Google+ lets in teens, beefs up safety

Google’s nascent social effort, Google+, has opened up to teenagers and beefed up its safety features. The move is widely believed to be a broad swipe at the internet giant’s chief rival in the social space — Facebook.

Teenagers are something of a weak spot for the social network with Mark Zuckerberg in 2011 saying that a minimum age limit should be completely removed.

In a blog post, Google’s Vice President of product Bradley Horowitz acknowledges that part of the decision to open up the social network to teenagers was down to their powerful online presence:

“Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet And surprise, surprise: they’re also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it’s clear that teens will increasingly connect online”.

In what may well be a dig at Facebook, Horwitz adds that “online sharing is still second-rate for this age group”.

Part of what makes the social media experience of teens “second-rate”, Horowitz claims, are the potential dangers open to teens on other social networks:

In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today’s most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called “friends”.

According to Horowitz, Google has taken a number of steps to ensure that Google+ features “safety alongside self-expression”. These steps, he claims, take the ideology of circles — which is among the most unique features of Google+ and expands it to suit a social network now open to everyone over the age of 13.

Sharing content
With Google+ you can share privately with your circles, or publicly with the world. Posting something for everyone to see is a big deal, however, so when teens try to share outside their circles, we encourage them to think before they post.

Receiving notifications
Google+ is a great place to connect with close friends, as well as discover others with common interests. We want to help people explore the community safely, however, so we give users control over who can contact them online. By default, only those in teens’ circles can say hello, and blocking someone is always just a click or two away.

Hanging out with friends
Google+ Hangouts bring people together using live multi-person video, and the results range from heartwarming to awe-inspiring. However, we recognize that connecting face-to-face is special and serious, so if a stranger outside a teen’s circles joins the hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin.

Our newly launched Google+ Safety Centre describes these and other changes in more detail, but our approach is straightforward: build awesome features that teens really want, encourage safe behavior through appropriate defaults and in-product help, and make abuse reporting tools easy to find and use.

While Horowitz does not acknowledge it in his post, the decision to open Google+ may, at least part in part, come as the result of online criticism from teenagers themselves.