Can a shared teen safety matrix and classifier stack be generalized to cover adjacent high-risk groups with similar autonomy needs (such as young adults with limited guardianship or school-managed accounts) without slipping back into adult-only safety assumptions, and what concrete configuration limits are needed so this generalization does not reintroduce one-size-fits-all blocking for teens?

Answer

Yes, but only if adjacent groups share the same schema while having their own profile types, caps, and action bands that cannot overwrite teen defaults. Concretely, treat teens as the baseline profile, add narrowly-scoped adjacent profiles on the same matrix, and hard-limit what those profiles can change so teen cells don’t drift toward adult-style blocking or total relaxation.

Practical outline:

• Keep one global safety matrix and classifier schema.
• Add a small set of user_profile types on top (e.g., teen, young_adult_guarded, school_managed).
• For each profile, allow only bounded tweaks to per-cell strictness, partial depth, and repetition caps, never to non‑negotiables or schema.
• Enforce that teen profile remains the lower-blocking, higher-autonomy floor for all under-18 users.

Core configuration limits:

• Profiles must reuse the same risk_area × intent × age_band cells and refusal_style_keys already defined for teens.
• Non‑negotiable teen blocks (e.g., self-harm methods, sexual exploitation) are locked identical across all adjacent profiles.
• Adjacent profiles can: • tighten some cells (e.g., more cautious for school accounts) within existing teen action_bands; or • relax only low‑severity cells for young adults (e.g., mild profanity) within underprotection bands defined in the teen matrix.
• Products cannot: • introduce new “adult-only” permissive bands on teen cells, • convert teen allow_or_partial_only cells into fixed_block, • bypass teen refusal templates with harsher, opaque blocks.

To avoid one-size-fits-all blocking:

• Keep teen and adjacent profiles separate in config and logs, so tightening for school accounts does not propagate to regular teens.
• Harmonize refusal style and explanations per cell across profiles, but allow brief profile tags in summaries (e.g., "extra limits here because this is a school account").
• Monitor false positives and underprotection separately for each profile; regressions in adjacent profiles must not be fixed by tightening teen defaults.

This lets teams reuse most teen infrastructure while keeping teens’ safeguards age-appropriate and avoiding a slide back into generic adult or blanket school-style rules.