You know YouTube, and you probably love YouTube. Beyond a place to share creative videos, it can be a great educational resource.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Although YouTube has fairly strict policies regarding the type of content users can upload, inappropriate videos intended for older audiences still live on the popular website. And, if students are watching mature content, you may be violating the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).
Don’t be alarmed — we’re here to help. In this guide, we’ll fill you in on YouTube restrictions and how CIPA-compliant content filters can help keep students safe and focused while at school.
YouTube can be a great resource for K-12 schools. It offers loads of educational videos — and, best of all, they come at no cost to the district.
From YouTube shorts to feature-length documentaries, it can be a great way for teachers to augment the traditional classroom environment. Not only do they keep children engaged, but the right video could inspire a lifetime of learning.
However, there is a limit. Allowing students to access YouTube without content restriction policies can expose your school district to several risk factors:
Restricted Mode on YouTube is a feature that allows users to filter out potentially mature or inappropriate content from search results, playlists, and recommendations. It’s primarily designed to provide a safer browsing experience by blocking content that may not be suitable for all audiences, such as explicit language, violence, or adult themes.
In a K-12 school setting, Restricted Mode can be a valuable tool for managing access to YouTube content and helping to create a safer online environment for students; however, it does have its limitations:
YouTube’s Restricted Mode may give you the basic capability to block YouTube videos, but most school districts need more than the bare minimum. That begs the question: What do you need in a content filtering solution?
Here are some features you should consider:
After collecting valuable feedback from K-12 technology teams, our product team integrated the community’s most-requested features into our Content Filter platform. With our solution, you gain the power of:
Content Filter empowers you to set up and schedule notifications for different policy violations. You can schedule alerts to send on specific days or during certain hours — or, route them to specific stakeholders and departments.
There are also options to mute notifications for certain websites and domains as needed. That way, your team isn’t getting overwhelmed by constant alerts. You can also set up notifications based on website/URL access, key terms, and regex patterns. Of course, our customer success team is always happy to help you configure policies according to your needs.
Content Filter enables you to block YouTube content by keyword/tags, channels, and specific videos. These controls aren’t just in YouTube itself. You can also block inappropriate videos that students or staff have linked to or embedded in other applications, closing the gaps in your content filtering policy. Plus, the platform allows you to block sidebar videos, live chat, and comment sections with just the click of a button.
Pull reports on policy violations based on different timeframes, specific users or Organizational Units, and policy types (such as blocklist, YouTube, or risk such as self-harm, toxicity, etc.). You can even pull the report on a specific URL or keyword/input if needed.
Available as both .csv files and PDFs, you can download reports on a one-off basis or schedule them at any interval that suits your needs.
As a browser-based platform, Content Filter’s AI-powered and CIPA-compliant capabilities ensure a smooth, frictionless user experience. Whereas other solutions bog down the browser, ours works seamlessly in the background with virtually no disruption to student learning.
Best of all, it integrates directly with your Google Admin console. That means installation takes minutes and you can implement it on certain OUs or across your entire domain with ease.