At the end of September, YouTube launched YouTube Health in Spain. This is an initiative designed to combat misinformation in the field of health. This project had already been launched in other countries with very good acceptance.
This new approach prioritizes the content of authorized official sourcessuch as hospitals and medical centers, when users search for health-related information on the platform. In this way, the aim is to ensure that users have access to verified and reliable information, reducing the spread of erroneous or misleading content. Video demonstration of a search with the word “depression”
The richest searches for real
To get a closer look at what YouTube Health entails, we interviewed Cristina Delgadoresponsible for YouTube Health in Spain. “We want to protect YouTube users from misinformation, offering them specific and truthful content from authoritative sources.”
We ask you about which source will be recognized as a “trustworthy source”. Delgado has been very explicit, “YouTube, as a platform, what it is going to do is prioritize as results for a search on health information, those that have been prepared by official channels such as the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, as well as the University Clinic. of Navarra, Quirón Salud, Sanitas, Vithas Hospital or the Hospital Clínic Barcelona.”
It will also affect the shorts. “Video content, including Shorts, that is relevant to the person and comes from an authorized health source, is eligible to appear on health content shelves,” says Delgado.
YouTube takes a step forward to protect youth mental health
I won’t reveal anything to you if we explain that X and TikTok easily project violent content with the aim of getting us hooked on the social network. We see everything from violent attacks masked as “vigilante” to images that project scenes of violence, with shootings, stabbings with a very high frequency.
“In recent years, at YouTube we have implemented policies, resources and initiatives to protect our community from harmful content. This ambitious work has focused on three fundamental pillars: eliminating infringing content, highlighting and underlining content that comes from truthful and reliable sources, hence initiatives such as YouTube Healthand reduce the spread of dubious content.”
On this topic, we asked Cristina about what measures Google implements to protect users whose opinions and critical thinking have not yet developed from these violent images. “With regard to the mental and physical health of the youngest, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect them from content that could cause them any type of harm. This has led us to have an external council of child development experts who advise us on issues related to YouTube and children.”
Suicide in those under 29 years of age
At YOUNG we are very concerned about the mental health of our audience. The reason is that since 2021, voluntary death has not stopped growing in Spain in the age group 14 – 29 years. The headlines say it clearly, suicide continues to be the main cause of external death in Spain. This is confirmed by the Spanish Foundation for the prevention of suicide in 2023. View report.
Well, a few weeks ago a TikTok user commented that she had tested the Asian platform’s algorithm by searching for topics related to depression and suicide. What happened was revealing, TikTok showed you content that encouraged you to continue in that depressed state of mind. This fact has also been reported Save the Children on your website.
We asked the YouTube spokesperson about this topic, “when a person searches for topics related to suicide on YouTube, they directly go to the telephone number provided by the Ministry of Health to contact a specialist.”
Visual health and sleep schedule
Teenage boy looking at his mobile phone in bed
If you can’t stop your viewing time, Cristina reminds us, “there are time control tools like time reminder that we can customize and there is also Family Link that allows families to set time limits. It also allows you to block specific applications or websites, as well as monitor online activity.”
Initiatives for the Wellbeing of Youth
In addition, it has also been announced that the YouTube Teens Wellbeing, an initiative of the platform that seeks to support the well-being of adolescents on the platform. It focuses on providing families with more control and supervision over their children’s experience on YouTube, as well as offering resources and tools to promote their digital well-being and mental health.
“Let us also not forget that legal guardians can activate the version of YouTube Kids. “YouTube Kids offers a more limited experience, aimed specifically at younger viewers, and more recently, we’ve started offering parents the ability to create supervised tween accounts on YouTube.”
