What’s your opinion of YouTube?

What’s Your Opinion About YouTube?

YouTube is a really difficult one for parents. It can be a great learning tool, but there’s also a lot of questionable content with several recent scandals. Even with adjustments to its algorithm and the addition of 10,000 human moderators, it’s clear that the sheer volume of videos uploaded to its site–450 videos per minute and 2 billion in the library–makes it impossible for YouTube to police inappropriate videos and comments.  

We recommend:

1. Sharing your concerns with your child and initiating a discussion of what makes content quality content.
2. Encouraging your child to use it mainly for learning and reference
3. Keeping an ear out for what your child is watching (one of the many reasons to keep devices out of bedrooms)
4. Watching a few videos with your child and giving some guidance
5. Setting time limits to minimize exposure to inappropriate content (see Our Complete Guide to iOS 12)
6. Using Mobicip. It’s a web-filtering solution that successfully filters out questionable content and gives parents visibility into what their children are watching.

For more information, review Our Complete Guide to YouTube for parental control settings, how to turn off Autoplay, and tips for monitoring.