Safe Video Browsing

Taylor Davies's picture
Taylor Davies
March 7, 2012

Have you ever wondered what your six-year-old might stumble upon while on YouTube? Well, you’re not alone; plenty of parents have raised the question. Here are some internet functions, sites, and tips to help minimize your concerns.

YouTube Safety Mode

YouTube has created a new feature called “Safety Mode”. When enabled, Safety Mode blocks offensive videos and hides comments, by default. It also replaces the offensive words on the comment board with asterisks.

When certain words are entered in the search box (ex: nudity, violence, etc.), videos containing those words will be blocked and prevented from popping up, or filtered, depending on the word. It also filters the related videos that appear on the side of the screen. 

When you log in to YouTube, you can install and lock the safety settings. Scroll to the bottom of the page and turn your Safety Mode on and save the settings. Be sure to do this on every browser (especially less known ones such as Opera and Junior) because the Safety Mode setting is browser specific. 

Bookmark Great Video Websites

There are a lot of great websites that are full of kid-friendly material. Here are a few of them: 

Communication is Key

Sometimes children stumble upon inappropriate material. It’s unfortunate but true in the world we live in today. Many times children feel guilt and blame themselves for these events. If parents are able to talk to their children openly, however, then they can teach their children how to avoid and properly handle these situations. Here are tips to establish better communication with your kids about the internet: 

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Comments

Guest's picture
Submitted by Guest on Thu, 03/08/2012 - 04:59
Safety mode is too easy to disable.
Guest's picture
Submitted by Guest on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 11:16
As a Christian I feel the need to speak up to encourage video posters to use another video hosting site besides YouTube. I’m really tired of all these wonderful Christian organizations posting their videos on YouTube and asking us to access them there in the midst of all the trash that surrounds it. We filter it from our kids. I don't want to be slimed by it personally. Every anti-porn video will have some pro-porn video next to it with filthy words and crap that I don’t want to be exposed to. YouTube filters out Pro-Life videos as harmful but leave soft porn [promoting videos) on their site. They carry adult material including full nudity on their site and simply ask users to sign in as being over 18. Their safety mode does not filter out ¼ of the junk I don’t want myself or my kids to view. When are we going to get an article/broadcast by a noted organization - such as yours, asking everyone to boycott the site and post their videos on another Christian friendly site? There are other Christian based sites that they should be posting them on. godtube, Gloria.tv, and I’m sure a number of others are safer – start your own – there is money to be made. If they want to duplicate it on YouTube to reach the un-churched fine, but they shouldn’t ask us to go into that slim-pit to view their godly video. I encourage you to post any video you are promoting on a godly site and encourage other Christian organizations to do the same.
dennacerise's picture
Submitted by dennacerise on Wed, 10/17/2012 - 20:18
I appreciate you taking a stand on this. I would only like to add that it's not just Christians who try to stay away from crude media. :)
DallinManSmith's picture
Submitted by DallinManSmith on Tue, 03/20/2012 - 23:41
Safety Mode sounds like a great tool. I'm going to use it and show my family.
jlepinski's picture
Submitted by jlepinski on Thu, 10/18/2012 - 15:10
Quietube is another alternative for sharing youtube videos without having any adds or other videos show on the side. I just barely found out about it in the wiki glossary of this site under resources. It sounds like a good service. I don't understand how it works yet but I'm going to look into it.
DanielHoward's picture
Submitted by DanielHoward on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 09:35
This is a great option. However, not all videos with inappropriate content are filtered. The content filter uses tags and community flagging to determine if a video should be filtered out. Therefore, usually inappropriate videos that have few views often are allowed through the filter. The filter works great to filter out most content that will inadvertently be stumbled across, but because it is not perfect, some inappropriate videos may still come up. The best method to ensure that children do not see inappropriate content is to ensure that they are only accessing the Internet in a place that is monitored, or to deny them access to the Internet completely.
Ijesh GIri's picture
Submitted by Ijesh GIri on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 20:29
If the Safety Mode could be stored on the server side and the client didn't have to worry about setting the safety mode for each and every browser a kid could open, it would make a parent's life much easier. The only thing you would need to do for that is store the ip and the settings associated to that ip. Youtube could only allow a user logged into their youtube account save their ip for enabling this setting to avoid storing every ip they can get from the internet. This way even if the kid is able to install another browser on the computer, he/she still won't be able to change the setting.