One of the things that worries parents most when our children start surfing the Internet is protect them from violent content or inappropriate and of course cyber bullying.
Education and talking with them is key, but it is also important to install parental systems and knowledge of the social networks they will use, in order to adjust the security measures to each social network. Today we are going to talk about YouTube and of the things that we must take into account to protect our children in this channel.
It is a reality: at age 12, three out of four children have a mobile phone, and in some families this event happens even earlier. At that time we stopped having control over what our children do on the Internet, the content they see or who they relate to.
That is why it is important to have previously educated them in a responsible use of ICT and have sown a climate of trust with them that allows us to detect in time, if they arise, cases of cyberbullying or grooming.
YouTube security for young children
Each social network works differently and has particularities in terms of privacy, which we must take care of. But what about YouTube?
Maybe you can give us the feeling that YouTube is a more vulnerable channel, where it is easy to sneak videos with violent and inappropriate content. Not surprisingly, there are many users who give the alarm signal denouncing videos of bad taste or inappropriate for children.
More than a month ago Youtube launched a new policy to protect children from deceptive content creating age restrictions.
Some videos do not violate our policies, but they may not be suitable for all users. In these cases, minors and users who are not logged in may not be able to see the content.
When evaluating whether the content is suitable for all audiences, we consider aspects such as the following:
- Vulgar language
- Violence and disturbing images
- Nudes and sexually suggestive content
- Representation of harmful or dangerous activities
To learn more about what you can do to prevent your video from being restricted based on age, visit our Policy Center.
If you plan to monetize a video, check our policies, since the videos with age restriction are not eligible to monetize them and will not be shown in certain sections of YouTube.
But this security measure soon proved to be insufficient since the collaboration of the users was required and not everyone denounces when they encounter inappropriate content.
Therefore, recently the channel wanted to take another step and announced that next year it will hire more than 10,000 people whose function will be to review and analyze the videos that are inside the platform, in order to help inappropriate content be removed more quickly and efficiently.
YouTube security for older children
Apart from these controls carried out by YouTube, the channel itself advises to implement five preventive measures to protect our children when they browse this channel, or when they decide to open their own account by uploading content (provided they are over 13 years old).
- Activate security mode or, as we have said before, the age restriction. In this way, every time our children connect through their account, YouTube will block videos that contain foul or vulgar language, violent, naked images or suggestive sexual content and representation of dangerous or harmful activities.
To activate the security mode, select the option "YES" - Cyberbullying block. With this option parents can block any user when we consider that he is committing cyberbullying against our child. To do this, we must visit the profile of the user in question, and on the "More information" page activate the options that are located just below the flag.
- Report harassment. In the YouTube Security Center you can report any security problem you have encountered, including cyberbullying.
Likewise, we may also mark any video with inappropriate content that we think may violate the rules of the YouTube community. This is the fastest way to inform the platform of possible inappropriate content.
- Moderate comments. If our child has his own YouTube channel, we must also pay special attention to the comments he receives, reviewing them before they appear published or disabling their publication.
- Monitor your child's behavior on YouTube. If your child already knows how to drive only on YouTube, teach him to create playlists and review them with him to know what kind of videos he sees.
Likewise, Youtube advises periodically review the contents that our children publish on this network, check your playback history, your favorite videos and the channels to which you have subscribed. In this way, if we find something that arouses our suspicion we could intervene as soon as possible to avoid any major evil.
In addition, and whenever we can, it is convenient that parents control the time our children spend on the Internet, limiting the use of the screens and, as we have said at the beginning, educating them in a good use of the new technologies.
Photos iStock, Youtube
In Babies and More Half of eleven-year-old Spanish children have a smartphone, Parental Click, the app that identifies and acts legally against cyberbullying. At age 12, three out of four children have a mobile, do you read or not? read our children's mobile messages ?, Do you know what your children are seeing right now on the net? A shocking (and creepy) campaign, The 15 things you should know about social networks before you let your children use them, One in four cases of bullying is cyberbullying: parents, let's wake up!
