Making YouTube a child-safe zone

The Safe Search in YouTube feature prevents children from stumbling across violent, sexual, and other unwelcome content.

How to make your kids' video streaming healthier with Safe Search in Youtube

Children love watching online videos. Nothing wrong with that — and, after all, YouTube has plenty of useful and interesting stuff to offer. However, in addition to harmless edutainment, lots of less-innocent videos are out there.

Curious teenagers often watch anything that pops up, from music videos and documentaries to the drunken adventures of vloggers. Worse, looking at other people’s exploits, they may be tempted to copy them. In our recent survey, 14% of parents said that their children had watched improper content online encouraging them to carry out inappropriate actions.

How YouTube handles unsavory content

In theory, YouTube allows you to protect your kids from certain types of videos, at least partially. For example, the platform has a children’s version, YouTube Kids. However, it is aimed primarily at tiny tots, so it might not satisfy the interests or study requirements of an adolescent. In fact, it may only encourage them to watch videos using your account, or to lie about their age to create their own, which means goodbye, safe environment.

You can also filter content in the main YouTube service, using Restricted Mode. However, Google admits that using it doesn’t guarantee videos not for kids will be blocked.

Kaspersky Safe Kids and Safe Search in YouTube

Kaspersky Safe Kids warns children if they are looking for inappropriate content

Kaspersky Safe Kids warns children if they are looking for inappropriate content

To give your kids the freedom to make the most of YouTube, we added the Safe Search in YouTube feature to Kaspersky Safe Kids. It is available in both the paid and free versions of the product. The feature automatically controls your child’s searches on YouTube in browsers (on Windows, Android, and iOS) or in the Android app.

If a search falls into one of the six prohibited categories (Alcohol, Tobacco, Drugs, Profanity, Racism, Adult content), then instead of videos, the child sees a cover with a warning that the topic is unsafe.

On top of that, the paid version of Kaspersky Safe Kids can send you notifications if your child was looking for something unsuitable on YouTube. In addition, you can view their search history at your convenience, freeing you of the need to stand permanent guard over their shoulder. Of course, whether you use these notifications is completely up to you.

Protecting your kids online

The Internet is an inexhaustible source of knowledge, and an especially useful one when schools are closed. The main thing is to ensure that your child is protected from the dangers that lurk there. Safe Search in YouTube helps turn the video service into a much safer environment, preserving its great educational capabilities. You can read more about the feature on the Kaspersky Safe Kids page.

Kaspersky Safe Kids was recently tested by two leading independent labs. AV-Comparatives gave Kaspersky Safe Kids for Windows its 2020 AV-Comparatives Approved Parental Control Award (out of five tested, only one other solution was similarly honored). Also, Kaspersky Safe Kids for Windows, iOS and Android was recognized as APPROVED Parental Control Software by AV-TEST.

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