Let’s face it. Kids love YouTube. Whether they are watching funny videos, learning cool stuff or uploading their own creations, they can stay pretty busy on the popular video channel. But, as we all know, not everything about YouTube is funny games. Upon the creation of our YouTube channel, we felt the responsibility to give you some advise on how to make YouTube a safer place for your kids. So here some basic tips to get you started!
1. Set up a family account By creating a shared family account you can not only keep an eye on the videos your kids watch and upload , but you can also see what informations they share.
2. Turn on Safety Mode YouTube offers a filter called Safety Mode that limits some of the dangerous stuff. Simply scrawl down at the bottom of your YouTube page, and under the Safety Box select On. However, this option is browser specific, so you’ll always have to be logged in from that specific browser in order for it to work.
3. Subscribe to channels A good way to limit all the inappropriate content your kids could encounter on YouTube, is to have them subscribed to their favourite channels. That way they will get notified when a new cool video is uploaded, and hopefully stay on that channel! Whilst we’re here, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, for fun and inspiring educational videos around music and drama: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvZSOP-XVg-xu_vMVwJIF4w
4. Upload Privately If your kids wants to upload a video, it might be a good idea to limit who can view it. When you click Upload select either Private, or Unlisted, instead of Public. Private means only people you choose can view it, whereas unlisted means only people to whom you’ve sent the video link can view it.
5. Disable comments When uploading videos there’s always a chance of someone posting an offensive comment. To avoid that, simply select the Advanced Settings tab on the upload screen. You can either turn off comments entirely, or keep then unpublished until you can approve them.
Always keep an open conversation with your child, and maybe watch some of the content with them. Their involvement with technology as they grow up is almost unavoidable, but we believe that there’s always a way to keep things safe and controlled.
See you out there!
ARTeach Advice on Youtube from commonsense.org