Is YouTube Safe For Kids?

The first question we should ask is, are there parental controls in place? Also, is YouTube doing enough about the proliferation of adult related content on its site, if there is any?

First, YouTube does have racy content, but that doesn't mean it features porn related material. If you consider snippets of swim suit clad models sexually suggestive then you need to disable internet access for your child completely. Nudity is natural, not an obscenity. YouTube is not teaching your children to feel ashamed of their body, and neither is YouTube promoting sexual related content that would suggest they go out and have sex.

If violence is a concern for you then YouTube has allowed questionable content to pass through its filters on several occasions. Some of you readers out there may recall the Daniel Pearl execution many years ago which aired on YouTube. This recording was quickly pulled down in time so that not everybody got to see someone get killed. Since then, YouTube has improved its filtering methods so that these incidences do not occur again.

When there was a proliferation of materials on bomb making, and terror related content on YouTube several years ago, this too was caught early enough and promptly removed for public safety. The idea here is parental controls. YouTube offers a variety of settings that will prevent children from accessing anything that could be harmful to them and public safety.

Children are more internet savvy than their parents. YouTube is just one of many sites that have questionable content. Maybe one way would be is to reduce or physically monitor the content their child is watching, or remove it all together.

Is YouTube safe for kids? Yes, it is. Completely safe? No, it isn't. That would depend on the discipline level of parent to child. Content is information, and information is free public access. Whether that content endangers others is purely a matter of personal opinion. If we can show police officers killing or shooting suspects on television, then who is determining why I get to see that information over anything else. Content providers could just as easily tell parents to turn off their television sets, or change the channel. YouTube could show images of war where American soldiers are killing people overseas. Would that be considered indecent material for me or my child to watch?

If the content provider has to be responsible for what it airs on television then how much is too much? Who establishes the limits on gratuitous violence? Parents should be held accountable for the devices they provide their children to watch and listen to, but do not infringe nor impinge on the freedom of information and public access for the free flow of that information. Ultimately, parents have to decide the content they want their child to watch, and if they are unable to control that content then the parent has to remove the electronic devices their children are using. Parents cannot place the responsibly solely on the backs of the content provider. This is because there are no fail safe methods available that will completely shield children from questionable content. It still ultimately fall on the parents.