement to keep tightening for under-18s. That typically means more conservative defaults, expanded parental controls, stricter data use, and dampened recommendation intensity for teens. The bigger picture is a continued shift from growth-at-all-costs to risk-managed growth-especially in how platforms handle notifications, late-night engagement, and discovery loops for younger users.

What this means for creators and brands: reaching teen audiences will get more constrained, less predictable, and more compliance-heavy. Worth noting for brands, expect increased friction around age gating, limited targeting options for minors, and stronger scrutiny on creative that could be seen as “attention-hacking.” Plan for diversified placements (contextual and search, CTV/long-form, and creator content aligned with well-being and educational value). For creators, lean into transparency, brand-safe formats, and topics that sit comfortably within platform safety rails; build community touchpoints that don’t depend on late-night spikes or aggressive recommendation triggers. The practical move now is to design campaigns that perform with conservative distribution assumptions for teens-and to grow 18+ audiences where measurement, retargeting, and monetization remain more flexible.