Google and YouTube Champion Digital Safety for Young Minds Across the Middle East
A substantial investment in digital literacy and online citizenship training signals a commitment to empowering children across the region to navigate the internet with confidence and responsibility.
The digital landscape has become inseparable from childhood itself. Children now grow up in a world where screens are as ordinary as playgrounds, where curiosity leads them into spaces both wondrous and potentially perilous. Recognising this reality, Google.org has committed US$2.4 million in funding to INJAZ Al-Arab, a partnership designed to reach more than 2.3 million young people across nine countries including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia over the next four years.
At the heart of this initiative lies Abtal Al Internet, Google’s digital literacy programme created specifically for children aged seven to thirteen. Originally launched in Arabic in 2018, the curriculum combines practical skills with an ethos of responsible digital citizenship, teaching young people to distinguish reliable information from misinformation, protect their privacy and interact with compassion online.
The announcement coincides with a hands-on experience at Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, where the Abtal Al Internet Pop-Up Playground opened its doors on 24 and 25 October. Developed in partnership with the UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority and the National Media Authority, the space offers families an intimate glimpse into Google’s approach to digital safety, including the parental control features woven through YouTube Kids, Teen accounts and the standalone YouTube Kids app.
The National Media Authority, through its Chairman Abdulla bin Mohammed bin Butti Al Hamed, emphasised that creating a secure digital environment for youth represents a strategic cornerstone of the UAE’s vision to build a knowledge-based society that protects emerging generations while enabling them to harness technology’s creative and educational potential. Digital literacy, he noted, extends beyond technical mastery to encompassing the values and skills that allow children to engage consciously with the digital world.
Google has woven protections directly into its products for under-18 users: private uploads by default, autoplay disabled, and personalised advertising turned off. These foundational safeguards work alongside parental tools such as Google Family Link and the YouTube Family Centre, creating layers of protection that adapt to each family’s needs.
Research across the region reveals the appetite for educational digital content. A Kantar study found that 95 per cent of viewers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE regard YouTube as offering leading educational material, whilst 92 per cent of Gen Z respondents credited the platform with helping them acquire new skills, whether through science experiments conducted at home or explorations of the region’s rich cultural heritage.
Eng. Saeed Belhoul, Acting Director-General of the TDRA, characterised child digital safety as requiring an integrated approach combining prevention, awareness and empowerment, with responsibility shared among families, institutions and platforms themselves. As technology evolves, protecting children means not restricting their engagement with the digital world, but rather equipping them to explore it with awareness, confidence and discernment.
The philosophy extends to YouTube’s recent introduction of Kid and Teen Accounts, which empower parents with content controls calibrated to their child’s developmental stage. An industry-first Shorts feed timer allows parents to manage viewing time with precision, even setting it to zero minutes daily should they choose. To support ongoing family conversations about screen time and online safety, Google and YouTube created a simple Family Online Safety Agreement that parents and children can adapt together, establishing shared principles around openness, privacy, fact-checking, kindness and trust.
Source: WAM