In a move that could be both applauded and criticized depending on which side of the fence you are, YouTube has introduced a new filter that helps users to block content that they consider to be offensive.
The optional filter helps users to jam content, such as videos with graphic violence, or sexually suggestive clips that don’t exceed the service’s Community Guidelines. The filter, named Safety Mode, also hides all text comments by default.
This move could delight parents who think some of the contents on the popular web site are inappropriate for their children. The filter would enable such parents to control what their kids watch on the web. Those parents can now sleep peacefully in the knowledge that their broods are not getting “corrupted” by watching some sexually explicit scenes or provocative, violent videos.
Various lobbying groups had been urging Google’s YouTube to do something to ensure that teens do not get to see any “dangerous” content, such as a video promoting anorexia, or how to commit suicide.
The browser-specific Safety Mode prevents children from viewing objectionable content such as nudity, pornography, narcotics, graphic violence; collapses all comments on videos automatically (you can choose to view comments, but comments with profanity will be filtered out); and locks Safety Mode for all users, even if a user is logged out. So kids can’t turn off Safety Mode if they try to.
Since it is browser-specific, one has to turn it on for every browser that’s used, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.
It is a totally different matter how the controls will work with millions of videos on YouTube. “It’s a formidable job,” says Scott Rubin, who heads child safety policy for YouTube. “With 20 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, we really count on our community members … to know our community guidelines, those rules of the road, to flag videos they think violate the rules.”
Safety Mode is also account-specific, so if you have different accounts on a computer, you have to turn on Safety Mode for all the accounts you want to filter. That way, you can filter out the accounts of your kids, but not your husband’s or wife’s.
Google’s YouTube has long banned family-unfriendly content, including pornography and videos that show gratuitous violence, animal abuse, underage drinking, and the like. Safety Mode is an additional layer of protection.
The opportunity to set Safety Mode is available through a link near the bottom left-hand corner of YouTube pages.
It’s not yet available to all users — YouTube is in the process of rolling it out over the next few days.