How To Lock Down YouTube

Let's get really specific

It's been a while since I’ve written about YouTube Safety. My post today will focus on how to add extra safety beyond Family Link especially for managing YouTube Shorts. But before we get into that here are some other things…

Photo by Hamed Taha on Unsplash

Worth Flagging

1. Tickets for my 3 part Summer Digital Parenting Webinar Series with Ok To Delay are on sale now. Group Chat is next week. Don’t miss out!

• Session 1: "Group Chat" -Tuesday July 15 8-9PM EST. $25.

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  2. I was on the Scrolling2Death Podcast! Long time readers know I recommend this podcast alot–its a great resource for learning more about the specific dangers of these platforms. I ended up sharing alot about my experience working at Snapchat which I've never really done before. You can listen on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

     

Tech Headlines For Parents

It’s a short week but there is no shortage of stories

1. The Supreme Court has upheld a Texas Law that requires age verification for porn sites, requiring every user, including adults, to first provide proof, typically via a government-issued identification, that they were at least 18 years old. The statute applies to all websites that contain content that is one-third or more "sexually suggestive" in nature and "harmful to children." More here.

2. President Trump has indicated that an American buyer for TikTok is likely. This is the same buying group whose deal stalled this Spring when China’s President would not approve it because of The Tariffs. The prospective buyer group has declined to comment. More here.

3. On July 1, the Senate voted 99-1 to remove the clause in the Budget Bill that would prevent AI regulation for 10 years. More on the Senate vote here.

4. Oregon’s Gov. Kotek has issued an executive order banning smartphones during school hours. Schools must have plans ready by October 31st. More here

5. Snapchat has acquired Saturn, a social calendar app popular among high school and college students. This move will likely integrate Snapchat even more into the lives of teens. Parents should be wary. More here.

6. Pinwheel launched its first smartwatch to compete with Bark, Gabb and Gizmo. I’m a big fan of their phone and I’m looking forward to testing out their watch. Its currently on sale for $129 (normally $159). More info here.

Locking Down YouTube

YouTube has its risks— mostly danger of getting inappropriate content and spending too much time. (For a quick primer on YouTube go here.)

But YouTube Shorts is really dangerous for kids. I find the time issues and the likelihood of exposure to inappropriate content are exacerbated AND I don’t like the mindles scrolling / dopamine cycling of it all. (For more on Shorts go here)

Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate the risk of Shorts.

Family Link for YouTube Safety

Thankfully there are some things parents can do to make YouTube safer. Baseline YouTube Safety comes through a free app called Family Link that allows you to:

• Set downtime/time limits

• Set up a supervised account

• Set age appropriate content restrictions

• Disable autoplay

• Review watch history

• Block channels

(For how to set up Family Link check out this previous post here)

BUT, Family Link does NOT help particularly with YouTube Shorts. In fact, no app explicitly, fully does*.

What’s Missing

The key to locking down Shorts is adding an additional layer of safety such as

1. Manual intervention.

• You can longpress on individual Shorts to suppress new shorts from being offered. This is a hack to be clear, but you can temporarily suppress shorts from appearing in a feed by doing this:

• Just remember Shorts will eventually come back and you can still access shorts from the main navigation.

And/Or

2. An app that provides

• an additional layer of filtering (if you think Family Link isn’t doing enough)

• reporting and alerts (on Family Link you can review history but it won’t send you alerts or reports)

• an allow list (which is different than a block list)

Depending upon what app you use, you may be able to restrict content so much that only a few accounts or topics are allowed or the app will only allow a single youtube video at a time (thereby eliminating the scroll). Just know that these are apps that you have to pay for.

Specific 3rd Party Parental Controls for YouTube Safety

SafeVision is a parental control app that allows parents to select specific YouTube channels that their children can access. This is called creating an Allow List. You can effectively limit your child to only looking at a handful of accounts or videos using SafeVision.

AngelQ is a kid-first, AI-powered "super browser" designed to provide a safer and more enriching internet experience for children aged 5-12. It acts as a buffer and guide, using AI to curate content and create age-appropriate experiences. You can effectively limit your child to only looking at the YouTube video that specifically answers the question your child has asked.

Bright Canary is another great 3rd party app option and is particularly good with Apple Devices.

SafeVision, AngelQ, Bright Canary, Qustodio, Bark, MM Guardian and Net Nannyall provide reporting and additional filtering. It can be very hard to determine how good the filtering is in one v another but they all offer this.

Bark specifically provides alerts for cyberbullying, grooming & other risks.

My Specific Recommendations

If your kids are still pretty young, like lower elementary school, I would recommend Safe Vision and/or AngelQ . I would use these whether your child is in YouTube kids or a supervised YouTube Account.

If your child is older, like in or approaching Middle School, and you want to open their content options broader than a tight allow list, I would look into Bright Canary especially for Apple Devices) and add something like the Brick to help you lock specific apps or go with Bark which will alert you to dangerous content or Qustodio which will send you detailed reports.

If you’ve got mutliple devices, you might also look into your router settings to see what parental controls are available there.

I hope this helps!

Shopping Links & Codes

• SafeVision (Go to your app store)

• AngelQ (code FOUNDERSFREEYEAR to get it free)

• Bright Canary (Go to your app store) (Code: DIGITALMOM for $20 off)

• Brick (Code DIGITALMOM for $10% off)

• Bark

• Qustodio

*Please note when I find a product I believe in, I sign up to be an affiliate, if it's available. Therefore some of these links are affiliate links.

Paid Subscribers read on for deeper dives into these products PLUS I share which I’m adding into the mix for my kids this summer.